"Get me the paperwork quickly!" Mr Hammond said as he jogged into the reception area guiding me to the leather chairs and gesturing for me to sit down. "Mrs Walker, the man who turned up had the parent consent form that we sent home with the children last week. He brought it in this morning and said that he would need to take the children out this afternoon as they had a dentist appointment."
As he said the words 'dentist appointment' I knew exactly who had the children and my worst fears had now been confirmed.
The school receptionist handed him the form, "Look, it states here that he is the second person to contact in an emergency and you have signed the form. He even gave the correct password when he collected the children this afternoon."
I tried to speak but the words just didn't come out. What was I going to do? I stood and paced the reception area. There was no point sitting feeling sorry for myself, I needed to act fast and get the children back.
"I have never seen that fucking form before in my life. My abusive husband has taken my children and I need to get them back before he hurts them. Have you contacted the fucking police?" I wasn't one to swear but the staff weren't dealing with this situation well. They wanted to show me things to prove that they weren't responsible for the disappearance of my children but that wasn't helping. My babies were missing and I needed to find them.
"Yes, they're on their way."
I nodded and pulled my mobile from my pocket, I quickly dialled Spike but he still didn't answer which was strange. Where the fuck was he?
"Spike, Liam has the kids. I need you to help me find them, please give me a call back when you get this message." I said frantically into the phone.
Think Louise, think! I continued to pace the reception area under the watchful eye of the Headteacher, I needed to make contact with the club but had limited access to numbers. Maggie!
"Hi Louise, how you doing?" Maggie asked.
"Maggie I need to get hold of Spike but he's not answering his phone. Do you know where he is?"
There was a slight pause, "Erm...things are a little complicated. What's up Louise?"
Complicated? A hard lump formed in my throat and for the first time in a month I felt like an outsider. I thought that I had been accepted but those five simple words confirmed I couldn't be much further from the truth.
"Oh don't worry Maggie, everything's fine." I said in a small voice as the tears pricked my eyes. I hung up and held the phone firmly in my hand as I thought of what to do next.
"Excuse me miss, do you still need the taxi?" The middle aged portly man asked as he removed his hat to scratch his balding head.
I shook my head, "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, no I don't need it anymore." I reached into my pocket and brought out a couple of notes, "Hopefully that will cover the fare." He nodded and turned to leave the reception area. "Oh hold up!" I said trying to get his attention. "My kids have been taken by my husband, we're just waiting for the police to arrive. Do you think you could put his registration number out over your radio to ask the drivers to look out for his car?" I asked breathlessly trying to get all of the words out as quickly as possible.
"Why can't your husband see the kids?" he asked looking at me questioningly.
I drew my shoulders back to muster the courage to speak the unspeakable, "We left him because he was violent towards us!"
The taxi driver nodded his head and stepped forward to place the money I had given him back into the palm of my hand. "Give me his registration and your mobile number, and leave it with me."
"Thank you." I sobbed as he squeezed my hand.
The flashing lights of two police cars caught my attention as they pulled up outside the school.
Bob, the taxi driver said his goodbyes and promised that he would let all of the local taxi drivers know which I was grateful for.
"Mrs Walker," the officer said greeting me with a nod. "Please take a seat, I need you to tell me exactly what happened from the very beginning."
Spike
"It's your fucking lucky day." O'Neil said as he and another officer removed the handcuffs from the six of us still sitting on the benches in the yard.
I instantly rubbed my wrists trying to get the circulation pumping where they'd secured them tightly.
We watched as the group of officers rushed quickly to their cars, they obviously had a real job to attend to rather than wasting their time ransacking this place looking for something that clearly wasn't here.
"What's so urgent?" Duke asked as he stood rubbing his wrists.
The young officer looked behind him to make sure none of his superiors could hear as he probably shouldn't be telling us. "A couple of kids have gone missing," he said before jogging towards the patrol car that was waiting for him.
I took my phone from the bench in front of us where the officers had lined them up in a row and looked at the screen to see that I had eight missed calls from Angel, Maggie and an unknown number. Eight calls, what was all that about? I started to listen to the messages.
The first message started off quiet and I could hear muffled voices in the background.
"I think it's an answer phone Devon. What should I do?"
The message cut off and I eagerly pressed play to listen to the second. Why the fuck was Tommy calling me? What the hell was going on?
"Spike, dad took us from school. I've got his phone. We're really frightened, I don't know what to do? Please tell me what to do!"
He hung up again but Tommy's sobs had made my eyes sting. I sat on the bench in the yard fucking helpless not knowing where he was.
I noticed Duke pull his phone away from his ear abruptly, "He's got them Spike!" Duke said in a frantic tone. I nodded making it clear that I understood and quickly pressed the phone again to listen to the next message.
"Hi Spike, it's Louise here. I've got a flat tyre on the Jeep so I'm going to call a taxi to take me to the school. Nothing to worry about I just wanted to keep you informed."
Shit! Was that done on purpose or a perfectly timed accident?
"Spike, Liam has the kids. I need you to help me find them, please give me a call back when you get this message."
"Call Angel, tell her I'm aware of the situation and get an update. I need to listen to the rest of these messages." I shouted at Diesel and he was already on it by the time I was listening to the fifth message.
"Spike, it's Maggie. Louise is trying to get hold of you. Can you give her a call when you get this message?"
I pressed play to hear the sixth message.
"Spike please pick up the phone." I could hear Devon sobbing in the background. "We need you to help us, you promised you would help us!
I was a fucking mess, I had tears streaming down my face. I had promised to keep them safe and I had fucking let them down, like I had Helen. I ignored the glances from the guys and listened to the next message.
"We've found a good hiding place on the roof." Tommy whispered into the phone. "I can hear dads voice getting closer. He's looking for us and he's angry. Please come and find us at the hotel."
"There at a hotel." I shouted before I listened to the last message.
As I pressed play I heard Devon's piercing screams of terror and felt helpless as there was nothing I could do. I hung my head as I breathed deeply trying to compose the array of mixed emotions inside me, if he had hurt either of them I would fucking kill him. Lifting my head I looked at the guys, "Tool up, we need to go find this son of a bitch." I jogged into the garage and climbed down into the car pit opening the hiding place where we kept our weapons and passed them up to Diesel. "Did you get hold of Angel?"
"Yeah she's with the police at the moment giving them a full statement."
I wasn't pleased that she was talking to the police but if they could help find the kids then I was willing to let it slide.
There weren't many hotels in the local vicinity but they weren't necessarily close as he had collected them four hours ago. The only hunch I had at this time, was that Tom
my had made first contact at 2.40pm so I presumed they must have been in a hotel then, which gave us an hour and half window from the time Liam had taken them from school. That was a start and we could use that as a basis for our search. My phone bleeped indicating that I had a text.
I'm still with the police so can't talk long. The taxi driver has just text me saying that Liam's car is in the Green Man car park. Do I tell the police?
No, we'll deal with it! How you doing Angel?
Not good. Please find them Spike and protect my babies.
Our babies! Trust me I'm on it. I'll speak to you soon.
We mounted our motorcycles and travelled the short distance to the housing estate behind the Green Man hotel. We couldn't just rock up, we had to plan this strategically in order for this to work and get the kids out safely. Never in my adult life had I ever been so agitated and Diesel could clearly see the anguish on my face.
"We'll get them out safely stop fretting!"
"And what if we don't Diesel, I don't think my heart could handle any more loss."
I was referring to Helen. My childhood had been turned upside down at witnessing her death, it had taken me almost twenty years to learn coping strategies to deal with it but if I lost one of the twins... my mind wandered considering all sorts of things and places that I didn't want to visit.
"Recon and Lyric are taking the front, Diesel and Spike the back and Woods and I will take the fire exit on the left. Our priority is to get the kids out, do you all understand?"
My mind was still wondering, "Do you understand Spike? I don't want your head all over the place and getting your priorities wrong." Duke stared at me waiting for a response.
"Fuck off!" I shouted as I jogged through the housing estate in the direction of the hotel ignoring Duke's shouts for me to come back. As I was nearing the building I heard someone jogging behind me and glanced around to see that it was Diesel.
"What's the plan?" Diesel asked breathlessly as we stopped at the back entrance of the building.
"We just need to get in and on that fucking roof before it's too late."
"Hold this!" I pushed the pouch into Diesel's hand as I used the tools to jimmy the lock. It was taking longer than expected but the adrenaline running through my body was making my hands shake. "Gotcha!" The door clicked and I was able to pull it open so that we could use the stairs to make our way to the roof.
"I'm fucking sick of people not doing as they're told including you two!"
As we neared the door that led onto the roof, we heard a male voice bellowing and presumed it was Liam. My temper flared but I knew that I needed to keep it under control if I was going to face him. The kids were with him and although I wanted to fucking kill him, I was better than that.
I pushed the heavy metal door slowly, making sure that it didn't make any harsh noises to draw attention to our arrival and peered through the small gap that I'd created. I pressed my face further against the cool metal making sure that I could also see the children to analyse the situation. Liam stood waving a knife around as he shouted at the children, rage clearly evident as he spat every word directly at them. He animatedly moved his arm around wielding the serrated knife as the children recoiled in fear.
I was thankfully out of the children's eye line so that when I opened the door they couldn't see me and alert Liam of my presence.
"Wait here!" I whispered to Diesel.
Diesel frowned, "Fuck that, I'm coming with you."
I quietly opened the door further and crept through the space, "Sorry man!" I swirled round quickly looking Diesel straight in the eye before I shut the door and fastened it with the bolt.
I knew he wouldn't shout or even bang on the door through fear of putting the children in jeopardy but I saw the anguish on his face. I needed to do this though, I needed to deal with Liam on my own.
"Liam, put the knife down and step away from the kids." I cautiously walked towards him with my hands held out wide indicating that I wasn't armed. I had my blade and gun safely concealed within the waist band of my jeans but he didn't need to know that I was tooled up. As I slowly approached him, I looked around assessing my surroundings and glanced at the children quickly to see that there were no obvious signs that they had come to any physical harm.
"Here he is kids, your knight in shining leather!" He spat swaying from side to side clearly intoxicated. Liam stepped forward with an evil glint in his eye as he thrashed the blade closer to where the children were standing.
"Liam, it doesn't have to be like this, put your blade down and we can talk about it. What do you want?" I was trying to bide my time and keep him talking while I closed the distance between us. Hopefully he wouldn't notice until I was close enough to disarm him. Although I portrayed a calm demeanour for the sake of the children, I was in fact screwing on the inside. I wanted to fucking kill this piece of shit in front of me for putting Angel and the twins through hell.
Liam turned his head to glare in my direction with a crazed expression, "I want you to stop fucking my wife!" he shouted aggressively.
Well I wasn't expecting that! His statement took me by surprise but I needed to keep the situation calm in order to get the children out of the way.
"Let the kids go and we can talk about this, it's not what you think!"
He snarled, "You think I'm fucking stupid, I've been watching her for a week." He grabbed for Devon but Tommy quickly pushed her so that she fell to the ground putting himself in the path of danger instead. "You stupid fuck!" He bellowed at Tommy as he grabbed him by the scruff of his neck yanking him closer.
While he was distracted I had made ground on him, in a split second I pulled back my arm clenching my fist and threw it forward with a force that knocked Liam off balance, the dull thud and a gasp of breath confirmed that I'd winded him.
"Get your sister and go!" I shouted breathlessly at Tommy before I turned back to face Liam.
He was now doubled over, the punch had caught him off guard and he swore under his breath but I wasn't giving up that easily. Now that the kids were out of the way I could show him how real men fought. I swung another punch towards his head which he instinctively blocked catching me with the blade on my arm. It stung like a bitch but the adrenalin pumped within my system encouraging me to finish the job.
I swung another punch, this time connecting with his neck and watched as Liam staggered backwards violently coughing. I stalked forward sweeping my foot behind him to knock him off balance and used my strength to push him towards the ground. He hit the deck with a satisfying grunt and I quickly jumped on top of him placing my left knee on his upper arm to stop him brandishing the blade again. I grabbed him forcefully around his neck and punched him repeatedly in the face.
That's for Devon, that's for Tommy, that's for Angel, that's for Helen... My blows continued to rain down on him as he coughed and spluttered as blood filled his mouth. I ground my knee into his arm further and he let go of the knife.
"Arrrrrgh," he screamed like the pussy he was, I bet he didn't stop when Angel screamed.
Grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt, I dragged him towards the edge of the building. He scrambled around, his legs tried to gain momentum so that he could find some grip to help him stand but I increased my speed so that he couldn't get the upper hand.
"You're gonna fucking pay for what you did you cunt!" I threw him down on the low wall that surrounded the edge of the roof so that his torso was hanging off the ledge. Liam glanced behind him looking at the drop, panic stricken.
"Whoa! Easy there man, don't do anything stupid." Liam grabbed at my hands that were still gripped tightly around his throat. Liam smirked, "Think about the kids, you won't be such a fucking hero if you kill their dad!" His expression quickly changed as I pushed him further over the edge and he realised that it could be the end.
"Spike stop!"
I turned towards the voice, to see Tommy's pleading eyes. I smiled briefly but felt a piercing pain as Liam shoved his fingers into t
he gash on my arm and yanked on the skin making the gash wider.
"Arrrgh you mother fucker!" I stumbled backwards as I let go of his throat and instinctively placed my hand to my arm to stifle the pain.
"You're not so fucking clever now, are you Spike!" Liam snarled as he held Tommy tightly in his arms.
I stood firm stalking forward, "Stay where you are or I'll break his fucking neck." Liam slowly walked backwards towards the door still holding Tommy forcefully around his neck.
Tommy's eyes glistened and he looked at me with pleading eyes as his father's hand moved to cover his mouth. I lurched forward, "I won't tell you again, back off!"
He continued to back up slowly, "Arrrgh...you little fucker!" Liam screamed as Tommy sunk his teeth into his hand. He broke free and ran into my embrace as I crouched down to catch him.
Liam glanced towards us holding his hand in agony unaware of the danger behind him, "Crack!"
"Cuff him to that pipe." Duke said nodding in the direction of the railings as they looked secure enough to hold him once he woke from his head trauma, from the butt of Diesel's glock.
As I sat with my back against the wall, I held Tommy safely in my arms stroking the back of his head reassuringly. I was so proud of him, he had made his way onto the roof to try and find a hiding place for them, and had pushed Devon aside out of danger to protect her.
"Spike!" Devon shouted as she broke free from Woods' hand and ran towards me. I held my right arm open to welcome her into my embrace as I leaned over to give her a kiss on the top of her head. Devon smiled and snuggled closer as I let out a sigh at the close contact and the love that I felt radiating off the children.
I tried to shield them from seeing Diesel drag their unconscious father across the ground to the other side of the roof but was aware that in their short lives they had probably seen worse than this.
The atmosphere had now changed leaving the calm after the storm. Tommy had now moved off my lap and was sitting on the ground beside me while the guys had left us to congregate on the other side of the roof to give us some space.
Spike (Aces MC Series Book 3) Page 23
