“You’ll work it out, sweetheart. That man loves you like no other. He looks at you the way your father looked at your mother. The way I look at Gail. He loves you.”
“I love him too. You know I miss my parents, but you and Gail are my parents too. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to truly see that.”
“It’s all in the past. I can get used to you calling me dad.”
“That’s what you are. You’ve never failed me. You’ve always taken wonderful care of Dylan and me.”
I hug him tightly. He has always been my rock. If it hadn’t been for him, Dylan and I probably wouldn’t have made it through those early years. We sit in silence for a few minutes before curiosity gets the best of me.
“Where’s Trevor?”
“He’s tied up on the front porch. Linc put two police officers out there to guard him and the medic is patching him up. The bullet is lodged near his clavicle.”
“Oh.”
“You’re safe. He can’t get to you.”
I nod. “I know. I was just thinking that I’d like to jab my finger into his wound.”
Tom guffaws. “I’ll take you out there if you want.”
I shake my head no. I’m not ready to see him. A loud disturbance outside has me up and running to the back door. It looks like there are more of Mathis’ men out there and they’re fighting.
“Dylan!” I yell as I whip open the door and run out into the cold. He’s being dragged away.
“Shayla!” I turn to my father.
“I have to help him.”
Ryan is running towards me. Seeing him sends a surge of relief through me, but I still need to save my baby. I didn’t see where the men went with Dylan.
“Shay, baby. We’ll find him.”
He’s almost to me when I’m grabbed from behind and a gun is pressed to my temple. There is a chuckle in my ear and I know exactly who has me. Fear ripples through my body as I try to figure out what to do to get out of this mess.
“Just what I wanted,” he says to me and then turns and shouts a bit louder. “Perfect timing, Ryan.”
I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified, but he made a promise and I remind him of that. “You promised not to hurt me. I’m family.”
He laughs. “Well, your husband is delusional. Besides, the marriage license won’t be filed until morning. And I do believe that Ryan foiled my cousin’s plan to consummate, so you’re not family yet.”
I have no idea how he knows that, but the thought makes me sick. His grip tightens and I cry out.
“Let her go, Mathis. It’s me you want.”
Ryan and Mathis go back and forth for a few minutes, but I barely hear them. My concern is for my son. I see him again; the same guys from before are now pulling him towards one of the outbuildings.
“Mom!”
I look at my son, unable to speak with Mathis holding me so tightly. Dylan looks so scared and lost. I fight against Mathis but his grip tightens. Ryan turns to our son and Mathis uses the distraction to pull us away from the group. His grip moves from around my shoulders to my arm, with the gun pointed at my back. I’m not sure how far we run when a gunshot sounds and Mathis screams, knocking us both to the ground.
“He shot me!” he says almost astounded.
He fires his gun back. I try to fight him, but he elbows me in the face, making me see stars yet again. He drags me up and behind the side of the garage.
“I’m so looking forward to killing him.”
“Leave him and Dylan alone and I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
Mathis fires his gun again. I squat down against the wall and hold my ears to protect them from the noise and pray that Ryan is okay. Mathis grabs my arm and jerks me up.
“Get up.”
He pulls me along to the edge of the woods, right inside the cover of the trees. Why are we out here? I look around but don’t see anything. He bends down, feeling along in the brush until he finds what he is looking for; he pulls open a door and then shoves me inside. I fall to the floor with a thud. It isn’t a far drop, so I’m not hurt, thankfully, but I’m a little stunned.
“What is this place?”
“One of the hideouts I built.”
“Does Trevor know about it?”
He snorts. “No. He’s been too obsessed with his dream girl to notice anything I did around here. He thinks the bunker is the old foundation from the house that was here a hundred years ago. It took my dad years to complete it and then I added a few more hiding spots here and there. My family is prepared for everything.”
“Is there another exit?”
I’m starting to feel panicky; it’s so small in here. You can’t stand and there’s barely enough room for the both of us. It’s also hard to see anything down here with only his cellphone flash light.
“No. I never got this one finished, that’s where you come in. You’re going to patch up my leg and help me escape.”
“Please, let me go. I want to go home.” I start to cry.
He huffs. “Shut up. I’ll let you go if you help me, but one day when you least expect it, I’ll come back for you.”
“So why should I help you then?” I ask annoyed.
He grins. “Because you can’t help yourself. You’re a do-gooder. It’s in your nature.”
I roll my eyes. “Will you tell me where Dylan is?”
He stares at me for a moment. “Fine, I’ll tell you where the kid is after you patch me up and help me get away unseen.”
“All right, I’ll help you.”
He tosses me a backpack from behind him. “There’s a first aid kit in there.”
I open the bag and pull out a generic first aid kit mostly full of bandages and antibiotic creams, which might help, but the only thing I can use to dig a bullet out with is a pair of plastic tweezers. I do find needles and thread so at least I can sew the wound up, but there’s no numbing agent. Of course, it might be a little satisfying being the one inflicting the pain for a change. I know that’s probably unethical of me, but I don’t care right now.
“This is going to hurt. There’s nothing in the kit to numb the pain.”
“Just do it.” He grabs the discarded backpack and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and chugs it.
“Let me use some of that to sanitize the area.” He rips open his pant leg and pours it on himself, grunting in pain. “It looks like the bullet went clean through. It’s not close to your main artery either. You’ll live.”
“Oh joy. Shut up and fix me.”
I huff. “You know I could just let you bleed to death.”
“I can kill you and then your son will eventually starve to death because they’ll never find him.”
“You won’t,” I say stupidly. I don’t know what it is about this man, but my mouth just flies off the handle when it’s just us.
He laughs. “And why is that?”
I run the first stitch and he hisses in pain. I fight to hide my smile as I continue. “One, because you want to see Ryan suffer. If I’m dead, then he can mourn and move on. Two, I look like your wife. Admit it or not, you really did love her and you probably regret your hasty decision to kill her.”
“Look and act like her, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ll do whatever I have to do to survive, even if that’s killing you. Are you done yet?”
“Yes, I just have to wrap your thigh.”
I hold up the gauze and tape. He motions for me to get on with it and I quickly finish up. I sit back against the wall with my knees up and yawn widely.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“It’s almost six. We need to move soon, or the sun will be up.” He stands testing his leg, then climbs up the short ladder, pushing the trapdoor open. “Get up here. You’re going out first. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you.”
I climb up the ladder and out into the darkness. On the horizon, you can just see the red of dawn starting to rise. In the distance, I can hear voices, but I can’t make out anything clearly.
He climbs out and looks around. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go with me to the next bunker access point. As long as I can get there safely, I’ll let you go.”
“And tell me where Dylan is?”
“Yeah.”
We start walking. He doesn’t bother to aim his gun at me, he just holds onto my wrist and I follow behind him.
“Maybe they found the access to the bunker already.”
He snorts. “They won’t. It’s so well hidden that my men had to have a map and verbal instructions to find them.”
“Where does this access point lead?”
“I’m not telling you that, but let’s just say that by the time they find it, even if you tell them where it is, I’ll be long gone.”
I stare at him for a moment. He’s so sure of himself. I hope his overconfidence leads to his capture, or better yet, death. We continue to walk for what seems like, at the very least, a mile until finally he points in the distance.
“That’s it.”
We’re so far in the woods that I can’t see the house or hear any chatter. We are really isolated from everyone and I’m starting to worry that I won’t be able to find my way back. The only sounds are the morning birds and insects. It’s creepy. He stops, then bends down to a tree stump and pulls it up. He’s used nature to cover his tracks so well that I’m not sure even a professional tracker could find them. He starts to climb inside and I panic.
“Wait! You have to tell me where to find Dylan and how to get back.”
He stops, only his chest and head remain above ground. “How to get back wasn’t part of the bargain.”
“Jason, please.”
“I do love to hear you beg.” He smirks and I immediately glare at him. “Fine. He’s in a bunker, one of the unfinished ones. It’s 100 meters into the woods behind the outbuilding.” He starts to climb back down.
“Wait!” I yell after him. I peer into the hole and see him on a small ladder built into the earth around him. “You said it was hard to find even with the map. What do I look for?”
He thinks for a few minutes then smiles. “Nope, not gonna give you that one. The house is that way.” He points straight ahead and closes the door.
“Jason!” I try to open the hatch, but it won’t budge.
I don’t want to waste any more time so I take off running as fast as I can in the direction he pointed. It’s getting brighter as the sun rises and I can almost see clearly. The field is flooded with light when I break through the trees. I’m at least seven or eight hundred feet away from the house. I can see people walking around, and as I get closer, I can hear Ryan screaming at someone. I run as fast as I can.
“Ryan!” I scream over and over until finally he hears me and takes off running to me. He gets to me quickly, scooping me up in his arms almost at the exact time that I begin to collapse from exhaustion.
“Shayla,” he murmurs, burying his face in my neck.
I hug him as tightly as I can. He pulls back and looks down at me with such relief that it brings tears to my eyes.
“I’ve missed you.”
He chuckles. “Oh, baby. You have no idea. The past hour has been worse than the two weeks you’ve been missing.”
“Two weeks?” He nods. “Wow, I had no idea I was gone that long. Have you found Dylan?”
His eyes immediately fill with tears, and I shove away from him. “Don’t you dare tell me that after all this he’s dead?” I can’t breathe.
He shakes his head and swallows. “I don’t know. We can’t find him anywhere. The men who took off with him won’t talk. I’ve beat the crap out of them and they still won’t mutter a word.”
“I know where he is.” I take off running, a renewed energy flowing through me.
“Shayla! Wait!” I don’t stop. I can’t. I have to find my son. Others join us, but I pay them no attention.
He catches up to me quickly. “Where are you going?”
“He told me where Dylan is.”
We make it to the tree line behind the outbuilding. “Mathis told you where to find Dylan? Why would he do that?”
“Because his plan was messed up, but he’ll be back when we least expect it.”
“You say that like it’s no big deal.”
I stop and look around. “It is a big deal, but I can’t think about that right now. We have to find our son.”
“Right. Dylan!” We both yell repeatedly. I hear a faint muffled sound to my left and head there. There’s nothing but dead leaves and twigs.
“The hideouts are covered in leaves and stuff. The one he escaped through used a stump to open it.”
I start pulling on every small stump I can find, as I continue to call for Dylan. Ryan, who is doing the same and also scanning each tree for a possible lever, hasn’t let me get very far from him, for which I’m actually grateful. We search everywhere and come up empty handed. Finally, after what seems like hours, I hear my dad call out for us.
“Here!”
I run towards the sound of my father’s voice. It takes him and two others to pry the door open, but they finally break it open and pull a tied and gagged Dylan out of the ground. I wrap my arms around him tightly, not caring that he can’t do the same. I cup his beaten face in my hands.
“I’m so happy to see you.” I say as I pull the gag from his mouth as Ryan and my father untie him.
“Me too. Are you okay?” Dylan asks me as Ryan takes his turn hugging our son. He doesn’t say much, but I can see the relief in his face at seeing Dylan alive.
“I’ll be fine, baby. We need to get you checked out. Do you think you can walk?” I ask him.
He limps a little. “Yeah, I don’t think anything is broken, but I twisted my ankle.
“Here.” Ryan wraps one of Dylan’s arms around his shoulders and his arm around Dylan’s waist to help him walk. “Let’s get you to the medic.”
“Can we slow down?” Dylan asks.
Ryan comes to a stop. “What’s wrong?”
Dylan shakes his head. “I’m just really tired.”
Smith, one of Linc’s men, comes up to us. “I can carry him.”
Dylan shakes his head. “I just need to rest for a minute.”
“Sweetie, I think you should let him help you.”
I rub his back tenderly. He finally nods. Carefully, Smith lifts him up bridal style and carries him the rest of the way without seeming to have any trouble. Once the medic has checked both Dylan and I out, they load us both into the same ambulance. Ryan climbs in behind me, taking my hand and kissing the back of it. I lean my head against his shoulder and sigh in relief.
“Ryan?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Is Trevor dead?”
“Yeah, he bled out.”
“Good.”
I can’t believe we are finally going home. I didn’t think it would really be happening. I didn’t want to accept my fate with Trevor, but I would have if Ryan wouldn’t have shown up. I would have done anything to keep Dylan safe.
The steady hum of the ambulance traveling down the road lulls me into a sleep like state. I can hear the soft chatter of the EMT’s and Dylan’s answers to their questions. I can hear Ryan’s soothing words in my ear, but none of it completely registers to me as I fall deeper into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ryan
Shayla doesn’t stir as we arrive at the hospital, so I carry her inside. She had insisted that Dylan have the stretcher in the ambulance, which was a good call. He seemed to be in worse shape physically than she was, at least in appearance. I think she probably has had far more damage inflicted mentally.
The doctors at the hospital insist on separate rooms for Shayla and Dylan for the examinations. Of course, I understand the reasoning, but it’s still hard to choose between them, but Gail and Tom offer to stay with Dylan; so I readily agree. I’m sitting beside the bed, holding Shayla’s hand, when Julie, the nurs
e who helped Shayla and I when we first started investigating, comes into the room.
“Hi, Detective.”
“Nurse Julie.”
She gives me a warm but sad smile as she picks up her chart. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s okay, I guess. The doctor seems to think this is normal.”
She nods as she reads a bit more. “Yeah, she’s suffered a lot of trauma. Her body is healing. Sometimes that means shutting down and resting.”
“That’s what they tell me. Have you seen Dylan?”
“I’m actually his nurse today. He’s doing well.”
“I went to see him for a few minutes earlier. Is he awake?”
“I believe he’s still sleeping.”
Julie checks over Shayla’s vitals and then leaves us. I rest my head on the bed, still clutching Shayla's hand. The past two weeks have been miserable, but the past twenty-four hours have been almost unbearable. After Shayla disappeared with Mathis, I went berserk. I beat Trevor to death, literally, trying to get answers on Shayla or Dylan’s whereabouts. He didn’t know anything. He was only a pawn to Mathis’ masterplan, he just didn’t know it. I close my eyes as I think back to what happened with Trevor.
“What now, Ryan?”
Marsh stands with his hands on his hips, glaring at me as I stand over Trevor’s lifeless body. I know I should feel guilty about this but I don’t. The man was crazy.
“I’ll beat every one of them to death if it will help me find my family. I’m done playing games, Marsh. I won’t lose them after getting this close.”
“I understand.”
I know he’s trying to defuse my anger, but I can’t calm down. I’m past that point.
“No, you don’t! You’ve never had your family taken from you. You’ve never had to wonder if they were being hurt or abused, or if they were suffering, or dead. I’m done wasting time.”
I move passed Marsh and over to two of the men who had taken off with Dylan earlier. I’m getting answers, one way or another.
“Tell me where you took my son!” I scream as I get in their faces.
The man who seems to be the leader, smirks at me. “There’s nothing in it for us to tell you anything.”
Vengeance (Oak Grove Suspense Book 1) Page 30
