Slashes in the Snow : A Baum Squad novel

by M. Never

  I curl my lip. “Deacon. Old member of the club.”

  “Deacon? Is he dead?”

  “Not that I know of. He was doing some real shady shit back in the day, so my dad blackballed him. Kicked him out of the club in front of everyone.”

  “Ky, I know him.” Kira is convinced.

  “From where?” It’s preposterous. No one has heard from Deacon in over ten years.

  “He’s the alarm tech who came to the house. The one who was supposed to fix it before I came to you for help.”

  My heart drops into my stomach. “Kira, are you absolutely sure?”

  “I’m positive. We had a whole conversation. I made him coffee. I remember his face.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” I spring off the bed. “This was never about you.” I scramble to find my phone when the doorbell rings. Kira and I both freeze like ice sculptures. Who the fuck could that be?

  “Stay here.” I walk out of my room and downstairs, tightening the towel around my waist. I spy out the side window of the front door to find a man I don’t know, but he’s holding a small box I recognize well.

  Not this shit again.

  I open the door and stand guard. “Whatever it is, I don't want it. You can tell Deacon to go fuck himself. His secret is out, and I’m comin’ for him.”

  The scrawny man on my front stoop looks like he is about to shit. He’s swaying back and forth on his skinny legs looking over at the courtyard. I take my eyes off him for one stupid second, and it’s my biggest mistake, because when I looked back at him, his crazy expression spells out doom. Fast as a cat, he removes the top and hits me in the face with a dusty substance. As soon as it makes contact with my eyes, it burns and steals my breath as I inhale it. Whatever was in that little fucking box was lethal.

  I cough and choke, falling to my knees, unable to see a fucking thing.

  “Kira, run.” I fight to holler, but someone kicks me square in the gut, and the little air I have left in my diaphragm evaporates.

  “Get her,” I hear a voice say. A deep voice. An ominous voice.

  “Deacon.” I battle to my knees, throwing punches into the air. I can’t see, I can barely breathe, but I can still fucking fight.

  “Little Ky, all grown up.” He snaps my head back by my hair.

  “Stay away from her.” I punch upward, but my attempts are futile. I miss every fucking time.

  “She’s mine now,” he laughs sinisterly.

  “I will fucking kill you if you hurt her,” my voice strains.

  “That’s cute, kid. How ya gonna do that when you can’t even see me?” He digs his fingertip into my eye, and the sting intensifies.

  “Ahhh!” I howl like the wounded fucking dog I am, still trying to gain my bearings, but my eyes burn so fucking bad I’m completely blind.

  “Good ol’ concentrated capsaicin powder. Gets ’em every time.

  “Ky!” I hear Kira shriek somewhere close to me, and I dive in the direction of her terrified sound.

  “So long, kid.” He kicks me right in the face. “Tell your Pops I said hi.”

  “Fuck off,” I growl, crawling down my concrete walkway, scraping my bare knees to shreds as I go.

  “No!” Kira screams again, and my entire body breaks out in prickling goosebumps.

  “Kira!” I bellow, sluggish from the toxic powder affecting my senses.

  I hear car doors slam and tires screech, and I know she’s gone. I fucking failed her. Ambushed by my father’s oldest enemy.

  “HE HAS HER. He fucking has her.” I lose my mind as Fender treats my eyes with some homemade cleaning solution.

  “Sit fucking still, man, I need to flush all this shit out.” There are definitely perks to having a paramedic as one of your best friends. No hospital visits.

  “I can’t sit still. I’m gonna kill him. I’m going to shove the barrel of a shotgun down his fucking throat and pull the trigger.”

  “You aren’t gonna do shit if you can’t see. Hold him down.” What feels like a dozen sets of hands pin me to the chair as Fender performs Chinese water torture. Everyone is here. Hawk, Fender, Vet, Breaker, Bone, and Tempest. All my closest accessories to trouble and the people I trust most in the world. “At least he was stupid enough to tell you what he hit you with.” Fender places two soaked cotton balls on each eye. “He’s good. You can let him go. Hold those there.” He guides my hands to my face.

  “The question is, what the fuck do we do now?” Hawk asks.

  “We fucking find him,” I rumble.

  “Well, no shit, Sherlock, but he could be anywhere. He’s got some deep connections.”

  “So do we. Use them.”

  “We don’t even know what kind of car they drove away in. I could at least track them on the traffic cams that way.”

  “Deacon knew what he was doing. Knew exactly when to strike. None of the neighbors saw anything?” I’m T-minus two seconds away from blast off.

  “Only your willy,” Bone grunts. “You gave your elderly neighbor quite a fright. You need a conceal and carry for that thing.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got a crush on my dick, but I’m not in the mood for fucking jokes right now. A psychopath has my fuckin’ girl, and I can’t do shit about it at the moment,” I erupt like fucking Mount Vesuvius on her period.

  “We will find her,” Hawk tries to reassure me.

  “How?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “The question is, what does he want?” Tempest voices his thoughts. “He messed with her, took her, but why? What’s his endgame?”

  I am not at all surprised at this train of thought from him. He’s a paranoid motherfucker who questions everything. He’s a lethal mix of scary as shit and smart as a whip.

  “Money?” Vet throws out a suggestion. “I mean, she’s got loads of it. Maybe he’s going to hold her for ransom?”

  “Fuck.” I nearly bust a blood vessel in my brain knowing Kira is alone and helpless and most definitely terrified.

  This is all my fucking fault, I fall down into a black pit of despair. If anything happens—

  “Hello?” There’s a knock at my front door, and I pop out of my kitchen chair. “Ky?”

  I recognize the voice immediately.

  “Dad?” I rip the cotton balls off my eyes and squint through my blurry vision.

  “What the fuck happened?” He strides through the house, the egotistical asshole he is, until he’s right in front of me. I’m already a shitstorm of emotions, and him randomly appearing out of thin air sends me into a tailspin.

  “This is your fucking fault!” I attack him. A blind fucking fury possesses me. A burst of aggression I can’t control commands me, and chaos ensues. “You did this! All of it!” I throw sightless punch after sightless punch, a brawl breaking out right in the middle of my kitchen.

  “Chill the fuck out, man,” someone barks as I’m ripped away from my father.

  I feel him slip through my fingers as Bone pulls me down into a submission hold.

  “What the fuck has come over you, boy?”

  My only response to his question is heaving breaths and mental middle finger while I’m subdued like a wild animal on the kitchen floor.

  “Where is Kira? What happened?” my father demands answers.

  “That fuckface Deacon took her!” I detonate with my cheek squished to the hardwood.

  “Deacon?” I hear my father’s blatant surprise. Yeah, I sounded the same way when she figured out who was messing with her.

  “Um, not that it’s not great to see you, Gambit,” Breaker addresses him. “But what are you doing here? We thought you were in Paris?”

  “I was, but I got a message from Ky saying Kira was in trouble. So I booked a private flight as quickly as I could and got my ass back here.”

  “Of course you did,” I complain. “Can you let me up now? I’m fucking calm.”

  “Yeah, you sound it,” my Pops patronizes me.

  Bone scoops me up off the floor li
ke I’m a ragdoll. The six-foot-five beast can toss all of us around at once like stuffed playthings if he wanted.

  “Jesus, kid, what the fuck happened to your face?”

  I touch my eyelids gently. They must look as red and swollen as they feel.

  “Pepper bomb to the kisser,” Fender explains. “Leave these on.” He presses the cold cotton balls back in place. “Everyone’s safer when you’re blind.”

  “Except, Kira,” I bite. “And I never left you a message. It was Deacon. He must have spliced my voice somehow. He plotted all of this. He’s been spying on Kira for over a month. Been lurking around your house, too. Kira knew something was up, so she came to me.”

  “You? How did she even know where to find you?”

  “She’s got a brain in her head. She put two and two together. Said you used to talk about me. Made her feel like she could trust me.”

  “She trusted you, all right. You charmed your way right into her damn bed.” My Pops sounds none too pleased. Too fucking bad.

  “It wasn’t paradise island right off the bat, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “Not a fucking lick.”

  I pull the cotton balls off my eyes. “She’s my fuckin’ girl now, and you’re just gonna have to deal with that.” Fender’s remedy is finally working, cause my vision is starting to improve. I can see the room and everyone in it a bit more clearly.

  “Right now, I’m not worried about who she belongs to, I’m just worried about getting her back.” My father begins to pace. He looks so different and exactly the same. Still commanding, still assertive, still in control, except now he’s looks like he’s been photoshopped like those models you see on the Harley Davidson website. Put together cleanly, not a hair out of place. Refined and rugged all at the same time. Before Kristen, he constantly had motor oil smudged on his clothes or on his face and couldn’t care less who it bothered. Now, there isn’t a speck of dust on him.

  “At least we can agree about that,” I mumble.

  “It’s a start,” Breaker interjects. The tension is running sky high in the house.

  A suffering silence descends upon all of us. We’re left with no options and no clues. I’ve never felt so helpless, not even when my MRAP rolled over an IED in Afghanistan and all seemed lost. Men were wounded all around me, but even then, there was an exit strategy. Procedures in place. This situation feels like guerilla warfare. There’s no rhyme or reason, just ambush, sabotage, and raids.

  And all that’s left to do now is sit in the jungle and wait.

  Wait for the enemy to make his next move.

  Wait for an opportunity to strike back.

  Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait . . .

  21

  Kira

  I COME to in a strange room.

  My head hurts, and I feel a little woozy, but the zip ties biting into my wrists are what’s alarming me the most.

  I’m tied to a chair, alone, confused, and most definitely terrified.

  I gaze out the huge, double glass doors directly in front of me, trying to figure out where I am, but all I see are trees. Trees everywhere, with no inkling of civilization in sight.

  Bits and pieces of the whirlwind that happened earlier come back to me slowly. I remember hearing Ky scream to run. A man blocking me by the stairs. I tried to fight him off, but he overpowered me. The image of Ky helpless on the ground. Being hauled away into a strange car. Then something was put over my nose and mouth, and that’s the last thing I remember. My heart is hammering so hard from the recollection I could be an abandoned pet on death row.

  I need to escape. Survive and escape. Trying to free myself from the binds, I pull as hard as I can, a miserable attempt to slip my wrists out of the ties.

  “C’mon, c’mon.” I yank and jerk until my skin is rubbed raw. “Fuck.” This is not working. They’re way too tight. I begin to panic. I need to get out.

  In the midst of my very unsuccessful attempt at escape, I hear footsteps. Heavy, horrid, harrowing footsteps.

  The room I’m being held captive in seems to be the heart of the house. Stashed in the living room of what I think is a log cabin.

  “She’s conscious,” a deep voice rumbles from behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. I hate whoever he is already.

  He comes into view, and I recognize him. An older man with greying brown hair, a thick beard, and slim figure. He actually looks more sickly now than I remember from a month ago. His skin is saggy and pale, and there are purple bags under his eyes.

  “Hey, princess.” He leans on the arms of the chair, his face disgustingly close to mine.

  I jerk my head back, wanting to get as far away from him as possible.

  “You are a pretty one.” He touches my cheek, and I fight with my digestive tract not to vomit. “I thoroughly enjoyed the little chat we had. You were quite the hospitable host.” He stands upright and crosses his faded tattooed arms.

  “I was trying to be polite. What a mistake.”

  “Being nice usually is. It’s a weakness. Makes you vulnerable. And then you end up in situations like these.” He motions to our surroundings. Our highly secluded surroundings. “I was nice once, you know. Generous with my connections and my money. You know where it got me?” His eyes darken sinisterly.

  I shake my head.

  “Ostracized. Kicked out of the only family I ever knew. They turned their backs on me. Blackballed me because I was different. Because they didn’t agree with my methods.”

  Do I dare even ask what methods those were?

  “So, you brought me here why?”

  “Why else? Revenge.”

  “What do I have to with any of it?” I’m trying to understand his motives. Why me?

  “At first? Nothing. Your mother was the intended target.”

  My heart sinks as soon as I hear that. Fucking bastard.

  “I needed to get inside the house so I could tap into your alarm system and spy.”

  “You were watching me through the cameras?” I feel violated. Disgusting. They’re all over the house. The only small consolation in finding all this out is the fact that I’m not crazy. Up yours, Hawk. I wasn’t making it up in my head. I knew someone was watching me. I could feel it. And here he is, bragging about it. Holding it over my head. Proud of every despicable thing he accomplished.

  “Pretty much.”

  “You know the code, too.”

  “Yup. Once I was connected, I could control everything from my laptop. I could come and go as I pleased. Manipulate what I wanted. I was in and out of your house so many times. I watched you sleep. Shower. Eat . . .” Something else lingers at the end of his sentence. A perverted inclination.

  “You watched Ky and me.” I’m nauseated. We had a fucking audience the whole time.

  “Now that was a plot twist I didn’t see coming. You two were entertainment for sure. Watching your little soap opera unfold. When he fell in love with you, I realized you were the key.”

  “Key to what?”

  “Everyone’s suffering. It’s a chain reaction, and you are at the center of it. You’re the switch. Hurt you, hurt them all.”

  I don’t like the sound of that one bit.

  “Hurt them how?” I probe.

  “Emotionally, of course. Killing Gerard would be too easy. Too fast. There would be no satisfaction in it. But” — he points his index finger up — “kill someone he loves, and he suffers for the rest of his life.” Deacon begins to cough fitfully. His body shakes so hard he spits blood right at my feet.

  Ewww.

  He walks off behind me, and I hear water run. I also hear the sound of his short breaths and uncomfortable moans. He’s sick. And I believe terminally so.

  “How much time do you have left?” I ask.

  “More than you,” he heaves.

  My blood runs cold from his callous response.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I try to appeal to his human side. “You don’t want to leave this world w
ith blood on your hands.”

  Deacon creeps around me, startling me half to death. “That’s what confession is for.”

  “I don’t even think a priest can absolve you of that sin,” I argue.

  “I guess one day I’ll find out.” He wraps his hand around my throat and squeezes. I try to pry myself from his grip, but his hold is too tight. Hysteria rolls over me as my windpipe is crushed and all the air is stolen from my lungs.

  I plead with him, “Don’t, please, stop.” Tears streaming down my cheeks as I see stars. Deacon laughs in my face while I gasp for precious oxygen. My muscles strain and spasm in the chair, my fingers go numb from pulling at the restraints, and all the life drains from my body at a debilitating speed, like water being wrung from a rag.

  Just as my vision colors over with black, Deacon let’s go. I cough and spit automatically as I instinctively suck air back into my lungs.

  I break down and cry right in front of him, a terrified little girl at the hands of a monster.

  “Your pain is just beginning, princess.” He pulls a strand of my short hair through his fingers, enjoying my agony. “Sit back and relax,” he mocks. “I’ll be back.”

  God, I hope not.

  I hang my head and ignore him. Sniffling softly, scared of my situation and ashamed of my susceptibility.

  An image of my mother creeps into my mind. Crawling out of her bathroom after my father had finished doing whatever horrible thing it was. I was too young to understand, but she was bruised and weak and crying. She didn’t know I was there. Not until I wormed my way out from under her bed. I hated when she cried. I wiped her face and hugged her neck, and I remember vividly what she told me. “Tears may fall, but strength can rise.”

  For some reason, those words resonate.

  They bring me comfort.

  They make me feel less alone.

  She walked through hell and survived.

  Maybe I can, too.

  22

  Ky

  POPEYE REFILLS my shot glass for the fifth time.

  I don’t know what’s making me crazier, knowing Deacon has Kira and I can’t do a fucking thing about it, or that my dad is playing Mr. Social, catching up with everyone in the Den.