by Nicole Fox
Careening down the stairs, I caught up with Dean. He was pushing all of his weight against the drop-down safety ladder at the top, slamming his little fists and feet against it with all of his might. He didn’t possess the leverage or the weight to dislodge it. “Dean!” I said urgently.
He stepped aside, his face filled with disappointment at his inability to help. His eyes grew wide as he glanced above us, his eyes darkening with real, tangible fear. So I wasted no time in slamming my boots down onto the ladder as hard as I could manage.
The ladder slammed down into place with a sound like a shotgun blast. A few heads poked out of open windows, eyes wide, only to duck back inside. They were smart to keep away from us. I hoped against hope that someone would help us, but a quick look up as we climbed down the stairs made it pretty clear that everyone else in this rotting shithole was never going to do anything to help any of us.
And who stuck their necks out for anyone anymore?
But it didn’t matter. We had to get out of here, with or without help. Several men were climbing down the escape after us. Dean stumbled away from the parking lot as his feet hit the pavement. I followed, my breath short and my heart thundering. “Which way should I go?” Dean yelled over his shoulder, his voice already breathless.
“Head towards the main road!” I called after him, my lungs on fire as I tried not look behind me. I’d only fall over my own feet trying to see how close they were behind me. So I ran blindly, the gun in my fingers.
But I couldn’t shoot it at them; I just couldn’t. Even in my panicked state, the thought of shooting someone else made me nauseous.
Colton is right. You are weak and useless.
Unable to stand it anymore, I turned to glance behind myself. The men were slowly gaining on us from behind, murder in their eyes. Bile rose in my throat. But before I could turn around, I slammed into a brick wall.
Thrown to the ground, all of the air fled my lungs, leaving me breathless and empty. The gun flew from my hands, skidding across the pavement as Dean screamed at the top of his little lungs. In front of me, there was a man. He was built like a mountain; he was the wall I’d run into. I couldn’t catch my breath and none of my muscles appeared to be working. Dean flew to one side, evading the mountain man’s grasp.
I couldn’t catch my breath to tell him to run, but my mind screamed it so loud that it drowned out all of the other sounds around me.
Dean dove for the gun, but the mountain man was too fast. He batted it away, grabbing hold of the back of Dean’s shirt and lifting him off of the ground. The world went a little black around the edges as I continued to gasp for air.
But we had been taken, and there was nothing I could do to save us.
The men finally caught up, and the seven of them threw us into the back of the van. Pain lanced through my side as I felt the world fade in and out. But where was Dean? Panic, panic, and pain. But no, he was there. I could hear him breathing beside me. I could feel the pounding of his little sneakers against the metal walls. “Let us out!” he demanded. But no one was listening.
Whatever happened, at least we were in this together.
Chapter Twenty
Colton
I could not breathe.
Rage boiled over my mind, tinting the whole world around me red. I vaguely recognized that two men were holding onto my arms, physically restraining me from tearing out of the wrecked clubhouse and into the darkness outside.
“Who took them?” I asked, my voice deadly, calm, and quiet.
“The manager of your building called; he said he didn’t know.” Tank’s voice was also calm like he was talking to a raging bull. I couldn’t seem to think clearly, and I knew I had to kill something. Someone would die for this. I wanted to feel the life slip out of them as I wrapped my hands around their throats. I wanted them to pay for what they did to my son and Marion.
They would pay. I would see to it.
Jade’s voice floated through the haze of violence around my mind. “Colton, you getting this upset isn’t going to solve anything. We need to find out who took them first and what they wanted them for.”
My eyes focused on her face. There were more age lines on that beautiful face than there had been the day before. Before all of this violence had come down on the Heaven’s Horns, spattering like blood spray into my own life.
This had to be Lyman’s fault. Marion was right. I made the wrong decision and now Dean is paying the price for it. If they hurt him--
A soft brush of fingers across my arm brought my attention back to the present. Jade is still there, her brow furrowed with worry. She was holding onto my arm suddenly. “We’ll find them, Colton. We just need to think. Who would do this?”
Tank took a deep breath, slowly releasing my arm. There must have been something in my face that made him let go. “It could be any of the other clubs; they might just be trying to get your attention.”
“Why my attention? Lyman is in charge and Peter is his second. I’m nobody.”
Tank and Jade glanced at one another, something deep and thoughtful in their eyes. “There are a lot of people here, and out there, who think you will take over the Horns as soon as Lyman is out of the way,” Jade answered, her voice as neutral as possible.
Swallowing hard, I turned to her. “No, Jade. You can’t be serious.”
Jade’s gaze dropped to her feet. “Of course. It doesn’t matter if Peter still holds his position as second. There’s a lot of whispers about how he’s too old to run the Horns. But there is no such talk about you taking Lyman’s throne after he’s out.”
I blinked, glancing around. Tank and the other man who had been holding me back, Michael, both nodded in agreement. Me, the leader of the Horns? Why would anyone think that was something I wanted? More than anything in the world, I wanted to be out of this life. If it hadn’t been for Dean, I’d be out already.
I shrugged off those thoughts, turning my mind back to more immediate concerns. Marion and Dean had been taken, but who would have taken them. It was most likely the same group who decided to attack our base. That queasy feeling that appeared every time I thought too much about what Lyman was getting us into returned, tying my stomach in knots.
“We need to go to the motel now. I need to know what happened. I need to find them.” I turned back to Tank, who looked like he was ready to dive towards me again, holding me back from doing anything rash. But I was well beyond my initial rage, and the world seemed empty, cold, and clear. I was calculating my revenge, my mind filled with ice.
“Okay, Colton. If you think that’s best, let’s do it,” Jade said, but her eyes were on Tank. They were doing that silent communicating thing again. I didn’t care what they were thinking so hard at each other about. I just wanted to find Dean and Marion.
The four of us jumped into Jade’s ancient van. I was always surprised when it started up; it was older than most of the men in the Heaven’s Horns and nearly rusted through in several places. But somehow, the engine always turned over, even in the bitter cold of dead winter or the broiling sun of high summer. Nothing ever seemed to bother this giant bucket of bolts. Jade was as attached to it as I’d ever seen anyone get attached to a vehicle.
It took less than fifteen minutes to get to the motel, but it felt like an eternity. My mind kept wandering to the very worst possible scenario. The world seemed to fade in and out around me, my mind tangled up in the ice and fire of the potential pain that waited for me at home. My lungs felt small and useless, my fingers twisted around each other, my head felt like it was full of air.
The motel was quiet; most of the citizens were probably bunkered down in their rooms, hoping to avoid any of the fallout from club activity on their block. It was pretty standard procedure for those who did not want to be involved; it is what I would have done in their same situation. Who wants to be caught up in other’s business? But it still made my blood boil to know that any of those cowards could have helped somehow.
Lyman and C
ara were already there when I arrived, and I could feel my blood boiling harder. Who the fuck told these two about the kidnapping? Furious, I was forced to join the two of them. The Boss seemed to have something on his mind, and I could not be able to go against whatever decision he made.
Grumbling, I waited beside Lyman for him to acknowledge me.
“You know the Cartel would happy to help return any of your people, Colton,” Cara started. She looked more subdued than usual, but I ignored her. The last people I needed to help were the ones who got me into this in the first place. “We- we feel that protecting the Heaven’s Horns is now something of a personal cause that must come first.”
I rolled my eyes, not taking my eyes off of Lyman’s face. He was examining the front of the motel, his mouth curved down in an unusual frown. “You live in this shithole, Colton?” he asked, cutting into whatever nonsense Cara was about to start spouting again.
“Yes, it was all I could find on short notice after our house burned down,” I answered, trying to keep whatever emotions were trying to surface at bay. Explaining all of those painful, fear-filled hours in such a terse, emotionless sentence made me feel a little like I was lying, but I kept my thoughts to myself.
The fire and why it happened is not up for discussion at the moment. But that too was Lyman’s fault. The men coming after Dean, and now Marion, this was all Lyman’s fault. The marks against him were steadily growing.
I swallowed those thoughts hard, but they stuck in my throat like thumbtacks. I couldn’t seem to breathe properly around them, or around the rage that inevitably boiled up around them.
“Well, getting your son back is, of course, a number one priority. Your son is just as much part of this as we are and less able to defend himself.” Lyman scratched his chin, glancing up at the darkening sky. It was nearly dark, and they would have to get a move on if they were going to figure out who had him in time.
“What about Marion?” I asked before I could stop myself. Both Cara and Lyman turned to me as if jerked by strings, their eyes narrowed and their pose defensive.
“What about Marion?” Lyman asked, his voice a careful neutral. “She’s not part of the Horns. She is of no concern of mine. Or yours.” There was a warning in his voice, one I wanted to punch out of him. But instead, I said nothing. “We don’t have time to mend the lives of our collateral damage. It’s not any fault of yours or mine that she got caught up in this.”
Jade cleared her throat. “We should check your room and see if they left some sort of ransom note or something. Which one is yours?”
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to Jade. “Follow me; I’ll show you.”
Jade and Tank were both silent as they followed me up the familiar stairs. I could feel my feet dragging at the thought of what we would find inside of my place. I wanted it all to be a joke. I hoped I’d throw open the door to my motel room and find Dean jumping on the bed, a smile on his grubby little face. Marion would be hiding in the kitchen, making a meal out of the nothing we’d had money for.
But there was nothing inside. A few odds and ends had been knocked over and the window was broken and spattered with blood. But the worst part was the suffocating emptiness of it. There was no Dean to scream at him, no Marion to give a hesitant smile. How had these things become so damned important?
“Look at this,” Tank said as I scanned the room. He picked up a dirty-looking piece of paper off of the carpet, glancing over it. “You’ll wanna look at this, Colton.”
I snatched the paper from his hands, so impatient I ripped the corner. On it was a sloppily written note in pen written on the back of a receipt.
This is C. I think we can both agree what’s going on isn’t right.
It’s time to talk.
Your son is collateral. Come alone without telling anyone and you will both leave here alive.
You know where to find me. This is to talk.
I crumpled the paper up in rage, tearing it to tiny pieces and scattering them around the room. Virgil is behind this. Virgil Ulrich, the leader of the Shadow Cave. I wanted to shred him to bits, too. Anger surged in my chest and I slammed my hands into the wall. The dent I made only seemed to drive my anger higher rather than relieve any of it. “He wants me to meet him, alone, without telling Lyman.”
“We can all guess why,” Jade said, her voice soft and low. She crossed her rail thin arms over her chest, her blue eyes boring into my soul. “Will you go?”
“Fucker hasn’t given me much of choice, now has he?”
Sighing, Jade laid a gentle hand over my shoulder. “Keep in mind that Marion is an orphan. She has no friends and no family. If you don’t save her, then no one will.”
That stopped me short. “She’s an orphan?” Jade just nodded in response, no emotion on her pretty face.
I knew getting tangled up with her was a mistake. How could I be so stupid? But the thought of losing her, especially if it was Lyman’s fault…
No, I had to do something to save her. The question was what. If I came as they asked, would Virgil let her go too?
I really hoped he would. Because I couldn’t be held responsible for how I reacted if something should happen to her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Marion
I pulled at the ropes wrapped tight around my wrists, but that only seemed to make them hurt more. Nausea rose in my belly as panic set in, a panic that I fought against, tooth and nail. Panicking isn’t going to do me any good here. It will only hurt me.
To calm myself, I looked around, trying to keep my brain busy. There were seventeen boxes, filled with who-knows-what, lined up against the far wall of my jail. The room was small, with a tiled floor. I counted one hundred and fifteen tiles; although several were hidden under the stacks of boxes and the twin-sized bed I was tied to, I managed to multiply the amount and guess the rest. There were twelve full-sized, ugly drop ceiling tiles.
But I was running out of things to count.
I leaned forward. If I stretched hard and pulled at the ropes, I could just catch a glance at Dean. He was allowed to sit in the other room, no ropes around his little wrists. They even gave him a pizza and some horrifying zombie movie to watch. He munched on his pizza rather happily, his little sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor he sat on.
The men who watched seemed to have taken a liking to him. I was grateful. At least he would be treated kindly, even if I wouldn’t.
“So, hermanito, who is the girl, eh?” one of them asked. Since the door to my little room was open, his voice wasn’t muffled at all. I froze at the question, holding my breath.
But Dean seemed to be ready with a lie. He made a noncommittal sound, probably shrugging his little shoulders as his eyes remained glued to the TV. “I think she lives on the same floor as me and my dad; she’s a nice lady. I don’t know her name, though.”
“Is that so, little man?” the voice answered, sounding skeptical.
Dean made another noncommittal noise like he had already forgotten what they were talking about. His father’s son, to be sure. “Can I have more pizza?”
“Anything you want, hermanito,” the second voice answered. His voice was less pleasant than the first, and I really hoped he wasn’t going to come in here with me.
The men kept talking, as if to themselves. “So, the girly has nothing to do with Colton?”
“Does that mean she’s free game?”
The voice I didn’t like seemed to be smiling evilly as he said, “I think it does, amigo. I think it does. How should we split her up?”
“One of us has to keep an eye on the boy; who goes first?”
Panic welled up in me, a layer of sweat sliding down over my body. I could feel my fast food chicken nuggets rising in my belly, threatening to make a very gross and very violent reappearance. These men talked about rape like I would talk to someone about eating a damn salad. They want to--
My mind seemed to go blank, the horror of what might be happening in here soon thund
ering through my veins. My blood seemed to turn to ice water in the face of the horrors in front of me.
Who the hell are these people anyway?
Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I had to relearn how to breathe around the lump in my throat. I was silent on the outside, but inside I was wailing, screaming, dreading, praying, and hoping for someone to save me. No matter how unlikely that was.
The sound of a door crashing open thundered through the room, and I nearly passed out from fright. The shotgun sound echoed through my skull like a migraine, shattering what calm I had left. I pulled hard at the ropes, yanking on them even when they cut deep into my skin. My already bloody hands chaffed and split, red blood oozing between the ropes and dripping down onto the mattress below me.
“You’ll do no such thing. If you touch the boy or touch that woman in there, I’ll gut you both myself,” a new voice boomed. There was no emotion in that voice, no threat. Just an icy cold promise. I shivered at the sound of it. There was a wet crackling sound and then silence. After that, a whispered order.
