by Hope Stone
So, I kicked again and heard a small crack. So much for my Charlie’s Angels moves. “Help me!”
All three of us started kicking the shit out of the window until finally it shattered.
“Bailey. You go first. Lily, watch how she does it.”
I wrapped Bailey up in the curtain until she was safely through the opening and then took it back in when she reached the tree. Bailey slid down the tree like a fire pole. It probably hurt like hell, but at least she was free.
Lily was next and I was surprised at how quickly she moved. She was out and down the tree in less than a minute.
Now it was my turn. At twenty five it had been a long time since I’d snuck out any windows. It took me a couple minutes longer, but also because I was wrestling with the damn curtain. Finally, I got out, but I could feel blood dripping somewhere. Whatever, I didn’t have time to look.
Shimmying down the tree was no small feat, either, and I made a note to get to the gym more often.
As soon as my feet touched the ground, I was ready to run to the car.
Except for one little problem. I was staring down the end of a gun, being held by a guy standing two feet from me. Where the hell did he come from? Behind him, two other guys were holding Bailey and Lily.
Dammit! We were so close.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” This must be that Diablo guy, because his voice sounded the same. “You think you are going to steal from me? Those girls represent twenty thousand dollars.” He took a step forward and said, “You, on the other hand, are a worthless puta. I should fucking kill you right now.”
I started hyperventilating and felt sheer panic. This was how I was going to die?
“Diablo, man. Come on. You said I could have her.” That was the other voice from the room. I looked at him and he was a greasy fat guy who looked to be about forty.
Diablo stood holding the gun in my face, and then took a step backward.
“Fine. Get the bitch out of my face then. I don’t want to see her.”
At that command, the guy came over and grabbed my arm as the girls were wrestled into the same SUV that they were probably brought here in. “Come on girls. We have a plane to catch.”
Forty-One
Ryder
The first thing I noticed was a ringing in my ears. It was loud and high-pitched, like feedback between a microphone and a speaker. The next thing, of course, was a cracking headache and the awareness that my face was in the dirt.
Where was I? What had happened? I had to strain my brain to put the pieces together. I was outside laying in dirt. Why? That’s right. I rode out to the desert. I came here to find Lily. I found her and…I must have been hit over the head and dragged somewhere.
I tried opening my eyes, but all I saw was darkness. Was I blind? No. It was just night and pitch black.
Night! Dammit. I need to get to the water tower before that plane comes. I assumed that whoever hit me over the head had already moved the girls and Paige by now. I needed to get up and find my bike.
Trying to lift my head up was like doing a pushup with Shaquille O’Neal standing on my back. I wondered if I had a concussion or something. That damn ringing in my ears!
Even still, I didn’t have time to worry about that. I needed to get to my bike. I made it to standing, but was hit with a wave of intense dizziness. Bending over at the knees, I took a few deep breaths. “You can do this, Ryder.”
I patted around in my jacket for my phone, but it was gone. All I had on me were my bike keys and the hair tie from Gerard Way. What a strange combination of things to have in an emergency.
I’d left my bike over by Russell’s car, but first I needed to figure out where I was. They couldn’t have dragged me too far, so chances were I was still pretty close to the motel.
Sure enough, there it was, about a hundred feet behind me. My boots crunched the gravel as my eyes got adjusted to the darkness. I sure the hell hoped I wasn’t too late. There was no way of knowing what time it was or how long I’d been unconscious. The moon was just starting to rise, which meant that it hopefully was still early.
As I got close enough to where I’d left my bike, I noticed that the car was still there, too. I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad news. I also saw some broken glass and a curtain laying on the ground near a tree that hadn’t been there before.
Across the street, the party appeared to have died down. I thought about going over and rounding up the rest of the Outlaw Souls to help me out by the water tower, but frankly, I didn’t want to waste the time. This was something I was going to have to do on my own.
I rode like a bat out of hell across the desert toward that water tower. Seriously, I was going so fast that my bike actually caught air a few times. The whole time, I just kept praying that I wasn’t too late and that I’d get there in time to stop El Diablo from loading Lily and Paige and Bailey onto a plane to South America.
It wasn’t until I got closer to the water tower that my eyes picked up a light in the distance. It was really faint and small, but it was definitely a light. I headed my bike out that way.
The ringing in my ears had been replaced with the throaty sound of my bike engine. The light got closer and closer, and then suddenly stopped. Whoever it was must have heard my bike and turned off the lights. That’s okay. I was close enough to find it anyway.
The full moon was just over the mountains now, and that definitely helped things. I was getting pretty close when I saw the unmistakable sight of tail lights. The lights had been from a car, and that car was leaving!
Just then, in the sky, I saw the lights from a small airplane coming down toward us. Good. GOOD. That meant I wasn’t too late. I just had to catch the damn car before they had a chance to load the girls and Paige onto the plane.
I cranked it up and went even faster. I didn’t dare look down at the speedometer, but it felt like I was going faster than I’d ever gone before. I started to think about what to do once I caught up with them. I probably didn’t have the handgun on me anymore, as whoever knocked me out probably took it with my phone. I might still have the switchblade in my boot. It was gonna be old-fashioned hand to hand combat. I had no idea how I was gonna do it, but failure was not an option here.
The brake lights on the vehicle came on, which meant they were stopping. There would be no way for them to load people onto an airplane without stopping the car and getting out, so I’d been ready for this.
Just as I’d suspected, the plane flew low over our heads, circled, and then landed in a makeshift air strip in the middle of the desert, and stopped facing the same way it just came. I figured I had about five minutes tops to deal with however many people were in the car and on that plane. My sister and Bailey weren’t likely to be much help, and I didn’t know about Paige’s fighting skills, but I didn’t imagine they were great, so I was gonna have to channel my inner Jackie Chan and take on all of them at once.
I’d taken Tae Kwon Do as a kid, and never really imagined I’d use it in real life.
As soon as I got close enough, I jumped off my bike and ran to the SUV. The plane was idling and there were two guys that came out of the plane speaking Spanish. It was hard to see in the dark, but I think that El Diablo was the only one in the SUV, other than the girls and Paige. One of the girls must be laying down, though, because I could only see the shadows of two of them in the back seat.
The side door to the car opened, and El Diablo grabbed someone from the inside of the car. This was my moment to act.
“El Diablo! Stop!” I yelled, not because I thought he would stop, but to act as a diversion. Since there were three of them and one of me, as far as I could tell (there might be others in the plane or the SUV) I figured it was best to just pick the guy closest to me and circle around him so that the others were directly behind him.
The guy in front was tall and skinny and was wearing some kind of black jacket and a baseball cap. The guy behind him was really big, like a linebacker
. He was the kind of guy who was strong, but not fast. El Diablo was facing Baseball Cap, and had Bailey out of the car, trying to hand her off to him.
I got a good running start and slammed into Baseball Cap and then did a roundhouse kick to Diablo’s face. Linebacker then came running toward me, and I dodged him, and ran in a circle, in front of Baseball Cap again. When he got to his feet, I grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him to me, swinging him down to the ground in front of Linebacker.
“Ryder!” Lily called to me from the car.
“Stay there!”
Bailey wisely climbed back in the car and shut and locked the doors.
Diablo roared back to his feet at the same time Linebacker lunged for me. I dodged out of the way, and ran around to the other side of the car, using it as a shield.
I bent down to feel in my boot for my switchblade and it was there. But if I had a weapon, they probably did too. I needed to stay on my toes.
“Let them go, Diablo,” I said, brandishing the switchblade.
“Like hell I will,” he said, and he lunged for my knife.
I dodged, but twisted my ankle on some uneven ground and fell backwards, right into Linebacker. I heard Baseball Cap running back to the plane, likely to get a gun of some kind. Time was running out.
Linebacker was holding me, pinning my arms to my body, and I took the knife in my fist and swung my arm down and plunged it into Linebacker’s thigh as hard as I could. I felt the warm spurt of blood right before he started to scream and instinctively let me go. I jumped to my feet and got in a defensive stance.
From a distance, I could hear sirens. Someone had called the police?
Diablo came for me, but my knife was still in Linebacker’s thigh, so I threw my best punch, right at his face. He staggered back, but then came at me again, trying to uppercut me, but I dodged his fist.
I was starting to fatigue and wondered how much longer I could fight. From his wobbling, it looked like Diablo was getting pretty out of breath, too.
Lunging at him, I grabbed him and tried to twist him to get him to fall to the ground. I was able to knock him off balance, but as soon as I did, we all heard the unmistakable sound of a machine gun peppering the air with bullets. Baseball Cap was standing in the doorway of the airplane, firing at us.
Dropping to the ground, I yelled, “Lily, get down!” The sound of gunfire kept going and I Army crawled around to the back side of the SUV, and crouched behind one of the tires. The sirens were getting closer and closer.
Finally, Baseball Cap stopped firing and just shut the door to the plane. A minute or so later, the plane started to move, and began to take off.
“Esperate!” said Linebacker, as he heard his ride back to South America leaving. It was too late; the plane was taking off as the police and ambulance arrived. Diablo took off on foot into the desert.
My heart was pounding and I was out of breath as I stood to knock on the car window. “Lily. It’s okay. You and Bailey and Paige can come out.”
I saw two heads pop up and look out the window. The door cracked open and Lily said, “Is it over?”
“Yeah, honey. Come on out.”
Lily came out of the car and straight into my arms. Bailey came out next, and stood there awkwardly until I motioned for her to come into the hug, too.
Over their heads, I looked into the back seat of the car. “Where’s Paige?” I asked.
“She’s not with us,” Bailey said.
“She’s what?” I said, shocked.
“She’s not here. She helped us escape from the motel, but then these guys found us and one of them, the Diablo guy, brought us here, and the other one, the fat one, took Paige with him. Diablo said he could ‘have’ her and then he was supposed to dump her in the desert.”
Oh my god. Paige was still missing.
“Everybody freeze. Put your hands up where I can see them.”
We complied, of course. “Who called the cops?” I asked.
“I did,” Lily said. “I used that emergency panic button in the car.”
“Good thinking.”
The whole time the cops were securing the scene and I was standing there with my hands up, waiting for them to realize I wasn’t the bad guy here, I was trying to figure out how I was going to find Paige.
Forty-Two
Paige
I wasn’t exactly sure where I was at the moment, as I was in the back room of what appeared to be a restaurant or bar. There were cardboard boxes and crates of things. But from the look of it, none of it had been used in quite some time.
I closed my eyes, wishing I could rub them, but my hands were tied. Watching Bailey and Lily be dragged kicking and screaming into that SUV was one of the worst moments of my life. I had no idea whether they were on a plane to South America at the moment, or not.
As soon as that Diablo guy took off with the girls, the guy who’d been holding me let go. I started to run after the car, and he just stood there laughing. His laugh was raspy and his teeth were yellowed. The guy smelled like he hadn’t had a shower in weeks.
“You go ahead, cariño. Get all sweaty chasing after that car. I love a little salt on my food.”
He then took a disgusting bandana out of his pants pocket and put it over my eyes. The thing smelled like you would imagine, having been stuffed down his pants like that. I thought I was going to puke.
He put me on his bike, blindfolded, and then got on in front of me, and said, “You better hang on, cariño, or you’re gonna fall off.”
I wasn’t sure, but I think he was calling me honey. The last thing I wanted to do was fall off his bike, so I wrapped my arms around his flabby midsection and held on for dear life. My hair was whipping my face, I was blindfolded, and his body odor was practically choking me. I needed to find a way to get out of there.
Thankfully, we only rode for a couple of minutes before I felt the bike stop. He grabbed me and pulled me off of the bike and dragged me into some building, which was where I was now.
Another way I knew it was a restaurant was because I could hear whats-his-name in the kitchen banging around. He’d tied me to a cast iron sink with some zip ties, and so the chances of me getting away at the moment were pretty slim. My poor wrists were bloodied and raw, and I’d cut the back of my arm climbing out the window. And, I really had to pee.
“Excuse me?” I said, calling to my abductor. “Can you come here, please?”
He had been humming and somehow cooking something because I smelled food coming from the kitchen. Either he didn’t hear me or was ignoring me so I said it louder. “EXCUSE ME?”
“What do you want?” he yelled from the other room.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
He walked into the area where I was and was literally eating a bowl of food. It smelled like beans and rice, and lord only knows how old it was because this place appeared to be abandoned. Where did he even find electricity?
“Do I look stupid?” he said through food-filled cheeks.
I didn’t give him my honest answer and said, “I really have to go.”
“The last time you were in a bathroom you broke out a window. Pee where you are.” He turned to walk back into the other room.
“Please? You can leave the door open to make sure I don’t escape. I just really need to go.”
A wide grin spread across his greasy lips. “Oh yeah. I like that idea. I’ll watch you.”
He was so disgusting I shuddered. But it was either that or pee my pants. Besides, it would get me out of being tied up.
He set the bowl down on the counter and got a knife to cut me free. For a second I thought about grabbing it, but realized that he was probably better at knife fighting than I was. My dad took a fencing class at the country club once, but that was the extent of our family’s weaponry experience.
It only took a couple of minutes for him to free me, and then when I stood up he leaned in really close and took a deep breath. “You smell really good, chica. We’re gonna ha
ve some fun.”
He reminded me of a big fat cat who played with a mouse he’d caught before he killed it. As soon as I thought that, my chest gripped in fear. I needed to get the hell out of here or I’d end up dead, like a mouse.
He grabbed my arm and I winced because his fat fingers poked right where I’d been cut. He dragged me through the kitchen area and I could see that we were indeed in an abandoned restaurant. He’d managed to find a can of Sterno and use it to make rice and beans.
Honestly, the guy looked like he could stand to miss a meal or two and I wondered why he was so desperate to have food that he’d break out scavenged food and eat like we were camping buddies.
“You go in there. Leave the door open and I’m going to watch you.”
As I pulled down my jeans, I felt something in my back pocket that made me smile. It was my phone! I thought I’d left it in the car when I went to explore that sound and found the girls. The battery was probably dead, but maybe not. And if not, I might be able to get a text out.
“You smile, huh? You like to be watched?” He was rubbing his crotch and I could see a hard on growing. I’d better think of something fast, or I was going to be his dessert.
After I finished peeing, I wanted to distract him before he got any ideas, so I said, “Are you a chef or something?”
“No, why?”
“I just wondered because you managed to make some really amazing smelling food in what appears to be an abandoned restaurant.” I wasn’t even lying. I was so hungry and the food did smell good.
“No, chica. But I did work in a taqueria in downtown LA before I came to La Playa.”
“Have you ever been to LBJs in Redondo Beach?”
“Naw, man. Mi familia didn’t go to those rich neighborhoods. Unless it was with a can of spray paint.” He laughed that raspy sounding laugh again.
“My name is Paige, by the way. Did you know that?”
“No.” He got up and grabbed the bowl of food and handed it to me. “Here. Since you seemed to like it.”
