Gap-tooth snatched Parker up by the tight curls of his head and dragged him across the floor. Parker tried to buck out of the painful grip, but there was little use. Entering the beverage cooler, Gap-tooth dropped Parker to the floor and left. After a moment, he came back in pulling Ava by her hair and dropped her down a few feet away from him.
Gap-tooth squatted down again and slapped Parker on the leg. Then he took hold of the neck of the bottle still sticking out of Parker’s thigh and pushed it deeper into the muscle. Parker ground his teeth together to keep from crying out, but Gap-tooth twisted sharply, and he screamed. Gap-tooth twisted again then, pressing hard, and the glass fang broke in his hand, leaving a sliver the size of a Scotch tape dispenser in Parker’s thigh.
The man finally stood then, cradling the Mossberg in his arms. He regarded the writhing Parker with satisfaction. “That’s the only reason you’re even still alive,” he said. His voice was matter-of-fact. “So I can watch you die of infection.”
He turned toward Ava and grabbed the bulge in the front of his stinking jeans, his abdominal muscles flexing. “I’ll see you later, blondie.” His face suddenly split in an almost beatific grin, matchstick cocked up at a jaunty angle with his gap on prominent display. “Oh, yeah, and just so you know what you have to look forward to,” he said, and winked, “sodomy-wise, I’ll leave the door open.”
Resting the Mossberg on his shoulder again, he strolled out of the cooler.
8
Parker looked down at his leg. His pants were soaked with blood and more of it was pooling on the dirty floor, making mud out of the grime. He panted, breathing like a woman in labor. He could just barely see the tip of the glass poking out from his wound as his body began trembling with directionless adrenaline.
Ava rolled over onto her stomach and began inch-worming her way toward him. He looked at her in confusion.
“Do you have any blood borne pathogens?” she asked.
“What?”
“Blood borne pathogens,” she repeated. “Anything like Hep C, or HIV, or anything else? Tell me!”
Confused, Parker shook his head.
“Good,” she said. She continued inching toward him.
Outside, through the open cooler door, they heard men laughing. Ava froze at the sound. She shut her eyes tight and a shudder of disgust gripped her body with almost seizure-level intensity. “If I never hear another group of men laughing again,” she said, her teeth clenched, “I’ll die a happy woman.”
Parker tilted his head and looked between the beverage racks of the cooler. He didn’t answer Ava, but she didn’t need an answer; he understood perfectly how she felt. He saw movement, and then AR-guy and Gap-tooth dragged into view a beaten woman, a brunette with the look of a once-upon-a-time soccer mom written all over her, and pushed her down.
“Knees,” AR guy said.
“Oh, fuck,” Parker moaned.
“That’s all her trouble and none of our own,” Ava said. “You can’t save everybody.” Her voice was somber.
He looked down at her. She’d crawled right up to him through the broken glass and the puddle of his blood, her face even with his hips.
“Look at that,” Gap-tooth said, speaking of the soccer mom. “She knows the position.” Men laughed.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Parker all but hissed at Ava.
“We’ve got to get that fucking sliver out of your leg immediately; the longer it stays in there, the faster infection will spread and, most importantly, the longer that glass will keep cutting away at your muscle fibers.”
She scooted forward, struggling to get into position. With her hands and feet tied behind her, she had to first rest her cheek on his thigh, then inch her face along his leg toward the wound.
“Look at her head bob,” a younger, tenor male voice giggled. “You were right; eventually, they get what the fuck they have to do!”
“You’re fucking lucky, Shitbird,” Gap-tooth replied. “If she hadn’t caught on, I was going to fucking shoot her and teach you how to suck a dick, Lawrence-style.” Men laughed.
“In your dreams,” Shitbird replied in his squeaky tenor. His voice had cracked a little.
“You say no to me in a dream,” Gap-tooth said, “you better wake up and apologize.”
Parker glanced up at the activity in the other room, but the men had gathered around the woman and he couldn’t see what was going on. He looked down at the back of Ava’s head as she tried to help him. Tears built up in the backs of his eyes—tears of helpless frustration, tears of fear for what this girl was facing, and tears of rage at himself for how badly his flawed plans had turned out for everyone.
“You can’t suck infection out like snake venom,” he argued. His voice almost broke. “You can’t even really suck out snake venom; that’s a myth.”
Gagging noises echoed through the open door from the front of the looted store. He’d winced at the word “suck” when he’d said it. His fists balled up into clubs of rage. Enough, enough, he told himself, stop being a junkie and start being a cop; start being smart.
When Ava answered, her lips were near the tear in his jeans and her breath was warm on his skin. “I know, Parker,” she said. “You’re already infected, but if I can get the glass out, you might still be able to fight and run, and you might bleed most of the bacteria out.”
“I, uh,” he fumbled forwards. “Thank you.”
“Shut up, Parker,” Ava said.
Then he felt her lips on his wound and the pain made him flinch. He knew his blood was getting in her mouth as her teeth dug around to find a grip on the glass shard. Six weeks he’d wasted after prepping for years, and then insisting on riding out on the open roads, even after the near miss with the guardsmen should have given him all the warning he needed to realize Eli was right—because here they were, right where they shouldn’t be.
Dear God, Eli, he thought. Then, he blinked away the image of his friend and thought. Whatever they do to Ava, it’ll be my fault. Then, almost as fast: I wish I had an Ativan.
Her voice muffled, Ava said, “Don’t scream.”
Parker grit his teeth. He concentrated all his focus on the pain in his wrists, trying to block all conscious thought away from his leg. Ava jerked her head up and the piece of glass cut its way free, bringing a fresh torrent of blood with it. Parker’s body was instantly soaked with sweat, but he managed not to cry out.
“My turn,” Gap-tooth said outside the cooler. Men laughed.
“I want to go! I want to go!” Shitbird protested.
Parker heard a sound he recognized, fist on flesh, and he looked over in time to see someone drop to the ground. He had an impression of a skinny, younger man, but the bottom of the cooler blocked his view.
“We got what we call a hierarchy around here, am I right?” Gap-tooth commented. “You know that. And Shitbirds go last; it’s the motherfucking law of the jungle, bitch.”
Ava had turned her head and spat the glass out along with a mouthful of Parker’s blood. She breathed heavily for a moment, gathering her strength. Then she pushed herself into Parker and managed to get into a sitting position.
“What about the bleeding?” she asked. Her face and chin were smeared with his blood, her teeth red with it. She turned her head and spat out some more residue.
“It’s dark, venous,” Parker said. “That’s better than bright red, arterial. That’s good. Bleeding’s also good for the infection.”
“But if it keeps up?”
Outside, AR-guy barked an order. “Shitbird, go see how much tweek is left! I intend to use this boner all night long.” Men laughed.
“But…” Shitbird began protesting.
“Really?” Gap-tooth asked. His voice was mild.
“I’m on it,” Shitbird said quickly, and they could hear rustling as he walked away.
“But if it keeps up,” Parker said, “I’ll bleed out. However, I think it’s going to clot fine. The amount coming out is already slowing. I’m clot
ting.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced, even to himself.
“Is there anything I can do?” Ava asked.
She rested her head against his shoulder and, after a moment, Parker lowered his own onto hers. She’s my friend, he thought, maybe one of the best I’ll ever have. The thought made him think about Finn and hope she was all right.
Outside, AR-guy spoke up. “I’m bored. Let’s do something else.”
“Face down, ass up! Face down, ass up! Face down, ass up!” Gap-tooth sang out. AR-guy laughed and the third rapist, who Parker couldn’t see, started a second chorus of “Face down, ass up!” with Gap-tooth.
“Hey!” Shitbird protested. “I didn’t get a bl—”
“Shut the fuck up, Shitbird,” AR-guy snapped. Men laughed.
Parker felt Ava jerk against him and knew he had to speak up, figuring the potential for him bleeding out would distract her from the rape taking place mere feet away from them.
“No, don’t worry about it,” Parker told Ava. “Direct pressure is the only thing short of an ER and that’s not an option right now.”
“We already know we can’t get our hands past our hips. What if I rolled over?” she suggested. “You could chew through what they tied us with?”
“It’s industrial strength plastic on these zip-ties,” Parker said. “Our abductors know their business.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Parker said. “We need a chance, though.”
As if to punctuate his point, the woman they’d brought in began whimpering outside the door. They heard the violent slap of flesh on flesh, a damp, organic sound.
They sat quietly for a long time then, hate growing darker in their hearts. Sometime later, the pure exhaustion of the events caught up to them and they both dozed off.
Parker woke with a start later, jolted awake.
“What was that?” Ava asked. Her voice was thick with sleep.
“Gunshot.” Parker said. “Just one, outside.”
Then, somewhat faintly, they heard something else. Men laughing.
9
Parker came awake, shouting. Pain exploded in his wounded leg and he felt something tear before blood ran down his leg again. It must have clotted by now, he thought, confused.
“I said get the fuck up!”
He blinked and looked up. By voice, he recognized Shitbird. The kid was younger than Ava, meth-skinny and meth-jittery, his face an explosion of pimples and his hair lank with grease under a grimy Confederate flag hat with an American flag pin in it.
He held an AR-15 of his own and there was a K-bar combat knife in his hand. He grinned, showing that his dental hygiene was in line with the rest of his crew. He held up the K-bar.
“I’m going to uncut your legs,” he said. “You try anything and Wheeler says I can gut-stab you, nigger, and get first turn with Susie Sunshine here.” His grin faded. “I never get first turn.”
“Yes,” Parker said. “You seem like a well-respected member of the crew. Shitbird, is it?”
“Shitbird,” Ava laughed. “More like ‘little bitch,’ you feel me?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Shitbird shouted at her. Spittle formed white cobwebs in the corner of his mouth.
Parker saw his pupils were blown. He’s high as fuck, he thought. Like I have any room to judge. Then he moaned in agony as Shitbird kicked the foot of his injured leg.
“Don’t call me that!” he yelled. “Wheeler says niggers got to call us ‘sir’.” He turned on Ava and showed her the eight-inch blade of the K-bar. “He also told me mouthy cunts don’t need both nipples.”
Ava swallowed, and Parker fought to regain his composure. After he got his breath, he tried talking the kid down.
“Okay, sir,” he said, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “We’re very sorry if we disrespected you.”
Shitbird looked at him. “It’s not only niggers,” he said. “Others got to call us ‘sir’, too. Wetbacks, Chinks, everybody.” He pointed his knife at Ava. “And all split-tails, even if they’s white.”
“Whatever you say, sir,” Ava replied, taking her cue from Parker.
Shitbird wiped his nose with a crusty sleeve. “Goddamn right,” he said.
Bending down, he quickly hooked the edge of his blade under the plastic zip tie binding Parker’s legs and cut him free. Shitbird squatted there for a moment, giving Parker a look that said, ‘Go ahead, try and kick me, see what happens.’
Parker kept still and, after a moment, Shitbird cut Ava’s feet free. Standing, he backed up, sliding his knife into a belt sheath. Parker noticed he had a tattoo of a Confederate flag on his neck when he glanced sideways and his hair shifted. The avalanche of pimples on his cheek spilled over his narrow jaw and cropped up inside the faded ink.
“Get up,” he told them.
“Our legs are asleep,” Ava protested. “We can’t get up on our own.”
Shitbird adjusted the AR in his hands. He spit brown tobacco juice at her, splashing her legs. “That ain’t no fucking concern of mine,” he said. “Now get the fuck up before I decide you’re trying something funny.”
Parker and Ava slowly, clumsily, got to their feet, hands still bound behind them. Shitbird backed out of the cooler then, holding the muzzle of the AR on them. Once they were outside the cooler, Parker saw two empty bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label on the floor. And blood splatter congealing on the linoleum.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want you to go out the rear door behind the counter right there, nigger.”
Park winced internally at the repeated use of the word. It’s the lack of imagination that gets under my skin the most, he thought. I’m black, you’re a fucking racist, I get it. Come up with some new material already.
Afraid Shitbird’s meth-induced volatility could explode at any moment, though, he kept quiet. Walking in front of Ava, he turned sideways and pushed against the EMERGENCY bar on the rear door, and stumbled outside, trying to favor his good leg. He squinted against the autumn sunlight.
He moved a little way from the door and stood, waiting for Ava and Shitbird to come out. They needed to escape; the situation was dire. He held little doubt that he could have one-punched Shitbird under normal circumstances. While he was trained in police-grade defensive tactics, he wasn’t a karate expert, and he didn’t know if he had enough skill to kick the AR out of the kid’s hand and then take him down—hell, he wouldn’t have known even if one of his legs hadn’t been throbbing in pain and his skin feverish with infection.
Ava came out a moment after him, also blinking against the sunlight, Shitbird right behind her. Parker looked down at the kid’s logging boots and suddenly recognized them as one of the ones that had been using his head for a football earlier. Pissed off all over again, he used the energy to survey the area, looking for tools or advantages.
He looked left to right, clocking the back of the store with a trained eye. Green shattered glass on the pavement; black garbage bags stuffed to bursting piled against a cement block wall next to the door. On the other side of the wall, a stack of rotting pallets and a dirty, green garbage dumpster. Clouds of flies hung over the refuse, big enough for their droning to be an annoyance. The smell of deep fryer grease remained so strong Parker almost gagged on it.
He saw two shovels lying on the ground.
Shitbird pulled out his knife and cut Ava’s hands free. Backing up, he threw the knife on the ground in front of her. He gestured with his muzzle.
“Cut him free; then throw the knife on the ground and back the fuck up.” He suddenly remembered to add, “Bitch.”
Ava looked at him, taking a moment to rub circulation back into her wrists.
“Guh-on!” Shitbird snapped, his voice breaking on the command.
Puberty’s really fucking with him, Parker decided.
Ava bent and picked up the knife. Parker turned his back to her, and she cut him free. His numb hands instantly filled
with pins and needles, and he turned around, already rubbing at them. Ava stood beside him, still holding the K-bar. He froze.
“Drop it,” Shitbird ordered, getting excited.
“Ava,” Parker said softly.
“The girl,” Ava said. “Where’s the girl from last night?”
Shitbird raised the AR to his shoulder. “You want to find out? Wheeler said—”
“You could go first,” Ava cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” She threw the knife down. “What happened to her?”
“Pick up those shovels and start walking,” Shitbird said. “You’ll see soon enough, bitch.”
“Bitch,” Ava said with him, finishing the sentence in sync with the kid.
“You call me ‘sir’!” he shouted at her. “You call me sir! Wheeler said you got to call me, ‘sir’!”
Parker, no stranger in his police work to meth psychosis, recognized how close the kid was to the edge.
“Easy, sir,” he said. “Ava, not now, not now. Call him ‘sir’.”
She looked at him, and then nodded faintly. “Sir,” Ava said, her voice flat.
“N-n-now you turn around and you fucking walk with those shovels!”
“Yessir, yessir,” Parker said. “We’re walking. Ava, pick up the shovels, please. I don’t know if I can bend without starting to bleed again.”
Ava bent down and grabbed both shovels, handing one to Parker. Taking them, they began walking. Stepping off the cracked asphalt behind the convenience store, they entered a field of cheatgrass, following a worn footpath toward a stand of elms about a hundred yards away. At the edge of the field, they found out what had happened to the woman.
Parker had been at more murder scenes than he wanted to remember, though he remembered every single one. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened here.
She’d been forced to kneel and then executed with a single shot to the back of the head. She’d pitched forward on her face, still on her knees. Face down, ass up, face down, ass up! He heard them chanting in his head. He looked away.
Dead End (911 Book 2) Page 9
