The guy steps forward and gets my arm around his shoulder, lifting me up. We take a few steps toward the truck. When we’re just about there, I hunch over, brace myself against his chest, and shove him hard against the hood.
“I’m sorry about this,” I grit out. “But I need to take your truck.”
The guy struggles, swings wide at my head, and almost connects. I jab him once, hard, in the kidney. He gasps and doubles over.
“I wasn’t asking,” I tell him. “Oh, and I’m gonna need your phone, too.”
I don’t wait for him to answer, just lift the cell from the breast pocket of his flannel. I thumb the on switch. The screen’s locked.
“What’s the code?” I demand.
The guy’s still half bent-over, and doesn’t answer. I grab him and shove him against the truck again, punching him in the gut.
“What’s the code?” I repeat.
He chokes it out. I try it once just to make sure.
I pull him away from the car, throwing him wide; it’s his turn to go in the ditch. Scrambling, I climb in. “Like I said, sorry about that,” I call as I slam the door and gun the engine. “There’s a farm back that way about two miles. You can call for a ride back to town. You’ll probably get the truck back eventually. We’ll see about the phone.”
I slam the truck into gear and make a U-turn so fast and tight that the guy has to dive out of the way. Facing the right direction, I floor it. The pickup jackrabbits forward, leaving a strip of rubber. I lean over and flick open the glove box, hoping my guess that this guy might have a gun in there is correct. Sure enough. I reach in and pull out a pistol I recognize as a Smith and Wesson K-22. It’s a plinker, for shooting possums, but it’ll do.
As I speed off, I thumb the code back into the cell. I drive with one hand and one eye as I concentrate on finding the phone number in the settings. I repeat it once to myself, then call the only number I know by heart.
“Jewel!” I shout when she answers. “Listen up! I’m on Highway Seven heading south, about five miles across the Kentucky state line. Call Angel. Tell him Lila’s been nabbed. He’ll know by who. Tell him I’m chasing a black limo and I need backup. I’ve got some guy’s phone. Tell him where I am and have him call me at 555-763-1214.”
I stay on the line only long enough for her to repeat the information, then hang up and concentrate on driving as fast as I can. I’ve got to catch up to that limo. I’ve got to find Lila.
I’ve got to.
27
Lila
I’m shaking.
Not from fear — although I’m terrified right now. But from adrenaline. I’m freezing and trembling uncontrollably in the limousine. The men who are my captors keep a gun trained on me — the same one they trained on Jude until moments ago — as the car pulls back onto the highway.
I’m still gagged, with a foul-smelling cloth jammed so far into my mouth that my tongue is pushed against the back of my throat. But they haven’t bothered to blindfold me.
Which tells me one thing.
They don’t care if I see where we’re going.
Which means they weren’t kidding when they told Jude they plan to kill me when they’re finished with me.
I keep my teeth clenched and my jaw tight against the gag to keep myself from crying as I stare out the window. I won’t cry. If they ever take this gag off, I won’t beg for my life. I won’t plead. I know it won’t do any good.
But I almost lose it when I think back to how Brooke tried to fling herself in front of me at the gym. For the rest of my short life, I’ll remember the way she stood between me and the gun pointing at me. How she risked her life trying to protect me.
I begged Brooke to lie back down on the ground with the rest of the girls. I whispered to her that she had all those other girls to protect. I told her I knew what I was doing. That they wouldn’t kill me. That as long as I gave up, they’d let everyone else go.
I was right about the last part. But the rest was a lie to make her do it.
I’m only eighteen. I’m going to die, probably within the hour. The blood rushing in my ears is deafening. I want to scream, I want to fight. I want to collapse. But none of that will change what’s about to happen.
I’ll never get married. I’ll never have kids.
I’ll never see Spike’s kittens.
I’ll never…
A sob rips through me at the thought of Jude. Of how we left things. The thug training the gun on me lets out a satisfied chuckle at seeing evidence that I’m about to fall apart.
No. I won’t give them the satisfaction. I stare back out the window, body rigidly upright. I bite down harder against the cloth. I’m giving myself a headache from the pressure, but I don’t care. I clench my bound fists, dig my nails into my palms.
Brooke probably has called the Lords by now. Not that they can do anything. They don’t know where we’re going. The only thing they know is the restaurant where I went the day I killed Pecher. But it’s too much to hope for that they’d take me there. These guys can’t be that stupid.
I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting against a wave of nausea. I expect them to take me out to a field somewhere and shoot me. Leave my body for the crows. My breathing turns shallow and rapid as fear spikes in my chest.
I send up a silent prayer that however they kill me, it will be quick.
But they don’t drive me out to a field. The limo keeps going, until eventually it pulls off the road at an abandoned gas station. The tires bump over the broken and pitted cement of the parking lot, coming to rest in the back of the building.
When we pull to a stop, one door pops open and the thug opposite me grabs the cord binding my hands and drags me out by the wrists. I stumble after him, swallowing yelps of pain and struggling to keep up as I curse myself inside my head for not fighting back. But how can I? What can I possibly do against all these armed men?
By the time they drag me inside the dusty, moldy-smelling station, tears of frustration and desperation are running down my cheeks. Still shivering, I try to stop them, but I can’t. I’m imagining torture now, or being doused with gasoline and burned alive. My mind and my body are both starting to betray me in these last moments. The terror I feel is unlike anything I’ve ever known.
One of the men flicks a switch in the wall. There’s a sound above me. Frantic, I look up. It’s a winch being lowered. The second man from the back of the car yanks my bound arms up over my head, attaches the binding to the hook. The one by the door raises it again, enough so I’m hanging almost completely off the ground, my tiptoes barely touching.
“Consider this a waiting room,” the second man says with a nasty grimace.
The three men walk out, leaving me hanging there, terrified and working hard to get enough breath so I don’t pass out. My legs strain to keep my toes on the ground, to relieve the weight from my wrists. It doesn’t take long — only a few minutes — before the blood starts to leave my arms. They start to tingle, then to burn.
It’s then that I finally lose control, sobbing so hard that I pass out from lack of air.
Later — how much later, I don’t know — someone slaps me hard across the face. My eyes flicker open as a rough hand yanks the gag away from my mouth. Reflexively, my lungs suck in a deep, shuddering breath.
Which is when I look up, to see Pecher’s face.
The scream bursts from my throat before I can stop it. Inside my head, my brain screams at me, too, telling me he must be a ghost, he has to be. His skin is gray, he’s lost weight, and his cheeks are concave, showing the bones in his skull. But the avid, piercing arrows in his eyes tell me he’s very much alive.
Pecher opens his mouth, and a wheeze emerges. My eyes flit to his throat, to the angry red scar that I put there.
“Thanks to you, he can’t talk,” the man who dragged me into the room bites out. “Yet. But he’s gonna talk through me.”
“What…” I manage, but I can’t form the words to ask more.
�
�You thought he was dead, didn’t you?” Pecher’s ventriloquist says. Pecher lets out another wheeze that I think is a laugh. “My father’s a survivor. But you’re gonna pay for what you did.”
Dimly, I realize Pecher’s mouthpiece is his son. My brain struggles to make sense of this man — this barely human man — being a father.
“What… what are you going to do to me?” I rasp, feeling suddenly dizzy. My eyes are locked on Pecher’s, as though the voice is his.
“He’s gonna get what he should have had from you in the first place.” I hear Pecher’s son lick his lips. “And then you’re gonna get what you tried to do to him.”
I didn’t stop Pecher from raping me. I just delayed it. And I’m about to pay for that with my life.
“We’re gonna send your body back to the Lords of Carnage,” Pecher’s son continues, his breath hot against my ear. “As a courtesy. For closure, you might say. And to show them not to interfere in our business again.”
Pecher nods, as though he’s the one who has just spoken. Somehow, my eyes are drawn downward, and I see his erection pressing through the cheap material of his dress pants. He is leering, with a terrible, angry lust that sends a chill through me, setting the shivering off again.
“No,” I whisper, but it’s a reflex. I know there’s nothing I can do.
As Pecher comes toward me, I realize that after everything that has happened — after everything I’ve done to try to escape from where my life brought me — I’ve ended up exactly back where I started. Alone in the world, in the clutches of a man who only sees me as a piece of meat. Knowing I’m about to be violated, and then killed.
Remember you did some good, a voice whispers in my head. Remember you saved Brooke and Cherylynn, and all the kids in that gym.
But no. I put the Lords of Carnage and their families in danger in the first place. And in the end, it didn’t do any good. It didn’t even save me. I put all of them at risk, for my own selfish needs.
The people who tried to help me flash before me now. People I’ll never see again.
Brooke’s kind, worried face.
Beast’s gruff, protective concern.
Angel’s determined, quiet strength.
Jude…
Jude’s eyes. His lips. The gentleness of his rough hands.
His laugh. Not the one everyone else knows. The one he saves for me. The one I only heard when we were alone together.
The winch lowers a fraction, just enough to set me on the ground. Wrists and arms still asleep, I kick my legs wildly, to keep Pecher away from me.
Even though it’s no use.
28
The Lords
“In the fucking chapel!” roars Angel as he storms through the main room. “Now!”
Beast is close on his heels, murder in his eyes. The rest of the Lords know from just a glance at his face that something big has gone down. Beast is one of the most stoic motherfuckers most of them have ever met. His expression barely ever changes unless Thorn cracks him up with some stupid joke, or when he looks at Brooke. They’ve never seen him angrier than he is right now.
“Do you know what’s goin’ on?” Striker mutters to Tank as they crowd through the door to the chapel.
“Haven’t got a clue.” Tank’s brow creases. “Fuckin’ odd, though. Shit’s been pretty calm lately.”
“True,” Thorn adds. “We’ve vanquished all our enemies, so to speak. You think it’s about Lila?”
“Settle in,” Angel barks, banging the gavel so loud a couple of the men jump. “This is gonna be quick. Brooke just texted Beast from her gym. They’re in lockdown. A group of unknown men stormed the building searching for Lila.”
“Holy shit,” Tweak spits.
“Is she there?” Hawk demands.
“She is,” Beast answers, eyes like flint. “I don’t know any more than that. The gym is full of instructors, children, and a couple of parents.”
“What do we do?” Hale is half out of his chair.
“We try to get there before shit hits the fan. And hope like hell no one in that gym calls the cops. We have to assume the men are armed, and that they won’t hesitate to open fire. Cops mean a bloodbath.”
Angel and Beast start barking out a plan. Beast tells them the best chance they have to get in undetected is through a side entrance in a short alley, on a side of the building with no windows. He talks the others through the rest of the entrances, too, and posts a few of them at each one.
“No bikes,” he orders. “We’ll take two vans. I’m driving one.”
“I got the other one,” Ghost calls.
“Everybody got weapons?” Angel ask, scanning the room. Bang. “Okay. Let’s ride.”
They fly the fuck over there, Beast driving so fast they’re on two wheels at least part of the time. Half a block from the gym, they stop at the entrance to the alleyway and Beast slams the van into park. The Lords all climb out and start running, crouched low. Beast goes first and gets to the side door, which is locked from the outside. He pulls a key ring from his belt and unlocks it silently. He signals to the others for quiet, and pulls open the door. A small metallic scrape is the only sound it makes.
They step through, single file. By now, the men with Ghost will be at the front entrance. Blood is thudding, hearts pounding.
Beast, three feet ahead of the others, freezes in place and lifts a fist — the signal for the others to do the same. Adrenaline is spiking, ears primed for the slightest sound. Beast points ahead, making eye contact with the men behind him. And then they hear it.
Crying.
The muffled wails are coming from women and girls. Beast waits a few seconds, then lifts his hand again, points forward.
Seconds later, the Lords burst into the gym’s main area, guns drawn.
On the floor, a carpet of bodies. Women and girls.
But no blood.
“Beast!”
Brooke’s voice is high, nearly hysterical. From one corner, she leaps to her feet and comes running toward him.
“Jesus, Brooke!” Beast shouts her name hoarsely as she barrels into his arms.
“They’re gone!” Brooke cries, tears streaking her face as she gazes up into his eyes. “They took Lila!”
“What?” he explodes.
“I didn’t have any time!” Brooke sobs. “We were in the locker room and we heard them break in! If I’d known — if I’d had time to realize who they were — I could have told her to hide. Maybe I could have helped her to get out before they found her! But they called out her name, and said they were here for her, and I couldn’t stop her from speaking up!” Brooke’s expression is desperate. “She said she’d go with them without a fight if they’d leave the gym right away without hurting anyone.” She shakes her head. “She sacrificed herself so we’d be safe!”
The Lords know who they are. Pecher’s men, of course. It can’t be anyone else. And there’s no doubt what they’ll do to Lila. She’ll never get away from them alive.
“Anybody hurt here?” Beast demands.
“No.” The muffled crying of the children is turning to sniffles as some of them start to sit up. “They didn’t hurt anyone. Thank God.”
“How long ago did they leave?”
“Not even three minutes before you got here,” a young blond chick about Lila’s age speaks up. She’s sitting cross-legged on the ground now, looking dazed. “You barely missed them. Oh my God! Where did they take Lila?” Her voice cracks and she starts to wail. “What are they going to do with her?”
“Shit,” Striker seethes. “How the fuck are we gonna track them?”
Angel pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Shit, Jewel’s callin’.” He holds the phone to his ear. “Not now, babe,” he barks. “We got a situation. What?” He pauses. “Holy shit. Okay, what’s the number?” He listens for a moment, nods, then hangs up. “Jude just called Jewel. He got taken with Lila by Pecher’s guys. They just dumped him out on Highway Seven on the Kentucky side.”
“Does he know where they’re going?” Beast demands.
“I’ll tell you on the way. We gotta go.”
Steeze breaks in. “Someone should stay here. I mean… just in case they come back.”
“They aren’t gonna come back,” Beast snarls.
“We don’t know that,” Steeze persists. “What if they send someone to… eliminate the witnesses?”
“Fine. Steeze, you stay here,” Angel cuts him off impatiently. “The rest of you, let’s go. Now!”
The Lords thunder through the exits, leaving Brooke and the other employees to deal with the terrified children.
Steeze goes to the front door and stands guard. His expression is preoccupied.
29
Lila
The screams ripping from my throat are like razors. They drown out all other noise as I kick and flail, but even so, I can still hear Pecher’s wheezing as he advances on me. Next to him, his grotesque son licks his lips again. In their lust, their family resemblance comes into sharp relief.
My stomach roils. I fight not to vomit, even as I realize it might buy me a few seconds before the inevitable happens.
“No!” I continue to shriek. My feet strain to hit their mark, but the two of them stay just out of range. Pecher’s son nods to someone off to the side, and a sharp blow to my kidney cuts off my scream with a wail of pain. The nausea rises again.
“You’re so stupid,” the son sneers. “What do you think you can do?”
As I struggle to stay conscious, my eyes land on the length of his erection bulging through his pants. My stomach turns over again. They’re enjoying my fear. It’s turning them on.
I will myself to still. To try to breathe normally. To have some dignity in the final moments of my life. To not give them what they want.
A sudden boom, coming from somewhere outside, startles both Pecher and his son. They jerk, turning toward the noise. I swallow a strangled cry of — relief? something — as they check me one final time to make sure I’m not going anywhere, and race from the room.
JUDE: Lords of Carnage MC Page 16
