Hers to Protect

by Nicole Disney

  “I know, I know. You have to help me.”

  “We have to call it in,” Reid said. “We’ll get everyone on finding Adrienne and we’ll get you help.”

  “Reid, please. No one else will be good enough. No one else will handle this like we can. By the time they get a team and a plan together and actually start moving it will be too late.”

  “Usually I’d agree, but I can barely walk and if you don’t get some medical attention you could die. How long has that been there?”

  “Forget the knife for a second,” Kaia said. “I know it looks bad, but if it was going to kill me it would have.”

  “I’m not sure that logic holds—”

  “I have to get it out, obviously, but I can’t go to a hospital. It’ll take too long.”

  “You’re not asking me to do it.”

  “No. But don’t you have some kind of contact? Your informant?”

  Reid hesitated, dread all over his face. “He patches up criminals that can’t go to hospitals.”

  “That’s who I need.”

  “But, Kaia, he just patches people up a bit. It’s not really safe. He doesn’t have the materials he needs to really fix you.”

  “All I have time for is a patch up. I want this thing out of my fucking chest, a Band-Aid, and I’m back on the road.”

  “You’re insane. The guys can work on finding Adrienne.”

  “No, Reid! They won’t find her! You know they won’t find her!”

  Reid tugged at his hair in distress.

  “Please, Reid. I have to save her. I have to. They’re going to torture her. To death.”

  “Shit.” He took out his cell phone and dialed. He gave his address and a quick description of Kaia’s wounds, then hung up. “This is a bad idea, Kaia.”

  “I can’t let her die, Reid. Please just help me.”

  “Where were you?”

  “They took us from my apartment parking lot. They took us to some land off the highway and did this.” She gestured at herself. “They left me, took her, and went west.”

  “West.”

  “Yes, on a little back road.”

  “That’s not a lot to go on.”

  “I know that, that’s why I need you.”

  Reid pulled up his laptop and brought up a map. “Show me.”

  Kaia pointed to the unnamed road off the highway. He turned the screen back to himself and studied the map. “That’s not awful, actually. It’s all big parcels of land, farms. If we can find an association between one of those and one of the members, we’ll probably have her.”

  “Hurry, Reid. It’s already been too long. I’ve been too slow.”

  The doorbell rang. Reid got up and limped over. A scruffy, stocky, tattooed white guy came in and looked her over with a straight face.

  “Are you going to be able to handle this here?” Reid asked. “I don’t want it done like this if it’s too risky.”

  “Reid,” Kaia snapped.

  The man sat down and pulled Kaia’s shirt away from the edges of the wound. “It’s going to be messy,” he said. “But I can do it. Your big problem is going to be infection down the road.”

  “We can handle that later,” Kaia said.

  He held out his hand in greeting. “I’m Kendrick. I’ll be taking the knife out of your chest.”

  Kaia laughed lightly and shook his hand.

  “You’re sure?” Reid asked again. “She’ll be okay?”

  “This is imprecise work, Mr. Castillo, but it’s what I do. Lie back.” He guided Kaia to the dining room table and had her lie flat. Kaia’s heart pounded in anticipation, but she knew this was what needed to happen. She couldn’t be locked down in a hospital for days.

  “Kaia, please don’t do this,” Reid said. “Let me take you in.”

  “Start looking up those addresses,” Kaia said. “He’ll tell me if I have to go in.”

  Kendrick nodded his confirmation at Reid. Reid breathed out a long sigh and pulled up his laptop again, but Kaia knew he wasn’t looking yet, couldn’t focus. Kendrick put his bag on the table and pulled out several clean towels.

  “Ready?” Kendrick asked. Kaia nodded. He pressed around the wound with the towel. The pain at his touch was intense, but she could handle it. When he started to remove the blade, she couldn’t suppress a yell. Reid jumped to his feet, but the knife was already out. Kaia heard it clang on the table and Kendrick pressed down hard with both hands on her chest. She felt warm blood rolling down her neck, but Kendrick’s calm face reassured her.

  “Reid, please start looking,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  Reid nodded and turned his attention to the computer screen. Kendrick’s weight was steady and strong.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Soon as the bleeding slows down we’ll get you sewed up. I have something I can give you to help keep the infection away, but as soon as you’re done with whatever you’re dealing with you have to go in. Don’t blow it off, even if you think it’s healing.”

  “Got it.”

  “That’s a nasty one you have on your shoulder too. I’ll clean and wrap that for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kendrick nodded, looking her over again. “They got you good, sweetie.”

  “I know.”

  “You getting ’em back?”

  “Oh, yes. Even if it kills me.”

  Kaia couldn’t stop watching Reid. She knew his mind was racing and that he was already distracted. She couldn’t let herself break his concentration, but it was torture waiting for him to find something. All she could think about was what Adrienne must be going through. She could be getting tortured. They could be peeling her skin, beating her. She could be about to be shot. She could already be dead for that matter. Kaia felt sick.

  Reid wasn’t just her best friend, he was also a beast at his job. He had found suspects Kaia had thought were gone for sure a number of times with paper-thin evidence to lead him. Kendrick started working on sewing her up.

  “All right, I’m going to read these names,” Reid said. “Stop me if you hear one you recognize.”

  “Go.”

  “Karie Adams, Michael and Robyn Lowell, Robert Henderson, Augustine Vickers—”

  “Vickers! Christina Vickers is a member. She was there. She’s Anna’s right hand.”

  “Fourteen eight-seventy Dallas Lane.”

  “That’s it.” Kaia sat up.

  “You want me to call it in?”

  “No, I’m going.”

  “You need backup.”

  “No, they’re up to their necks in guns. If they even smell cops they’re going to mow them down and shoot Adrienne. I have to sneak in somehow.” Kaia felt Kendrick’s speed pick up. He was clearly aware he didn’t have long before she rushed out the door.

  “I’m your backup then,” Reid said.

  Kaia cocked her head at him. “I love you, Reid, but you can barely walk.”

  “I can still shoot a motherfucker, can’t I?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Kaia smiled.

  Kendrick covered her stab wound with several layers of dressings. He sprayed something into the open wound on her shoulder. Kaia’s inhale came in a hiss of air at the shock of pain. He wrapped her in gauze.

  “My work is done.”

  “Really?”

  “I mean it’s some pretty shitty stitching, but I know someone who’s about to bolt on me when I see them.”

  Kaia hugged him with her good arm. “Thank you for this.” Kendrick nodded and hurried out the door, suddenly seeming eager to put space between himself and their problems.

  Reid handed Kaia a ballistic vest. It was a spare of Reid’s and didn’t really fit the way it should, but it was better than nothing. He put his own on and limped down the hall.

  “Reid, we have to go.”

  “I know you’re freaking out, but we’re not going without guns,” he said. She couldn’t help but nod and followed him to his
gun safe. He emptied it, piling a surprising number of rifles and handguns into her arms.

  “Damn, Reid, any other day I’d give you a hard time, but right now I love you. These don’t even look legal.”

  “You never know when you’ll need to take out a gang.” He reached for the last one, a shotgun, then slung a bag of ammunition over his shoulder.

  “You don’t have to come. Really. It’s dangerous. There aren’t going to be any arrests.”

  “I know that, Sorano. Let’s rock.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The van came to a stop and jostled Adrienne back into awareness. She hadn’t been sleeping, just somewhere else. She’d been back on the cold ground with Kaia, holding her. Had she died yet? Did she regain consciousness? Did she struggle? Did the knife hit her heart? Or did she just fade out in the cold?

  The back door opened and hands grabbed her ankles. They dragged her to the edge of the van. Her hands scraped the coarse floor, skin sanding away under her own weight. All she could focus on was the constriction in her chest. The grief was crippling, suffocating and numbing.

  “Grab her,” Anna said. “Let’s go.”

  Hands seized her arms and dragged her to her tingling, numb feet. She couldn’t support her own weight. She didn’t know if it was the cold or if she just didn’t have the will, but Jacob and Sean didn’t seem bothered by supporting her.

  Adrienne forced herself to look around and be aware of her surroundings. The narrow path they’d driven up was covered in foliage, barely even defined. Trees enclosed her. They were on a footpath now, walking uphill. Her legs screamed at her to stop walking. It was a slow and tedious climb despite the mild look of the incline.

  When they got closer to the top, Adrienne saw a roof. Slowly, a large barn revealed itself. The sidings looked like metal painted the classic barn maroon. There were windows on every side of the old building, plenty of places to escape. As they approached, the doors opened. Adrienne’s stomach dropped. There were more of them.

  The boys shoved her inside and she fell to the ground. She was in a circle of fifteen more Wild AKs. The entire core of the gang had showed up. The five who’d kidnapped her trailed in and shut the doors.

  “Where’s the cop?” someone asked.

  “Already dead,” Anna said. “She was raising too much hell. Had to put her down.” A sigh circled the room. Adrienne felt sick. These animals had been sitting around fantasizing about torturing a cop. Torturing Kaia. She couldn’t bring herself to think what had happened was best, but she also couldn’t fight the relief Kaia wasn’t here to face these beasts. She would have gone down swinging against anyone, but this many sadistic minds in one room would have come up with something horrific.

  She was only faintly aware that those thoughts were aimed at her now, that she would have to face whatever they couldn’t do to Kaia. And she was a snitch. Gianna had warned her snitches got their skin peeled, but she’d never known how literally to take it. Seeing Anna take a chunk of Kaia’s skin horrified her. How much skin could they take before she died?

  She’d calculated her chances of grabbing a gun over and over, but now, surrounded by this many Wild AKs, she wondered if maybe the best use of the gun, should she get one, would be to just shoot herself and end it. Anna entered the circle that had formed around Adrienne.

  “Got our snitch,” she said. A round of shouts circled around Adrienne.

  “This traitor gave our secrets to the police. She betrayed Gianna. She’s the reason detectives know where you all live, why you have cops camped outside your homes harassing your families. You’re each going to get your chance with her.”

  Another round of whoops went through the circle. Adrienne felt nauseous.

  “I’m going to cut her ropes, and every single one of you can have a go at her, but no one kills her. That’s mine.” They all nodded in agreement and Anna walked over to Adrienne. She reached in her pocket, searching for her knife.

  “You left it in my girlfriend,” Adrienne said with venom.

  “So I did,” Anna sneered. “She shouldn’t have spit on me. The shooting I could have gotten over, but she was dead when she did that.”

  “Fuck off, Anna, you would have killed her either way.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Anna accepted a knife offered to her by another member and cut Adrienne’s ropes. The moment her hands were free Adrienne swung at Anna as hard as she could, surprising even herself when the blow landed full force. Anna lunged at her, but Christina’s arm cut her off.

  “You’re last,” she said. “Let them have her.”

  Anna paced, struggling with the terms she’d just laid out herself. Finally, she relented and waved at the first member to enter the circle. A teenage boy Adrienne knew was brand new came into the circle. He was timid, eyes bouncing from her to the ground.

  “You’ll want to put your hands up,” someone jeered.

  “She’s a rat.”

  The words of encouragement continued until he finally rushed her and swung. Adrienne dodged the blow and elbowed him in the side of the face, wanting to protect her hands from the damage of punching as long as she could. She wanted to have something left for Anna. He seemed unaffected and came at her much more aggressively, swinging until he was able to make contact and send her to the ground. Pain radiated through her face, much the way it had when Gianna used to hit her, but now her whole body hurt from being tied up, from the cold, from losing Kaia.

  Sean came into the circle. “Get up,” he said. She pushed herself to her feet, determined to face this. The only way she could think to honor Kaia at all was to raise as much hell as she would have. She’d do at least some damage to every son of a bitch that stepped into the circle with her, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much worse it made things. When Sean swung at her she kicked for his balls as hard as she could. His punch followed through and sent her to the ground, but he doubled over too. Adrienne felt her skin split on her cheek and blood roll down. Sean was also reeling, holding himself.

  A new person stepped into the circle, too impatient to let Sean recover. A young Hispanic girl had her hands up and was taunting her. “Get up, bitch.” Adrienne realized they all wanted a fight. No one wanted to just beat her on the ground. She knew she’d eventually get too tired and hurt to keep this up. Her chances of really hurting someone would go down with every new person, leaving her completely defenseless when Anna was finally ready to kill her.

  She took a second to catch a deep breath, then stood. She rushed the girl, letting her punches fly without reservation. She caught the girl in the chin and forced her back on her heels. She stayed after her. If she’d learned anything from watching Gianna and Anna it was to overwhelm with aggression. Her fist connected with the girl’s nose and Adrienne felt it snap. A thrill shot through her, and she knew the hatred that compelled these people, the satisfaction of hurting someone you despise with your entire being. Somewhere deep down it disgusted her, but she couldn’t think like that right now. Instead, she aimed for the girl’s nose again, hitting the mark and sending a splash of blood through the air.

  She felt an uneasiness pass through the circle, indecisiveness at whether to intervene. She followed the girl to the ground and struck again and again, determined to cause irreparable damage before she would inevitably be pulled off. The girl’s hands rose, blindly trying to push Adrienne away, but Adrienne had leverage that couldn’t be overcome. She felt the WAKs’ unwillingness to rescue the girl she was destroying. They were losing respect for her. They were disgusted and embarrassed by her. This was their love? This was family? She hated them all. She landed a blow that rendered the girl unconscious, something she’d never done before. An automatic reaction told her to stop, but she overrode it and punched again.

  “That’s enough!” Anna snapped.

  Christina jumped into the circle and grabbed Adrienne, flinging her backward to the dirt floor. Christina’s shoe was coming at her face. The impact slung her into the ground har
d, like the dirt had rushed up to her, not the other way around. Dizziness and darkness overtook her.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Kaia sped through the back country roads at dangerous speeds, but Reid didn’t protest. He watched the GPS unit that was guiding them, dependent on it in the absence of streets with actual names.

  “It should be coming up,” he said.

  Kaia reluctantly slowed. “Think they’ll have guards posted?”

  “I think we have to assume they will. They had all those guns for something.”

  “This is going to be a mess,” she said.

  “You’re telling me. We’re walking into a lion’s den.”

  “You really don’t have to do this, Reid. I can go on foot from here. Take the car home. I can’t promise I’ll be ethical about this.”

  “They almost beat me to death,” Reid said. “I have no love for them. And no one stabs my partner.”

  “But your career. You love being a cop. They’ll ask you why you didn’t call this in.”

  “And I’ll tell them you were right. Showing up here with a team of officers would have just triggered mass chaos and endangered Adrienne’s life.”

  “But—”

  “Stop trying to talk me out of it, Sorano. We’re family. If we get fired, we get fired. Would you drop me on the side of the road by myself to go take on a bunch of gangsters alone in order to protect your career?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good, because I’d kick your ass.”

  Kaia laughed. “All right, fine. So where is this place?”

  “According to this it’s right here.”

  They both leaned forward, looking carefully outside.

  “I don’t see shit,” Kaia said, heart sinking to her stomach. They were on a narrow dirt road, surrounded closely by trees.

  “Don’t panic,” he said. “Go slow.”

  Kaia crept forward, scanning feverishly for signs someone had been through recently. Kaia saw a flash of someone running out of the corner of her eye.

  “Don’t stop,” Reid said, spotting it too.

  Kaia resisted the powerful urge to slam the brakes, trusting Reid wholeheartedly. “Why?”