by Lynne Ewing
My tears came with great leaping sobs.
The phone vibrated. I glanced at it, buzzing on the rug. The caller ID read “Satch.” I set Bonnie down and grabbed the phone, grief intensifying my rage.
“You killed your own dogs!” I yelled. “What did they do that you had to kill them?”
“It’s your fault, Blaise,” Trek said smoothly. “The dogs wouldn’t be dead if you’d kept your promise. We agreed on a trade, and I’ve been watching you creep around my house with one of my own guns like you thought I was fool enough to let you shoot me again.”
“Where’s Satch?” My throat burned with hatred, though my body felt stone cold.
“Can you taste the adrenaline yet?” Trek asked in reply to my question. “Does it make you feel out of control or just scared?”
“Let Satch go,” I said, keeping my voice even, “and I’ll come to you.”
“What makes you think he’s still alive?” Trek asked.
I hurled the phone across the room, then, swooping up the gun, jumped to my feet and opened the front door. The car had gone dark and was rolling away, my chance lost. Trek had made himself the perfect target for a front door shot only to lure me down the stairs at breakneck speed so I would trip over the dogs.
When lightning illuminated the car, I aimed for the back windshield and pulled the trigger. The gun choked. The firing pin had been removed, an easy trick. Trek had known all along that I would break into his house in an attempt to save Satch, and had left only defective weapons in the closet.
Anger ripped through my adrenaline-soaked body. Trek assumed I would die like the terrorized bull in the fighting ring. He had forgotten that sometimes the mortally wounded bull gored the matador.
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With cold rain slapping my face, I stood across the street from Trek’s house, feeling unbelievably tired and tense with worry. Where was Satch? I had searched the upstairs rooms and attic, using the blazing bristles of a broom for my torchlight, and hadn’t found him. Tomorrow, with sunlight to guide me, I would begin another search. This one in the Borderlands, which offered a thousand places to hide someone.
Trek’s earlier call, with the background noise of wind chimes, had been purposeful, to draw me here. I had a strong, intuitive feeling that he had something more planned, but before I could face him again, I had to get some sleep. I knew one place where I’d be welcome if I was caught breaking inside.
With thunder rumbling around me, I picked up my purse and made my way to Orchid Terrace. By the time I entered the lobby, I was shaking. Emergency lamps set in the wall sent shafts of light down the long corridor, which smelled of insect spray and urine. The only decor came from a child’s scribbling, a snarl of green and purple crayon lines trailing knee-high down to Kaylee’s apartment, where she and her sisters would be sleeping.
Using the key I found hidden on the backside of her doormat, I quietly let myself in and listened. Everyone seemed to be in bed. I peeled off my drenched clothing, then took the nightgown from my purse and slipped it over my head.
A strange fear came over me. Realistically, I knew I couldn’t feel Trek looking for me, and yet, I did. Without making a sound, I crossed to the window and peered out, past the rain ticking against the glass. I had expected to see the Mercedes parked on the street with Trek smiling up at me and, though I saw only darkness, my apprehension didn’t go away. I had the uncomfortable sense that Trek was gazing out at the night to where I stood.
To calm my fear, I searched the kitchen for a weapon, my hands grazing over utensils until I touched a knife with an unusual curve and sharpness. I set it on the coffee table within easy reach, then curled onto the couch, my mind going back and forth between sleep and wakefulness, as my worries dissolved into dreams.
Sometime later, I awakened to the murmur of rain and wind and knew instinctively that another sound had invaded my sleep and roused me. Through half-opened eyes, I watched the darkness glide around me and, though I saw no shadow deeper than the others, I eased my hand across the coffee table, my fingers grasping for the knife. Where was it?
A hand caught my wrist.
“Is this what you were looking for?” The knife nicked my cheek, the curved tip hooking on flesh as the blade tore free. “Crazy girl,” Trek said, his voice barely audible. “Did you think you could use this on me?”
I didn’t move, or even reply, because energy emanated off Trek, a heat I could feel. Any show of fear or panic could excite him and cause him to lose his remaining self-restraint.
“There won’t be any more fooling around.” His words, carried on hushed breath, grazed over my face. “We’re going out to the car, and if you wake Kaylee or one of her sisters, I’ll kill them all. If you try to run, I’ll come back and—”
I nodded my intention to cooperate, grateful he wasn’t going to butcher me here and leave my corpse for Kaylee and her sisters to find in the morning. Soundlessly, I made my way across the room and into the hallway, conscious of Trek behind me, the knife against my back. The tip bore through the nightgown, into my skin, pressing in and out with the rhythm of my steps, more stinging annoyance than pain, but holding the promise of Trek’s readiness to drive the blade between my ribs and into my heart.
I waded through the gutter to the Mercedes, which idled at the curb, the engine chuffing softly. Trek opened the car door, his gaze riveted on me, oblivious to the rain that struck his face. My survival instinct told me to ram my head into his jaw, rake my fingernails down his scalp, tear out the stitches, and flee. But unbidden came the images of Kaylee and her sisters dead, and my knees gave way. I fell into the passenger seat.
Grinning, satisfied that I wasn’t going to bolt, Trek slammed the car door, walked around to the driver’s side, and slid behind the steering wheel. The windshield wipers began a quiet, rhythmic sweep as he shifted into gear and the car rolled forward, the street lit with gray light reflected off the clouds.
I took slow, deep breaths to keep my mind from fleeing into panic and stared at the row houses, shrouded behind windswept sheets of rain. As terrible as my life had been in this neighborhood, I yearned for it now, but I couldn’t let Kaylee and her sisters die in my stead.
A few blocks later, the car swerved over to the curb in front of Trek’s house. I had assumed that he had been taking me to the Borderlands, where he could hide my body. That he would risk killing me inside his home unsettled me, though why one place should feel worse for dying than another should, I didn’t understand.
Trek opened the car door and, using the knife as a pointer, motioned me onto the walk and up to the front door. I stepped inside, stunned to see candles, dozens and dozens of flickering flames, that lined the hallway down to the back porch. Someone had cleared the broken wind chimes off the stairs, the kibble from the kitchen floor.
“I guess Melissa has already started cleaning up,” I said, glancing around for a weapon.
“Forget Melissa. I told you she means nothing to me.” He pointed the knife toward the stairs and I began my march.
In his bedroom, more candles lined the floor and windows, wax pooling on the floorboards and dripping craggy lines from the sills. I had not expected to die quickly, or painlessly, but so many candles implied ritual, torture, a brutal death. I scanned the room for anything I could use as a weapon. A glass ashtray sat on the dresser beneath red tapers that wept wax onto the wood.
Trek pulled off his soggy shirt and tossed it aside. An Egyptian ankh dangled from a chain around his neck.
“That’s Danny’s!” My mind swirled through all the possible ways Trek might have gotten it.
“Mine now.” He laughed. “Danny wasn’t even unconscious when the three of you walked away from him. I had to finish the job I’d sent you to do. I only let him live because he loves Ariel.” Trek smiled at the shock on my face. “W
hile I beat him, I told him that I’d kill her if he ever got near her again. Just one hello and she’d be dead.”
Rage seized me. I grabbed the ashtray and lunged at Trek, intent on shattering it against his eye.
He swung up. The knife slashed the underside of my arm, cutting through skin and muscle until the blade scraped bone. My arm fell useless at my side, the ashtray bouncing across the floor. Fierce pain throbbed through me, but the straight cut barely bled.
“The game’s over,” Trek said as he stroked the knife across my shoulder. The blade snagged on the strap of my nightgown and, with a quick snap of his wrist, Trek cut through it.
At last, I understood the reason Trek had taken me to his home and not the Borderlands. I had prepared myself for death, for pain, but not this. Shaking my head, I backed away.
“There’s something you should know,” Trek said softly, leaning closer, his hair dripping water onto my skin. “In case you were wondering, I didn’t kill Satch.”
“Satch,” I breathed. “Where is he?”
“In the Borderlands,” Trek whispered, “stashed away. He’s sly like his dad. It took me almost the whole day to catch him, but I like the game. Now I got him all cozy, coiled up in barbed wire, a feast for the rats, unless someone frees him.”
Lightheaded from the pain tearing through my arm, I stared at Trek, trying to detect a lie, and found nothing to indicate that he wasn’t speaking the truth.
“If you stop pretending like you don’t want me,” Trek continued. “I’ll let you cut the barbed wire that’s holding him. But if you want him dead—”
“Free him,” I whispered.
Trek searched my eyes, looking for an answer deeper than my words had given him. He tossed the knife onto the bed and embraced me, careful of my wounded arm. “You’ll learn to love me,” he said, his lips moving tenderly against my forehead.
A terrible stillness came over me. My legs, which had been trembling, stopped shaking. I can survive this. I can survive. And when this was over, if I was alive, I was going to the police.
Snitches get stitches, my mind warned automatically. A snitch was despised. A snitch was a target. A snitch had to run for her life or be killed. So what? I thought. Anything is better than living this way.
After . . . after . . . after . . . I promised myself as a glint of steel flashed in my side vision. Something cracked against my skull and sent numbing pain down my spine. I fell on my back, scattering a line of candles. Flames, skating over the spilled wax, sputtered toward me as wisps of black smoke curled into my eyes.
Breathless, berating myself for letting my guard down, I rolled over to escape Trek’s next blow and knocked against him. He lay on the floor beside me, facedown, a gash bleeding on the side of his head.
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Through my pulsing vision, Melissa came into focus, leaning over Trek, a tire iron clutched in her hand, her face contorted with terror for what she had done—for what she was about to do.
“I don’t care if I have to spend the rest of my life in jail,” she said. “I’m taking my freedom back.”
In spite of the pain shrieking through my head and arm, I managed to stand and fall against her in time to block her swing. “You don’t need to kill him.” With my good hand, I loosened her grip until the tire iron slipped free and hit the floor with a dull thunk. “We’ll get him another way,” I said, my voice choking on tears of relief, anger, and pain.
Her fingers trembled across my scalp, blood from the wound running in tiny rivulets over her hand. “I didn’t mean to hit you. I only wanted to stop Trek. There was no way I was going to let him hurt you.”
“How did you know I needed help?” I asked, collapsing on the edge of the bed.
“Kaylee.” Melissa picked up the corner of the sheet. I flinched when she pressed it against my head to stop the bleeding. “She awakened a little while ago and found her front door open, blood on her couch, and your purse on the floor. She called me and I came here as fast as I could.”
I squeezed her hand in gratitude. “Give me your phone,” I said. “I need to call the cops.”
Melissa laughed nervously. “You’re going to snitch?” She took Trek’s cell phone from his pocket and handed it to me, her fingers trembling.
“You don’t need to stay,” I said, fighting to remain conscious as I propped the phone on my lap. With my working hand, I tapped in three numbers and pressed Send. “I can stand against Trek alone.”
“I’ve got secrets that will put him in prison for sixty years.” After examining the slash on my head, Melissa added, “Tell them to send an ambulance, too.”
By the time I had finished my 911 call, I was slumped against Melissa, my blood soaking into her clothes, her sobs convulsing through me as I drifted in and out of consciousness.
“Everything’s going to be all right.” I tried to soothe her, though I couldn’t stop my own worry about Satch. I imagined him bound and slowly starving to death. “Don’t cry,” I added as my tears fell.
I heard my name called out and struggled to turn my head. Satch crossed the room, his arms gouged and trailing blood from the cuts where rusted spurs had dug into his skin.
“Satch,” I whispered, joy rising inside me.
He kneeled in front of me, unable to hide his fear. “I thought you’d run away, but Trek told me you’d come back. Then he told me what he was going to do to you. I tried to get here sooner.” He glanced at Trek, who lay unconscious on the floor.
“I did it,” Melissa said. “And accidentally hit Blaise, too.”
Satch grasped my hand as my eyes started to close. “Stay with me, Toughness. Come on.”
I nodded but could no longer fight the darkness. I consented to its peace, the irresistible currents that pulled me back to the memories of my childhood, when I still believed that I could live my life in a bold and powerful way without a gun.
But as I spiraled down, I thought of the little kids in my neighborhood who saw gangsters and drug dealers on their way to school, and suddenly I imagined a different future. Struggling, I fought through the layers of consciousness until I came back and opened my eyes, my chest heaving as I took in air, my pain unbearable.
“Help’s on the way,” Satch said, lifting me, unaware of the wound under my arm. I winced at the sudden sting before warm blood flowed over my side.
Sirens shrilled, growing louder, as Satch carried me down the stairs and outside into the cold, Melissa beside us.
Two squad cars turned the corner, their lights flashing across the puddles left from the rain. An ambulance sped behind them.
“I think I’ve been looking at my life from the wrong way,” I said. “What if, when fate gives you something bad, it’s not to defeat you, it’s so you’ll see the problem and do something about it.”
“I took care of my problem,” Melissa said with a sad laugh before she grabbed my hand, trying to calm her nerves.
“Well,” Satch whispered as the officers stepped out of their cars and approached us warily. “Are you ready for this?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m going to do it anyway.”
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About the Author
LYNNE EWING is the author of Drive-By and the bestselling Daughters of the Moon series. She lives in Washington, DC.
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Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE LURE. Copyright © 2014 by Lynne Ewing. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the requ
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