Hers to Save

by Talia Ellison

  Aaron pushed me lightly to the left and I knew he meant for me to go that way while he’d come out from the right side of the machine. The flashlights clicked off.

  “I can’t see!” The voice was close now. Keeping my head and back bent down, I padded around the machine. My eyes had already grown accustomed to what little light we had, so I was able to see the shadowy figures in front of me. One of the men gasped, and I knew he’d heard Aaron and me moving. But before he could turn around, I dove for him, bringing us both to the ground. A grunt left the other man’s throat as Aaron pounced on him. I pressed the barrel of my gun to the back of the head of the man I was pinning to the ground.

  “Get up. Slowly. And go back outside.” It was too dark in here to do anything, so I moved away from him, allowing him to push himself up to his feet, my gun now pressed against his back and staying there. “Keep your hands up.”

  “You too,” Aaron said as he hauled the other guy to his feet, his gun pressed to the guy’s head. We marched them outside, and the man Aaron was aiming at suddenly turned around, trying to rip the gun out of Aaron’s grasp. The gun clattered to the ground, but Aaron caught the man’s fist and punched him hard in the stomach, making him double over. The blond guy in front of me tensed, and I realized he’d lowered his right arm. I fired, hitting the guy in the leg, and he screamed, the gun he’d been reaching for forgotten.

  Aaron got some zip ties out of his pocket and tied up the other guy, who had very short dark hair, then he bound the wrists and ankles of the blond guy who was writhing as blood seeped from his leg. I looked around, hoping my shot hadn’t been heard by anyone who might want to come see what was going on, but I didn’t see any movement.

  “Who are you and who sent you?” Aaron said coldly as he towered over the dark-haired guy who was lying on the ground too.

  “Fuck you,” the guy spat out.

  “Wrong answer.” Aaron kicked the guy in the stomach, making him grunt. I crouched next to the blond guy and patted his jacket for anything of interest. He didn’t have any ID, but I found two guns and a knife, which I threw out of his reach. There were no phones or even keys, so it seemed like the guys had ditched everything as precaution in case they were caught.

  “I won’t tell you anything,” the guy said to Aaron, who bent down to take all of the man’s weapons.

  “Come on. It’ll be easier for you if you talk,” I said, looking into the face of the blond guy who’d calmed down, his jaw tense. He didn’t say a word. I reached down for his leg and squeezed just above the wound, and he let out a muffled groan.

  “My father sent you, didn’t he?” Aaron asked, flipping the guy’s pocket knife open.

  “Fuck you.” The guy lifted his head toward Aaron. If I wasn’t wrong, there was pure hatred on his face. He had to be one of Roberto’s men who thought Aaron was a traitor.

  Aaron’s lips spread into a smile. “If you know what my father’s capable of, then you should know I’m ten times worse.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you do to me. You’ll get what you deserve.”

  Aaron laughed, then his face turned expressionless and he pressed the knife just under the guy’s left eye. “Too bad you won’t be able to see that. Last chance. Talk.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “True, but it’ll be quicker if you tell me what my father sent you to do for him this time.” Aaron’s icy smile chilled me to the bone. The guy started to scream, and I looked away, focusing on the blond guy, who was trembling.

  “Roberto sent you, didn’t he?” I asked softly, placing my hand on his cheek. He flinched, his breathing quickening. “Just tell us what he wanted you to do.” The other guy’s screaming continued.

  “Yell all you want,” Aaron said. “No one’s going to hear you.”

  The blond guy wanted to turn his head toward them, but I wouldn’t let him. “Come on. Talk to me. I’m in the mood for carving things, and if you don’t give me a reason to change my mind...” I batted my eyelashes at him, and his eyes went wide. He wasn’t the only one who was creeped out, though. I kind of scared myself too. When I looked back at Aaron, he had his hand closed around the man’s throat. Blood was covering the guy’s face.

  “Okay, okay,” the blond guy whispered. “Mr. Viteri hired us to follow you and report where you were going. He just wanted to know where to find you. That’s all. I swear!”

  “Where is Mr. Viteri? How did he contact you?”

  “I... I don’t know. A guy came up to us and gave us a phone, and Mr. Viteri offered a large sum of money if we agreed to monitor the road for any cars with a man and a woman whose pictures were on the screen. He transferred half of the money to our accounts.”

  “Shut up, you son of a bitch!” the other guy wheezed. Aaron had let go of him and was watching the blond guy.

  “Don’t listen to him, darling,” I said, patting the blond guy on the cheek. “You’re doing fine.” The other guy had probably been working for the Viteris before, but this one had to be new, because he didn’t seem as loyal to Roberto as the other guy.

  “Don’t say...” The other guy’s voice was muffled as Aaron pressed his boot against his face.

  “Go on,” I said. “How did you recognize us?”

  “We... We realized you might want to travel at night so no one would see you, and you were the only couple in a car that wasn’t registered to you.”

  “What were you supposed to do once you found us?” I asked.

  “Contact a guy,” he said. “I don’t know his name. He’s... he left us a phone.”

  “Where’s that phone?”

  “In our car. We left it nearby.”

  “And what then?” I let my nails dig into his chin.

  “Nothing. We were supposed to find the place where you planned to stay for the night, and once we reported it to that man, we’d get the rest of our money.”

  I pushed myself to my feet and walked over to Aaron, ignoring the dark-haired guy, who was moaning in pain. “I think he’s telling the truth. Maybe we should let him go.” I leaned closer so that I could whisper into his ear. “We want Roberto to find us, right?”

  “You’re all going to die,” the dark-haired guy suddenly laughed. “He’s coming... coming for you.”

  Aaron’s face darkened and he rushed to the man, grabbing him by the shirt. “You know more about this, don’t you? Your one of his... loyal subjects.” The guy’s laughter turned into coughs, but he didn’t answer. Aaron lifted his fist and punched him, blood spraying everywhere.

  “Aaron!” I said. “Stop! He’s not going to tell you anything!”

  Aaron froze with his bloody fist in the air and got to his feet, stumbling back.

  “We’ve been here too long. We don’t know who else your father might’ve hired, and someone might have heard all the screaming and called the cops. Your father will be coming here. Everything’s going as we planned,” I said, and Aaron’s expressionless mask cracked a little. The dark-haired guy stopped laughing. My words must have unnerved him.

  “You’re right,” Aaron said. “What about them?”

  “You know what needs to be done.” I rubbed my arms and turned my back to the men. The blond guy was quiet, and I thought he’d rather die than risk getting caught by Roberto or whoever Roberto had used to hire them. If I kept telling myself that we were at war and that worse things would happen to that guy or to us if we let him live, then maybe it would be easier to believe that we didn’t have a choice. Two shots rang out behind my back, and then there was just silence.

  Chapter 21

  Aaron and I were sitting on the bed in the motel room we’d rented last night. This was our fourth motel this week. We couldn’t stay in one place and make Roberto suspicious. He must have found out what we’d done by now and was searching for other sources to confirm our presence in the city and to make sure we hadn’t left.

  I held my phone in my hand. “My brothers say Marco insisted on coming here too. Looks lik
e he found his father, who is safe.”

  “Good,” Aaron said. “Now we only have to wait for my father to make his move.”

  “My brothers are watching this whole area,” I said. “They’ll alert us if he or his men show up.” And if they saw Roberto himself, they planned to engage him and kill him. We had to use the first opportunity we got to take down our worst enemy.

  “It should be easier to fight my father here than on his own territory. I just hope he doesn’t change his mind.” Aaron sighed.

  “He won’t. My father let Roberto’s forces take control over one of his stash houses. Roberto thinks he’s winning, but his hideouts were attacked. He has to go somewhere and let his men stay in the city and keep fighting against my family.” Too bad my brothers hadn’t figured out yet where he’d gone.

  “I don’t know about...” Aaron went quiet as my phone vibrated in my palm. A moment before I could open the message, the window of our room burst into pieces, and something round, resembling a can, fell inside. Aaron and I jumped up, grabbing our guns. The can started to hiss and, before we could get out of the room, it released some kind of a white smoke. My lungs constricted and I coughed. It was impossible to see anything through the smoke. I fell down on my knees, black spots dancing in my vision. A woman dressed in a maid’s attire and holding a syringe came into view, and then the world went black.

  ***

  My head throbbed like crazy as I tried to pry my eyelids open. When I could finally see, I realized I was lying in the back of a van. My wrists were tied in front of me with a zip tie, just like my ankles. Aaron stirred next to me and squinted his eyes. The van was moving, which meant whoever had taken us was transporting us somewhere.

  “I told you, we shouldn’t have done this!” a woman’s voice screeched. The maid. I remembered seeing the maid. “They’re going to kill us, Randy! Don’t you get that?”

  Randy mumbled something I couldn’t understand. So Randy and the maid were the ones who’d taken us, and I had a good idea why my brothers hadn’t been able to tell there was something wrong. These weren’t Roberto’s men or anyone like Roberto used to hire. These two were probably workers at the motel, so my brothers assumed they were fine. Shit.

  “I know we need the money,” she yelled. “But we also have two people in the back who... Oh my God, what if they wake up? What’s going to happen to them once we bring them to...?”

  “They’re not going to wake up, and what happens to them after is not our concern.”

  “How is it not? They’re just... They could be our kids, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Well, they’re not. They’re runaways.”

  “And what will we be, huh?”

  “Just shut up, Patty. We can’t go back now, and we sure as hell lost our jobs.”

  Patty was quiet, and I wiggled closer to Aaron, careful not to make too much noise. The van clattered enough as it sped up, so that wasn’t too difficult. It was a good thing there was only one small, dirty window through which they couldn’t really see us.

  “These are not professionals,” I said in a hushed voice. “We can deal with them.”

  Aaron nodded. “We need to get free. You should get something to cut through these easily.”

  The floor of the van was filled with various bags, but there was also a toolbox. Randy had to be a plumber or something. I bet the drug or whatever they’d used on us had been given to them by Roberto’s men, and they’d had no idea how much of it they should administer. They clearly hadn’t expected us to wake up at any point, and it seemed like all of their things were with them, since they were planning on running once they delivered us to Roberto and got the money. The only problem was, Patty was right. They’d probably end up dead. Roberto didn’t need any witnesses.

  “Do you still have your tracker?” I asked, wondering if our kidnappers had even bothered to go through our pockets or noticed that our belts had a tracking device attached to the buckle so my brothers could tell where we were at all times in case something like this happened. Aaron lifted his hips, and his dark blue t-shirt slid down, revealing the belt buckle still intact.

  A smile spread across my lips. My brothers would be tracking us and get to us. The only question was if they should come to our rescue or if we should wait and see where this was going. We had only one chance at this if we wanted to trick Roberto. If he realized we were trying to lure him into a trap, he’d never come to us in person, even if he didn’t get to see us die by his hand.

  “Do you want to press the button?” Aaron asked. There was an emergency button on the tracker if we wanted a rescue.

  I bit down on my lip. If these guys took us straight to Roberto, we’d get an opportunity to kill him. But if they delivered us to his men and Roberto killed us before anyone got a chance to do anything... Well, yeah, that was a terrible, terrible plan. Still, we had to make a choice.

  “Maybe we don’t have to... not yet,” Aaron said. “They’ll know where we are. We should get free and stop the van somehow before it reaches its destination.”

  I nodded toward the toolbox and carefully rolled over, pushing myself up until I could reach the box. After nudging the box a few times, it opened, and I grabbed the cutters. Aaron’s hands were tied behind his back, and he turned so I could cut through the zip tie. It was cute they thought I was less dangerous than Aaron. Carefully aiming the cutters so I wouldn’t accidentally catch Aaron’s finger if the van lurched over a hole or something, I snapped them together. Aaron immediately took the cutters from me, freeing my arms and legs, and then his ankles.

  “Knock that over. We should pretend we’re still asleep, then get them when they stop the van and come to check,” Aaron said, and I nodded. I pushed the toolbox off the big brown bag it was nestled on, and it fell down with a loud thud.

  “What was that?” Patty squeaked, and I knew we didn’t have much time, so I settled back down on the floor, making sure it wasn’t immediately possible to see that I wasn’t tied anymore. Aaron positioned himself so he’d be able to easily reach anyone who opened the door. The van came to a stop, and some of the things toppled down too. There was silence for a moment.

  “Do you think...?” Patty asked.

  “We must have hit a bump or something. If you hadn’t brought all that trash with you...”

  “It’s not trash! It’s our life!”

  “Fine. I’ll go check.”

  I took a deep breath, my eyes only half closed and hidden behind my hair. The door of the van opened, and I saw a bald man.

  “See? I told you it was fi—” Before he could finish the sentence, Aaron kicked out with his leg, hitting Randy in the stomach. Randy fell back, bringing the woman behind him down with him. Aaron jumped out of the van, and I pushed myself up, going after Patty.

  “Please! Don’t hurt us!” Patty yelled, tears filling her dark brown eyes, her brown hair getting muddy as I climbed on top of her. I looked around and realized we were on a narrow road in between the endless fields. We were definitely nowhere near the city, which meant we’d been out for longer than we’d thought. It was daylight, and I had a feeling we might have been drugged again somewhere along the way. Was my family following us and trying to find out where this would go? Or had something happened to them too? Surely Roberto couldn’t have known they’d be watching us or... Shit.

  “Who are you?” Aaron’s fist was raised as he clutched Randy’s shirt. “Where were you taking us?”

  “Please! My name’s Randy. That’s my wife, Patty. Please don’t hurt us!” Randy lifted his hands up. Aaron lowered his hand and pulled a gun out of Randy’s belt, pointing it at him. “Please, let my wife go. She didn’t want to do this, but... the money they offered us was more than we’d earn in a lifetime. You have to understand.” Randy’s green eyes seemed honest.

  “Understand what, exactly? That you planned to hand us over to someone so they could kill us because you wanted a better life?” Aaron let out a laugh. “Yeah, I get that.”

&n
bsp; Patty gasped. “I told you, Randy! I told you!”

  “Please, let us go,” Randy said. “We... I made a mistake. Please, have mercy.” Randy lowered himself to his knees.

  “Tell us where you were taking us and everything about the man who hired you to do this.” I assumed it was Roberto, but you never knew.

  “We don’t know anything.” Patty sobbed. “Please.”

  “Oh, come on. You were going somewhere. Where?” My hand was around Patty’s neck and I didn’t even know how that had happened. “Where?” Patty only cried harder.

  “Octavia,” Aaron said. “Easy.”

  I blinked, letting go of Patty’s neck, and scrambled to my feet. “Look, we need to find the man who hired you. If we don’t kill you first, he’ll do it.”

  Patty sat up, looking at Randy, who was still on his knees, a desperate look in his eyes.

  “A dark-haired man approached me while I was at the mall,” Randy said. “He asked if I wanted to be a millionaire. I laughed at him, but he told me all I had to do was perform a small task and that my dreams would come true.”

  “Do you know the name of that man or who he’s working for?” I asked.

  Randy shook his head. “The man said I didn’t need to know. That if I wanted the money, I had to accept the job immediately. He said, a rich man’s looking for his children who ran away and that he’s afraid something will happen to them. I told him to go to the cops, but he said you were adults so he couldn’t get you back.”

  “And you believed that?” Aaron grimaced.

  “I didn’t know what to think. I see all those rich kids on the news doing stupid things, so I assumed the father just didn’t want a scandal. The man insisted on knowing my answer immediately, and I was scared. He had a gun under his jacket, so I said yes, and he gave me instructions on what to do.”

  “So what were the instructions? We know the first part: pretend you’re just coming to clean and throw something inside to incapacitate us, then keep us drugged until...” I gave him an expectant look. “Then what? Where are we?”