Burnt Road: Dante

by Neal, Toby

  Melody rolled off the couch, grabbing the gun and aiming it at Snake. His eyes went wide as a grin, laced with blood, spread across his face.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  “Not loaded, sweetheart.”

  Snake took two long strides towards her. Melody backtracked up onto the couch and then launched herself over it, stumbling, still facing the man. He reached for her but she leaped away, his fingers brushing her stomach as she knocked into a glass door. She turned, found the handle and pushed, but he grabbed a big fistful of her hair. He yanked and Melody arched backwards over the couch, her gaze sweeping up to the ceiling.

  Snake leaned over her, leering. Melody gripped the gun in both hands, bringing it up as hard as she could, smashing the barrel into his nose.

  An explosion of blood made Snake roar, falling back. Melody rolled out of his grip, her face and neck splattered with his blood, her nostrils filled with the metallic, sickening smell. She launched herself at the glass door again, and burst out into a hard-packed yard recently seeded with grass, surrounded by a low fence. The rain beat down on her.

  “Get her!” she heard through the storm. Melody sprinted away, her heart hammering, the gun still in her fist.

  She leaped over the fence, her hand slipping on the slick metal rail. She whacked her elbow, pain shooting up her arm, but she ignored it and propelled herself forward.

  They were in a development filled with half-built houses. The one they’d taken her to must have been the model home. The yard backed up to a wilderness area with huge rock formations dotted with scrubby brush. The rain had turned the golden dirt to a deep red, and water ran in rivulets over the rocks into a drainage ditch.

  Melody heard footsteps pounding behind her and a motorcycle engine revving. She glanced over her shoulder; the man who’d lost a tooth was chasing her on foot, his pace ridiculously fast for a guy who’d just been beaten.

  What drugs were these guys on?

  Snake came around the side of the house riding his motorcycle. Melody reached the drainage ditch, three feet wide and lined with cement, brown water surging through it. She jumped, making it across, and then grabbed onto the closest shrub and pulled herself up onto one of the large rocks, her hiking boot finding purchase as her bare foot slipped.

  She climbed quickly, racing to the top. Water poured down between the rocks, flowing into the drainage ditch. A wave of brown, frothed with white, came crashing between the rocks, the water rising so that it almost reached where she stood. A flash flood!

  Melody reached an elevated rock and pulled herself up on top of it.

  She turned and saw the floodwaters slam into the drainage ditch and breach it, rushing across the flat land. The wave hit the motorcycle, flipping it, and Snake disappeared beneath the turgid current.

  The other man turned to run away, but the water caught him and he fell forward into the quickly moving flood. Melody saw him lift his head for a moment and then get dragged back down.

  She panted, gripping the empty gun in one hand as the flood poured around the rock she stood on.

  Melody was alive. She was safe from those men, but she was stuck on a rock surrounded by raging waters, with no idea where she was or how to get back to Dante.

  And she only had on one boot to walk across a desert.

  Melody sat down, her body trembling with cold and shock.

  What was she going to do?

  There really wasn’t anything to do, but get through this. Wait for the water to go down. Try to find her center. She wrapped her arms tightly around her legs to still the shivering, and rested her head on her knees. Dante must be going insane. Taken. He would blame himself.

  But it wasn’t his fault, or his job to rescue her.

  She had survived. She’d faced her worst nightmare and had been smart, strategic, brave and strong enough to get away. And if they’d raped her?

  She’d have found a way to survive that, too.

  Melody breathed out tension, fear, and trauma, and in the midst of the flood, breathed in peace.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dante

  Dante got on his bike as the wind picked up. The first chilly, needle-like drops of cold rain hit his hot cheeks. Barkley and Abigail, bundled into the carry bag now hanging from his handlebars, whimpered with stress. He looked back at the boulder by the side of the road where he’d hidden Melody’s bike in case they were able to come back and retrieve it, an unlikely scenario.

  “It’s okay, guys.” Dante pitched his voice in the bright tone Melody used to speak to them. “We’re all going to be okay.” The puppies calmed as he petted their heads.

  But Dante wasn’t okay, and Melody definitely wasn’t either.

  His mind filled with terrible images: Melody fighting the attackers, being punched and hurt. Of her being raped, and crying Dante’s name for help. Of her being murdered, strangled, beaten or stabbed.

  He could not stop his mind.

  When he was a kid and this happened, Dante had hit his head on walls, floors, anything hard enough to knock the thoughts out of his mind. But he didn’t have time to do that now.

  It was all Dante’s fault. If he hadn’t left her, this wouldn’t have happened.

  His thoughts and feelings were too terrible to endure.

  Dante lifted his arm and bit it hard, a behavior he hadn’t indulged in since he was ten, when schoolyard bullies called him a “weird pretty girl-boy” and pulled down his pants to see his dick. The humiliation, shame, and pain were so extreme that the only way to stop thinking about it was to hurt himself.

  The sharp pain of his bruised arm ended the awful ruminations as a draft of endorphins compensated for the injury.

  Dante launched the bike down the long, gentle hill. The city was completely obscured by the leading edge of the storm. He pedaled hard as the rain increased, trying, vain as it was, to close the gap between him and the kidnappers. They’d left dusty tracks in this direction, but as the rain beat down, their trail was washed away.

  The deluge came harder, so heavy now that he could barely see the edges of the road, and the amount of water on the asphalt made it difficult for even the mountain bike’s nubby tires to grip.

  He had the puppies so he couldn’t just push it and wipe out. He might easily miss some sign of the motorcycle’s route if he was going too fast.

  Dante gently applied the brakes and eased to a stop, climbing off.

  He walked the bike, soothing the crying, wet dogs, and fed them some beef jerky until they quieted.

  They were crying for Melody. They missed her, too.

  All his fault. He should never have left her. Remembering that she’d already been raped, Dante wanted to bash his head on something. Instead, he practiced his breathing and counting to restrain himself.

  Eventually the cold and exhaustion penetrated deep enough that he stopped thinking about what was happening to Melody and became absorbed in the task of putting one foot ahead of the other, walking through the gray sheets of swirling rain.

  The arch of a high wooden ranch gate on his left caught his eye. “Maybe they have a barn,” Dante told the puppies through numb and trembling lips. “We can get warm and recharge so we can find her. Okay, guys?”

  No answer. He was losing it, that he had expected one.

  He pushed the heavy bike down a sopping graveled drive toward the distant promise of shelter.

  * * *

  Dante settled the puppies in the corner of the barn in the fragrant hay left there from the owners, who were nowhere to be found. This had been a dude ranch, if the colorful signs marking each of the buildings—Dining Hall, Horse Barn, Bunk House—were any indication.

  A knot of horses clustered under a small tin-roofed shelter set up over a feeding trough, hiding from the rain. They had neighed as if relieved to see him and trotted over looking for food when he appeared out of the storm with the bike.

  Dante decided that once he found Melody, they would take
a couple of horses instead of the bikes. They could go around the city on horseback. And thanks to the rain, water would not be a problem, at least for the next few days.

  He closed the door of the barn to keep the puppies in and fed the horses a bucket of alfalfa cubes.

  Storm or no storm, he was finding Melody.

  He bridled a tall, sturdy-looking pinto mare, one of the first horses to approach him and the friendliest. He didn’t want to bother with a saddle; he’d had years of horse therapy for his autism and learned to ride quite well with just a bareback pad, which he found in the tack room. There would be more room for Melody on the horse without the saddle.

  Dante was optimistic that he’d find her. He had to stay positive.

  He led the pinto, fed and frisky, to the mounting block and lifted himself onto the mare’s back, clucking and squeezing his legs.

  The mare tossed her head in surprise that she was being asked to take him for a ride in such bad weather, but he gave the signal again, more assertively, and patted her neck. “Go, girl. We can do this. We’ll be home before you know it and I’ll give you extra grain.” He made a kissing sound.

  The horse snorted as if accepting his terms, and moved off at a trot, then into a nice smooth, ground-eating lope. Dante returned to the main road and slowed the mare’s pace, looking for signs of the motorcycles. From the tread marks he’d seen, they were dirt bikes, not built for long distance road travel. Dirt bikes didn’t have the range road bikes did. These guys were probably living around here somewhere and had gone out raiding.

  They’d also be carrying Melody, and he knew she wouldn’t make it easy for them if she had a choice.

  She’d try to leave him a sign.

  The pinto had a soft mouth and a good nature. Her ears were pricked even in the cold rain. She snorted periodically, clearing the fluid from her nose, and Dante was thankful for the battered leather cowboy hat he’d found in the barn. The rain poured off the brim behind him, wetting his shirt, but at least it wasn’t falling in his eyes.

  “I’m gonna call you Sweetie,” Dante told the mare. “Stupid name, but I need to call you something.”

  Sweetie rotated her ears to hear him and flicked her tail in agreement.

  They neared the outskirts of the city. The smell of the rain-extinguished fire created a slickness like an aftertaste in Dante’s nostrils.

  At least the storm was putting the fires out.

  Dante almost missed Melody’s hiking boot on the side of the road in the gray mist that had replaced the driving rain. But there it was, lying on its side near a turnoff with a billboard trumpeting, “Enjoy Your Sunset Years in Sunshine City Homes!”

  He dismounted, picking up the boot and squinting down the freshly paved road. Had they turned here? He didn’t like taking the time and energy without some idea, but he couldn’t see far in the mist.

  This location, just on the outskirts of Vegas near an egress point, would make a great base of operations for a raider camp. He tied Melody’s boot to a strap on the pad and climbed back onto the mare’s back, turning her down the road. She took off at an enthusiastic trot. Sweetie was a good animal. He’d got lucky.

  Entering the neighborhood of half-completed tract homes on horseback felt surreal. Dante reined in the mare and slowed, looking for the bikes and any signs of occupation in the stark shells of partially finished structures.

  The road ended in a flooded cul-de-sac; desert debris, wood, cacti, and human trash floated in brown, swirling water.

  The house furthest back was complete, with glass in the windows, and a garage with the door down. A knocked-over dirt bike was caught up against the fence.

  Dante leaned forward and clapped his heels to the horse’s sides. Sweetie answered with a burst of speed that carried him up to the house, water splashing around her legs. He slid off, tying her reins to a column by the front door, and whipped out the Walther.

  He tried the door handle and it opened before him.

  In the soaked living room, evidence of filth and a recent tussle with overturned furniture and blood splattered on one of the chairs told a tale of violence. And was that a tooth?

  Dante’s mind spun at the idea that it was Melody’s blood, Melody’s tooth. Somehow he knew she’d been here, even if only one motorcycle was in the driveway.

  He exited the house.

  She had run. Maybe she got out into the desert. Maybe one of them chased her on the other bike, but if so, the water had washed away any trail. He needed to go check out whatever body of water had flooded.

  His heart thudded with terror at the thought of what he would find.

  Dante remounted the mare and rode around the house, tracking the path of the flood. Sweetie nickered and shied as the water rose around her knees. The desert, so sandy and hard most of the year, was not able to absorb the deluge. Dante urged the pinto forward, scanning the watery plain.

  A rock outcrop was just ahead, and lying down on it, curled away with her back to him, was a woman’s figure in a green tank top and yoga pants. Her black hair was wet and shiny in the low light.

  “Melody!” Dante shouted her name so loudly that Sweetie shied, almost unseating him. The mare churned and fought, and he had his hands full calming her and urging her forward in the water.

  “Dante!”

  He looked up and there she was, standing on the rock with her arms open wide and a grin on her face. “This is like a scene out of a real tearjerker western! Here you are, riding up on a horse, and you even have a cowboy hat!”

  Whatever he’d expected her to say, however he’d expected her demeanor to be, it wasn’t the laughing, incredibly resilient woman facing him now. “Come and get me, big boy. I don’t think it’s that deep.”

  Well, damn. Melody was pretty good at rescuing herself.

  Dante squeezed Sweetie’s sides, leaning forward to whisper in her ear. The mare snorted, bobbed her head, and moved forward.

  This was a good horse. No matter what, he was keeping her.

  The water rose to Sweetie’s belly. Still, the mare moved forward, sure and careful, until she was alongside the rock, the water at her chest. Melody climbed down and slid onto Sweetie’s back. Her arms circled Dante in the hardest hug.

  “I can’t believe you found me, but somehow I knew you’d come.”

  Dante could not find words. His eyes were stinging. His throat hurt with all he could not say. He patted Melody’s arms and squeezed them with one hand as he guided the mare with the other, and they walked up out of the water.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Melody

  The horse moved steadily under Melody. Her chest pressed against Dante’s back and arms wrapped around his waist gave her a sense of security: she was here, alive and strong, with a good man, riding a good horse.

  The driving rain had soaked Melody for a long time. Her body still shook, her teeth chattering quietly, but Dante’s heat was spreading through her. She tucked her hands under his shirt and he flinched from the chill of her fingers.

  She giggled against his back. “Come on, let me warm up. My hands are freezing.”

  “Of course. I love it when you touch me, even when you’re cold.”

  His words speared her with heat. Even her frozen fingers touching the man’s sculpted abs felt good to him. Melody wanted even more.

  “How far is it to the dude ranch?”

  Dante had told her about the place he’d found, which explained the horse and the cool cowboy hat. The idea of a cabin was exciting, though Melody suspected that she and Dante could find comfort anywhere. Hell, she’d managed to find peace on a rock surrounded by floodwater. She didn’t need a bed, a shower or any of the luxuries that came with a cabin.

  Melody squeezed Dante, feeling returning to her numb fingers. All she wanted was him.

  Sitting on that rock, her arms around her knees pulling her body into a ball to conserve heat, she’d thought about Dante a lot. He would search for her forever. That fact had helped keep her stead
y, allowed her to remain in the moment and to have faith in the future.

  They were just lucky that he’d found her quickly. Melody had mentally prepared herself for a night in the dark on that rock, for the waters to rise, for Snake and his disgusting friend with the missing tooth to return.

  Instead she had her arms around a man with the face of an angel and the body of an Adonis. She was riding on horseback with him, down an empty road in the desert, headed toward a shower, a meal, and bed. Yep, it was a modern western, and she and Dante were ready for the big love scene.

  Melody scanned the undeveloped landscape. The housing project they’d left appeared to be the absolute edge of the sprawling metropolis, where civilization met wilderness.

  “Think there’s a pharmacy or something like that around here?”

  “I didn’t see one. Are you hurt?” Dante turned, looking over his shoulder at her. She reached up and kissed his jaw, stubbly and warm.

  “I’m not hurt. I want you. We need condoms.”

  Dante twitched in her arms, and Melody loved the sensation of his surprise. She let her hands drift down his abs, and his skin rippled under her touch. Her hands landed at his belt buckle and he stopped breathing.

  “Condoms?” His voice broke and he cleared his throat.

  “Yes.” Melody rested her chin on his shoulder and lowered her hand further, cupping him through his pants and breathing into his ear, “I want a condom. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.” His voice was tight and his erection throbbed under her touch.

  Yes, this is what Melody needed, him and her, united. She didn’t need a bed; she didn’t need a shower or electricity. She could probably even go without food for some time. Right now, what she needed was right here in her arms and cupped in her hand.

  * * *

  Dante slid Melody down from Sweetie’s back and led her into one of the cabins. “I checked this one out before. It seemed comfortable.”

  The cabin was decorated with a western flair. An antlered buck skull decorated the wall, a rough-hewn table and chairs were set in front of a window, and a four-poster bed with a fringed canopy in purple paisley were all welcoming. Best of all, the bathroom had a shower with hot water provided by a small propane boiler.