by Terry Towers
“So we get out and then leave them?”
“Yeah. I have clothing and money set aside in a van hidden in the woods about a mile from the gates that can be split between them all to get them home, or wherever they wish to go. Getting them in the cart over the gravel road is going to be a fucking bitch.”
“How many will need to be sedated?”
“Four. Jenny, of course.” He flashed me a wry smile. “One of the new girls, Felicity, she’s almost as hard to handle as Jenny. Then we have Gabriella and Sam, they’re completely submissive now, so likely won’t want to go without Tanner there telling them to – considering he’ll be dead that isn’t going to happen. The others I think should be okay once they realize that we’re getting them out and not going to hurt them.”
“So how are you going to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Kill them all.” I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know, but I had to ask.
“That’s not something you need to know. Just know, when I get back here we move fast. You’re to do as I say, no questions asked. We’ll have lots of time for questions and arguing later. Are we clear?”
“We’re clear.” He sounded so sure and confident, not even a tremble of uncertainty in his voice or expression. I closed my eyes and envisioned myself showing up on my parents’ doorstep. I couldn’t wait to see the happiness in their eyes. I swore then and there I’d never take them for granted again.
Chapter 22
Lance
Looking around the conference room where all The Boss’s associates were gathered discussing the future of the organization and their current projected revenues, I didn’t feel even a hint of remorse for what I was about to do. I knew all the people in attendance, some I may have considered friends had they not been murderous monsters, but instead all they were to me were marks. Their guards were also in attendance standing against the back wall, pretending to ignore their bosses’ conversations. Like shooting ducks in a barrel.
Glancing at my watch I realized it was time, the conclusion to years of plotting and planning. I took one more look at the man I had considered my father, until I’d learned the truth. I’d even idolized him at one point in my life, hoping to be as great of a man as I perceived him to be. However, now all I felt was contempt.
“If you’ll excuse me, everyone.” Pushing my chair back, I made my way to the door.
“Son,” my father’s voice called out after me.
I paused with my hand on the doorknob of the conference room door and then slowly turned and met my father’s gaze for the last time. “Yes Father?”
“Hurry back, we need to discuss your recent deal and your future with the organization. We’re extremely pleased; you’ve surpassed our expectations.” I met everyone’s gaze – many of them were smiling at me in appreciation – once more and nodded.
“Of course, I’ll only be a minute.” I left the room and closed the door firmly behind me. Pulling a small roll of electrical tape from my pants pocket I ran it along the bottom of the door and along the seams to keep the gas from seeping out into the hallway. Once done, I pulled a small transmitter from my jeans pocket, flipped open the cover and didn’t even pause before hitting the button that released the poison gas into the ventilation system feeding into the conference room. The gas was odourless, colourless and tasteless, I’d blocked the vent so the only place the gas would feed into was the conference room so everyone in the room would be dead in ten minutes, dead before they even realized they were in danger.
There were twelve guards patrolling the interior of the compound, with strict orders to steer clear of the conference room, easy marks. They’d be dead before they even realized I was a threat. Once they were taken care of I’d grab Gwen, the women downstairs and we’d get the fuck out of there. As soon as we were outside the gates, I’d detonate the explosives I’d strategically placed throughout the compound and bring it to the ground. It would takes days, maybe even weeks for officials to get to the bodies and make positive identifications, giving us time to be far away before they began to suspect who was behind their deaths.
Foolproof.
Gwen
“Now!” Lance yelled, bursting into the room where I’d been sitting in the living room, dressed in a pair of his jogging pants and t-shirt, awaiting his arrival.
“Ohmygod!” He was soaked in blood – over his clothing, in his hair, on his face. His? Someone else’s? I had no clue. Jumping to my feet I raced across the room to him and immediately began checking him for injuries.
“Jesus Christ Gwen, stop fussing, you’re wasting time we don’t have!” Grabbing my hand he practically threw me out of the room and into the hallway. Not bothering with closing the door, he grabbed my hand and pretty much pulled me behind him and he ran down the hallway, down the stairs to the main floor, into the library and into the elevator that took us down to the underground floors.
I glanced over at him as we waited for the elevator ding. He had a holster on over his bloody t-shirt. One gun was still holstered while the other, equipped with a silencer, was in his free hand. I also noticed he was wearing a utility belt with extra clips attached to it.
“Where is everyone?” I hadn’t seen a soul, dead or alive, on the way down.
“Dead.” The elevator dinged and we stepped out. Less than a minute later we were in the dungeon with the laundry cart, which had been sitting outside the dungeon waiting for us. He’d really thought of everything. As we stepped into the dungeon the women grew frantic with a mix of emotions ranging from fear to excitement to confusion.
“Ohmygod! Gwen! Are you okay?” Becca asked as she leapt from her cot and raced to the front of the cage.
Lance unlocked the cages for the twins first, yelling at them to get out and stand by the door. Both had looks of confusion on their faces, but did as told without question. He’d only been training them for a week and they were like obedient little puppies.
“Fucking son-of-a-bitch!” Jenny snarled, throwing her entire body against her cell door and glaring at Lance. Jenny looked pure insane, her red curls a twisted mess, her green eyes bloodshot and her body littered with bruises. Not speaking, Lance pulled a needle from a little pouch on his utility belt and jabbed her arm with it.
She squealed, pulling her arm back. “What the fuck!” He proceeded to jab the other three he considered “problem children.” By the time he unlocked the cages of the non-problem girls the four were passed out.
“What the fuck is going on?” Becca ran to me once free and gave me a hug.
I hugged her back. “We’re going home.”
“Gwen!” Lance’s voice had me redirecting my attention where it needed to be – on him. He tossed the keys to me. “Get the other girls’ cages unlocked and have Becca help you pull them out and into the cart.” He hoisted the unconscious Jenny onto his shoulder and placed her into the laundry cart. He had two more girls in the cart, all piled unceremoniously inside, by the time Becca and I had the new wild child inside the cart.
“Let’s go.” He gave the cart a push and headed toward the stairwell. The girls were asking a slew of questions as we followed behind, ranging from where were Tanner and the others, to where were we going to a protest that we were going to get in trouble. All chatter was ignored. Lance didn’t seem to give a shit whether they followed or not; it seemed like as far as he was concerned his part was done.
“The stairs,” I announced, cursing under my breath seeing the cart and then the flight of stairs.
“Everyone grab an edge, we’re carrying it up.”
Surprisingly, the girls all grabbed a side and we lifted the cart. With the dozen of us the cart carrying the four women seemed feather light and we made it to the top in less than a minute. Even more shocking than the fact that the girls helped lift the cart was the fact the chatter had stopped and they all focused on following behind. Perhaps they could feel the freedom the further we got away from the cells – I couldn’t say, only speculate.
>
“If there’s no one to stop us then why are we hurrying?” I whispered to him when we get into the elevator and ascended to the main floor.
“Because this place is going to blow.”
My blue eyes widened in disbelief. “Like blow up, gone?”
“Yea, we need to be as far away from here as possible when it happens. The whole place is going to be like one big incinerator when all the explosives go off.”
The elevator dinged and doors opened to the library.
“Here.” Releasing the cart, Lance passed me the spare gun, with silencer.
“What’s this for?” I asked, accepting the gun with trembling hands. The girls and cart zoomed past us and out of the library.
“Because not all the guards outside are dead.” When he caught my gaze, all emotion was gone from his eyes. He was in some sort of robot commando mode; it both assured and scared me. We caught up to the girls and as the front door to the house came into view, with the daylight streaming into the foyer, excited chatter among the girls erupted. Just seeing the wide smiles and gleam of excitement in their eyes made my heart swell and tears form in my eyes.
Chloe was about to grab onto the door handle when Lance stopped her, his hand on hers. “No. Stay here, be quiet and follow along.”
Chloe nodded and released the handle.
“Gwen.” I went to his side. He leaned into me, his voice low so only I could hear. “Stay close. Don’t hesitate, just shoot. If you hesitate those girls will die because of it.”
He opened the door and immediately raised the gun and in two quick shots, both men – one on either side of the door – were dead before they hit the ground, streams of blood beginning to flow from their heads as they fell.
To my surprise none of the girls so much as made a sound. I looked over my shoulder at them and to my dismay none seemed to be moved by the deaths of the two men. It saddened me; were they all too far gone already? How much mental and emotional damage had they suffered from?
Lance motioned for us to follow along and we quickly made our way out of the house and down the paved driveway. There was a string of high-end cars parked outside, Mercedes, BMWs, a Ferrari and various high-end SUVs. Shit, who were the people dead in the house? How many rich and powerful people took their last breath less than an hour ago?
“Come on, there’s four more guards roaming. Watch for them.” As a group we raced to the closed exit of the high fence.
“Hey! Hold it right there!” a voice commanded from behind us.
Lance didn’t hesitate. Before I even had a chance to look back over my shoulder, he had spun around, aimed, shot once and shot a second time. By the time I turned one guard was dead on the ground and the other was struggling to aim his gun, but the wound on his shoulder was making it difficult. Lance took another shot, hitting the second guard in the center of the forehead and dropping him to the ground.
I caught Lance’s gaze for a brief moment and it was like looking into nothingness. He’d just shot two more people and it was like it didn’t even bother him. Not giving myself time to think about it we moved forward until we reached the guardhouse.
“Where’s the guard?” It hadn’t even occurred to me until we reached the guardhouse that there should be a couple of men in it.
“No longer on duty. One minute.”
“What the fuck!” I turned to the sound of the voice to see another guard running toward us, pulling his rifle from his shoulder. I glanced over at Lance through the guard station window, but he was too interested in whatever he was doing in there to notice the approaching guard. “Don’t move, bitches.”
Don’t hesitate, just shoot. His instruction screamed out in my mind and I listened. Raising the gun, I didn’t even take careful aim, I just began pulling the trigger until nothing was left in the magazine and all that could be heard was a soft clicking noise. The man fell to the ground, but not before getting several shots off. The first shot went high, well over our heads. The second shot plunged into the side of the laundry cart.
I just shot a man… Ohmygod… My entire body trembled as I dropped the gun to the ground. He wasn’t moving. I killed him…
The world began spinning and I stumbled forward. Grabbing the side of the cart, I attempted to steady myself. The spinning increased and I began to fight for air, sucking in deep breaths, but not seeming to be able to get any oxygen in my lungs.
Pain… I groaned as my hand brushed my thigh where the pain seemed to be radiating and when I peered down at my hand it was coated in blood.
Oh God… I’ve been shot…
The world went black…
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Hey girl.” I slowly opened my eyes to see Becca smiling down at me. “’bout time you came around, you gave us quite a scare.”
“Wh-Where…” I frowned, trying to remember the events before the world went black. We were escaping. I shot someone. My frown deepened. “Was I shot?” I attempted to sit up and a surge of pain went radiating up my leg and I cried out.
“Just sit still. You’ve been out for close to a day.”
“What!” I begun to focus on my surroundings, scanning everything frantically. We appeared to be in a small motel room. “Where are we? Where’s Lance? Where are the others? Did we get out?” So many questions and no answers. I struggled to sit up again, only to be forced back down by Becca placing her hands on my shoulders.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’ve lost a fair amount of blood. Just rest.”
“Where’s Lance? Is he okay?”
Becca brushed her hand along my forehead and pushed my hair out of my face. “He’s fine. He just stepped out, he said he needed to get some more supplies before you two leave, he didn’t prepare for you getting shot.”
“Leave? Where are we?”
“We’re about a five-hour drive from the compound. We’re safe, for now.”
“The girls?”
“They’re all on buses headed home. What happens to them when they arrive where they need to be is beyond me, but for now they’re free.”
“Why did you stay?”
“’cause I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” She gave me a soft smile, took my hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t think we’d get out of there.”
I returned her smile and it then occurred to me that my lips and mouth were dry, so dry. “I bet Jenny must have been wild when she woke up.” I gave a soft laugh thinking about how crazy wild she’d be. She’d endured a lot, regardless of whether she’d brought it on herself or not. I knew her dad worked for the LAPD and made a mental note to contact him once I was up and about so I could connect with her and reassure myself that she was okay. Lance had been wrong, she wasn’t a lost cause; I knew it in my heart.
My soft laughter faded seeing Becca’s smile fade and a grim look cross over her face. Tears began to well up in her eyes and spill onto her cheeks. This was the first time I’d seen Becca cry.
“What is it?” My brow creased. “She’s okay, isn’t she?”
“Gwen baby, Jenny’s dead.”
I struggled to sit up and managed this time, ignoring the head rush that came with moving so quickly. “How’s that possible? I mean…”
“The guard who shot you also hit the cart. The bullet went through the bin and hit her. Looks like it punctured her lung. We were in such a hurry to get the group away from the compound and to the van that we didn’t even notice until Lance was lifting the girls out and placing them inside.”
“I wanted to save them all.” I fought back the tears and let out a loud, uneasy sigh. “The other girls.”
“The others are all fine. Jenny was the only casualty.” She took my hands in hers. “You saved us all. Lance admitted to me that you insisted on taking everyone, or refused to go yourself.”
I nodded. “I couldn’t leave you guys behind.”
“That was stupid, girl. I appreciate you stood up for us, but that was stupid.”
The sound of a key being in
serted into the lock had us both turning our attention to the door. When the door pushed open to reveal Lance carrying a brown paper bag, my heart leapt up into my throat. Even worn out and tired looking, Lance was the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on. If I’d had the strength to stand up I would have rushed over to him. Instead I had to settle for Becca releasing my hands and stepping away from the bed, to make room for Lance to take her place.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Becca retreated, exiting the room and pulling the door closed after her.
Neither one of us spoke for a long while, we just looked into each other’s eyes.
“How are you feeling” he finally asked. He pushed back the blanket covering me and examined my leg, which was already bandaged.
“Okay. Leg hurts, but okay. How did it get bandaged?”
“It was a surface wound. It bled a lot, but I was able to fix you up. It’s going to scar though.”
I laughed. “I can add it to my collection.”
His face fell, as if I’d slapped him.
“I’m teasing.” I took his large hand in my tiny ones. “It’s fine. I’m just glad it’s over and I can go home. Ohmygod, my parents are going to be so happy, I can’t wait to see them again. Oh and I know they’ll love you.” A wide grin spread across my lips; I could actually feel my father’s arms around me and the smell of his Old Spice cologne. “My god, when I tell them you saved my life, Dad will likely name a town holiday after you. Lance Day, or something equally as tacky. My dad is the king of corny, but you’ll love him.” I gave him a playful swat on the shoulder, but my smile quickly faded seeing that he wasn’t sharing my excitement.
“What’s wrong?”
He took a deep breath in and slowly released it. “You can’t go back home, Gwen.”
Chapter 23
I wasn’t sure if I had heard correctly. I couldn’t go home? Cocking my head to the side, I eyed him for a hint of a smile; surely he was fucking with me. The smile didn’t come, his expression remaining dour.
