by Mark Mathews
“There were tire tracks at the gas station.” Her eyes grew wide with hope. “They’re fresh, so they must have gotten gas a few hours ago.”
“Where’s Tom? We’ve got to go. We need to get going right now.” Wade smiled at the concern that Sarah showed for the little girl. It was not the first time he thought Sarah would be a good mother to Emily.
It made him wonder what had happened to Emily’s real parents, but just like he didn’t want his privacy intruded upon, he knew better than to ask. Having pumped as much gas as they had cans for, and collected Tom from one of the houses, they’d piled back in the truck and followed in the direction the tire tracks led. Sarah sat there, eyes peeled for any sign of movement. Wade was driving in a relaxed manner, but at a high speed, and Tom was melancholy, staring out the window and dozing. He didn’t want to get his hopes up until they had something more concrete than a tire track. After about three and a half hours, Sarah’s keen eyes picked up a dust cloud.
“Wade! Is that what I think it is?” She was holding on to his hand now, and not even noticing it. Squinting, Wade looked at the dust cloud. He thought he could make out the shape of a motorcycle, but he didn’t want to give her false hope if it wasn’t.
“I’m not sure. All I see is dust.” He pushed the gas pedal down harder, and the truck shot forward fast enough for Tom to be thrown back against the window he’d been resting on.
He was instantly awake and looking around for signs of danger. Not finding any, he got upset, but decided against saying anything. Deep down he wanted to find the little girl, too, but with the world being the way it was, he didn’t think they would find her…alive. As the truck got closer to the cloud of dust, Sarah could make out a figure sitting on the back of a motorcycle, small and frightened. She was shocked to see it was Emily, holding on for dear life, with tears in her eyes. Anger rose in her, as well as a protective instinct that Sarah hadn’t known existed. Looking up at the hulking figure in front of Emily, she realized with a jolt that it was indeed the same man as before. He looked over his shoulder, made eye contact with Sarah, grinned nastily, then revved his engine and drove off the road. Tom saw that, and nerves got the better of him.
“This is only going to lead to more trouble. I think we should stop and try taking them by surprise some other time.” There was fear in his voice, but Sarah turned a cold stare toward him.
“If it were you, we would do the same thing. Stay in the truck and cower if you want, but I’m getting her back.” Wade’s face was grim, too, and Tom didn’t think his pleas would fall on welcoming ears.
It looked as though Wade wanted to go finish what the bikers had started, too. The offer of staying in the truck was starting to sound better and better. The truck found the turn-off the motorcycle had taken, and followed it. When they arrived, Emily was tied to a tree, and four guys that looked very familiar stood between them and her. Sarah’s blood began boiling. She felt like she was really Emily’s mother, and that she was going to do whatever it took to protect that little girl. Including bulldoze over these high school dropouts like nothing. Hell, she was so energized with righteous anger that she didn’t even think she needed her gun. Sarah got out of the truck and started charging toward the group, but Wade held her back.
“We should do this together. Going in hotheaded only will cause problems. We might not get to save her if we can’t save ourselves or each other.” Reluctantly, Sarah had to agree with his reasoning.
“Fine. What’s the plan?” Wade gave her a grim smile.
“Keep each other in sight, then hit everything else that moves.” Sarah liked that plan. She dropped back until Wade was at her shoulder, then the two of them fell into step almost like a military formation.
It made the leader falter a little to see such a united front, and he looked at his cronies, trying to measure them up. Sarah kept Wade in the corner of her eye, then started to shuffle dance around the leader. Emily had been on his motorcycle, so that made him Public Enemy Number One. He was hers. The vibe coming off of her right now was that of a mama bear doing what she had to do to keep her cub safe. Wade had seen right away that she’d had eyes for the leader, and he was happy with taking the potatoes and leaving the meat to her. Sarah was two steps away when he smiled and opened his mouth to taunt her. He never got that far. Sarah threw him a haymaker that snapped his head to one side, and she distinctively heard something crack. He looked at her, put a hand up to his mouth and pulled out a tooth. It gave Sarah a little satisfaction, but before she could enjoy it fully, he reciprocated with a powerful swing of his own. Sarah ducked and stepped quickly to the right, coming up almost behind him. Quick as a serpent striking, she hooked her arm around his throat and pulled as hard as she could. She was a little shorter than him, so he lost his balance as she tugged him backward. Sarah was kind enough to let him rest on her shoulder as she grabbed her own wrist with her other hand. Now it was time for the fun part.
“Bitch you better get off if you know what’s good for you.” His voice was gruff, and he was scrabbling at her arm because he knew what was coming.
Sarah planted her feet farther apart, dragging him down even more. Slowly, she started tightening her arm around his throat. He did what he could to get her off, but the only option he really had was to try kicking her feet out from under her, and since he was having a hard enough time trying to stay upright, he wasn’t going to risk it. Sarah could feel the blood pounding in her ears, and she didn’t pay any attention to what Wade was doing with the other guys. Every now and then she would hear a groan or a loud thump, but she was focused on her revenge. She was going to make sure this man paid for scaring Emily so badly. With a last ditch effort, Sarah pulled her arm so tight that she could feel his chain necklace cut into her chest. She knew she’d have a bruise later, but she could feel him panicking, and that meant he was close to being done. No one lasted long when their air supply was cut off. Less than five minutes later, he went limp in her arms. She held on for a little while longer, feeling the anger drain out of her, now that the deed was done. She let him go and watched as his glassy-eyed stare saw nothing of the world around him.
Snapping out of her bloodlust, she looked around to see how Wade was doing. She’d broken their agreement by not watching him and keeping him in sight. When she found him, he had two men on the ground, motionless, his hands around another’s throat, and the last was crawling away from the scene. She smiled. Even at his age, he was still a force to be reckoned with. She had to admit she was impressed. Assuring herself that he was fine, she bolted to the tree where Emily was tied.
“Hey, Emily, how are you doing? Are you okay? Did they hurt you? It’s okay, Mommy’s here now.” The words were out of her mouth before she could even think about them, and they surprised her as much as they did Emily.
Sarah cut the ropes and Emily fell into her arms. The two of them hugged for what seemed like hours before Sarah took her hand and started leading her back to the truck and safety. She couldn’t believe the boys couldn’t have parked it a little closer. She felt like a sitting duck out here in the open, and she knew it wasn’t helping Emily after the ordeal she’d just been through. The truck meant safety, and the sooner they got into it, the better off they would be. She wished they had just driven the truck through the trees and done some serious off-road driving like in all the movies. The thought made her smile. She held on to Emily and gave her a little squeeze. Sarah was doing her best to reassure the little girl, but she still looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Unbeknownst to her, there was someone watching them. Sarah had Emily, the gang had been dispatched, and her guard was down.
Chapter Thirteen
Emily was shaking, and Sarah held her close, whispering to her that everything was going to be alright. Sarah’s tears blurred her vision, and she closed her eyes to try blinking them away. Emily was crying openly, but Sarah was doing her best to look tough for Emily’s sake. She didn’t hear anything past Emily’s sobbing, and her e
yes didn’t see the man who was hiding in the woods behind them. He, however, saw the both of them. He had a rugged look to him, and his torn shirt and pants were covered in dirt and leaves. His left eye had a dark shadow to it, but it wasn’t from lack of sleep. He must have been in a fight recently, because the swelling hadn’t quite gone down yet. A sawed-off shotgun was sticking out of the waistband of his grimy jeans, and he had a long knife, slightly smaller than a machete.
The way he moved among the trees was almost like a wild animal, and there was no sound to his movements. No tracks were visible to document his path through the trees. He was almost like a panther stalking his prey through the wet leaves of the rainforest. He slunk from tree to tree, hiding in the shadows, until he was behind the tree that Emily had been tied to. With one smooth, calculated motion, his arm shot out, swift as a snake, and his hand closed on Emily’s upper arm like a vice. She screamed out as he yanked her backward. Sarah was caught off guard, lost her balance and then overcorrected without Emily’s weight there to steady her. Sarah’s hands shot out in front of her, and she just narrowly avoided getting a face full of stinking mud and rotted leaves.
“Emily!” Sarah shot to her feet, looking around instantly for any sign of the girl. The man had her arm pinned behind her back, and the poor thing was up on her toes, trying to keep her shoulder from being wrenched out of its socket. Tears were running down her face again, and Sarah felt a jab to her heart that she thought she wouldn’t feel again so soon. She refused to lose Emily now. After everything they’d gone through to get her back from these bastards, she refused to be this close just to have her ripped back out of her arms like that.
“Easy now, mama. You don’t want me to slip and fall. I might break her arm on the way down. Nowadays, that could be enough to kill and you know that. Infection is no joke.”
Adrenaline rushed through Sarah, and she could hear her blood pounding in her ears. She was seeing red, but she couldn’t afford to be reckless because she didn’t know this guy, and she didn’t know what he wanted. Right now, Tom and Wade were combing the trees for more of the motorcycle gang, but something told her this guy wasn’t a part of them. He was a loner, who seemed to be on foot. That made it a little more even when it came to a fight, but with him holding Emily like that, it wasn’t fair at all. The man knew Sarah wouldn’t draw on the two of them and risk hitting Emily. Sarah let go of her anger for just a second, trying to calm herself down so she could negotiate her way out of this. It felt like decades since her last hostage negotiation class at the academy, but she had to at least try. Slowly, she put her hands up, spreading her fingers wide to show that she had nothing in them.
“Okay, look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but all I want is the little girl. I have nothing that you possibly could want, and she doesn’t either. Just let her go and we’ll be on our way.” The ultimatum, she was sure, would be laughed at, but at least she could say she had given him the chance should it turn violent.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I agree with you that this little thing has nothing I want, but having her is going to get me what I need from you. I don’t believe you don’t have anything I want. We’ll talk about it, nice and quiet, then we’ll see who she ends up going with.”
Sarah wanted to slap his impudent smile off his face, but she restrained herself. If she came at him now, then he wouldn’t let his walls down. Granted, she couldn’t play the innocent woman now because she’d already given him a snarky attitude, and she was easy enough to read. There was no doubt about her backing it up should the situation come down to that.
“Okay, so what do you want? What’s it gonna take to get her back?” Sarah was almost grinding the words out through her teeth.
Patience was not one of her strong suits, and right now he was getting down to her last nerve. Unfortunately, he still kind of had her because he still had Emily. She eagerly awaited the moment that he let Emily go, because in that moment, she was going to tear him limb from limb…and she was going to enjoy every bloodcurdling scream of pain that came out of his mouth.
“How many people are with you in your group?” Sarah thought about lying and beefing up her numbers, trying to scare him into giving up Emily, but it could backfire. If he thought that he wasn’t going to get away from here with what he wanted, then he might just hurt or kill Emily and cut his losses.
“Two men.” Simple, short answers were direct and to the point. It showed that she was cooperating with him as best she could, but she refused to give out any details that she didn’t need to. He nodded to himself, and she didn’t know if it was because he was confirming what he already knew, or if he was trying to figure out if she was telling the truth. To be honest, she didn’t even care. She just wanted Emily back.
“You guys got a camp of some sort around here?” It was easy for her to answer that question, and she could even appeal to his humanity a little.
“No. We were drifting from place to place until this motorcycle gang kidnapped Emily.” She gestured to the frightened child. Using the name of a victim usually made the perpetrator relate to the person, thus making it harder for them to do harm to the person because it was no longer a nameless face. She was momentarily proud of herself for remembering that.
“We did what we could to chase them down and get her back. As a matter of fact, I just was telling her that everything was going to be alright when you stepped in and took her from me. If she hasn’t already had a heart attack, then she’ll probably be traumatized for the rest of her life.” His smooth smile slipped, and Sarah thought that he might be giving in and letting her go. He was silent for a second, then looked from Emily to Sarah.
“How did you follow them if they were on motorcycles?” Shit. That meant that she had to admit that they had the truck. How could she have been that stupid? Closing her eyes for a second to try calming herself back down, she breathed slowly and berated herself even more as she answered him.
“We stole a truck from a little town that we found on the way to tracking her.” Now his ears perked up and he got a sly grin on his face.
“See? I told you that you’d have something I want.” He leered at her like the sad little horn dog that he was. Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, making it perfectly clear there was no way in hell that was part of the deal. He shrugged, winking at her anyway. “I’m going to need those keys.” Sarah smiled at him.
“Well, I don’t have them. I didn’t drive. Wade has them, and when he comes back from scouting, you can take it up with him.” The man’s smile faltered a little, but he hitched it back up into place pretty quickly.
“Then I guess we’ll wait for Wade, won’t we?” How much time passed before Wade came back into the little clearing, she didn’t know, but it seemed like an eternity. The man had slunk back into the tree line so he was a little hidden, so when Wade showed up, Sarah was standing alone.
“What happened? Where’s Emily?” Sarah gave him a quick look that said he should shut up and Wade did. The man stepped back out of the trees and smiled at Wade.
“I believe I happened. You must be Wade. See, this little girl here was in her arms and they were having a little hug fest. Then I showed up and snatched her away. I don’t mind giving her back, but there are things I want first.”
Wade’s hands clenched into fists, and Sarah only could imagine what was going through his mind. To come this far and get Emily back, only to lose her again, it was heartbreaking. Wade’s hand twitched, like he wanted to reach for his gun, but he quickly came to the same decision that Sarah had. He couldn’t risk a shot in case it caught Emily. Wade sort of wished Tom was here right now, even if it was just to cause enough of a distraction to get to Emily, but he was cowardly and he was sitting in the car back at the exit.
“What do you want?” Wade spat out the words, and the man adopted a look of mock hurt. Sarah wasn’t the only one who wanted to kill this piece of scum, and now she just wanted to get to him before Wade did,
so she could inflict the most damage.
“Just because the world is this way now doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.” All he got from Wade and Sarah were glares that said he’d be dead right now if only looks could kill. The silence stretched on, and the man shrugged.
“In that case, I just want the keys to the truck.” Wade gave a curt nod.
“Don’t you want to see the truck first before you take it? You might not be able to drive it.” He was hoping to needle the young man into a rage so that he would let Emily go. Then Sarah could get her out of the situation and Wade could take on the man himself. He hesitated for a minute or two, then nodded.
“I guess that would work. Try anything funny, and I’ll break her neck.” The threat was very real, and Wade put his hands up, spreading his fingers wide, as Sarah had done, to show that he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one. Sarah and Wade stayed side by side as they walked back toward the car so they could talk to each other, but still look like they were doing what the man asked.
“There you are. I was wondering when you’d be back.” Tom climbed down from the truck, and no matter how many times Sarah shook her head at him to try getting him to shut up, he just didn’t get it. When Emily and the man broke the coverage of the bushes, he froze, looking from Sarah to Wade.
“What’s going on here?” Wade made it to the truck and opened the driver’s side door so the man could look inside. Granted, in Wade’s opinion, it should be obvious the old truck had a hydraulically-controlled automatic transmission..
“We’re going to be giving the truck to this nice young man in exchange for Emily.” Wade’s words hit Tom hard.
“What? No! We need this truck. Why don’t you just shoot him?” Tom was getting riled up, and he was about to let slip how they’d bested the motorcycle gang when Sarah interjected.
