Cut Off (Book 3): Cut Loose

by Dalton, Charlie

  Gregory cracked the door open and peered outside. His shoulders relaxed. “Well, you took your bloody time.”

  Camden exchanged relieved expressions with the others. It was just the police. Now they were there, they could mount an effective defence against the gang.

  Strange, he thought, that the gang should think to try to take them hostage when there must be far better targets.

  Gregory opened the door and four figures stepped inside.

  The blood drained from Camden’s face and his legs felt like jelly.

  Gregory hadn’t let the police force in. These were men – and one woman – that never belonged to a police force.

  They were the Chelsea Smile gang and Gregory had just let them in.

  39

  Katie pushed Vincent harder than she had ever pushed him before. When she checked over her shoulder she found even Bill on his younger nag couldn’t keep up.

  Her thoughts turned to the people she was rushing toward. Her brother. Her mother. Friends. People who’d become like family. The line between family and friend had already faded to the point of not existing. It was scary to think their lives might be in danger.

  She came to the crossroad of what had previously been a busy junction. She didn’t stop, and Vincent’s hooves clattered loudly on the cracked tarmac as he sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him. He snorted and thick foam blossomed up from his closely cropped hair. He performed none of his usual misdemeanours. Somehow, he knew Katie was desperate, and he wasted no time in getting her to where she needed to be.

  Ahead, the driveway entrance, hidden behind its thick green canopy, wound through the forest toward their hidden lodge in the woods. Vincent hadn’t been down this road often, so it was a sign of real trust that he didn’t slow down as she took him around a blind bend.

  Wiiiing.

  Vincent must have seen it or heard it too, as he whinnied and slammed his giant hooves down on the ruddy soil underfoot.

  Katie squeezed her eyes shut, leaned forward, and clutched the reins so tight they made deep impressions across the palms of her hands. She feared she would fly free from the stirrups and, worse still, get caught in the reins. A startled horse was not something you wanted to get trapped behind.

  Katie rocked back onto the saddle and Vincent, still ill at ease, shuffled side to side.

  “It’s okay,” she said, tapping him comfortingly on the neck. “It’s okay.”

  But were they okay?

  The noise they heard earlier, the one that might have cost her life, was, unless she was very much mistaken, a bullet zipping past her ear. It slammed into the embankment on her left, coming down from a sharp angle. It told her where it originated from and for a moment she couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

  The watchtower.

  She stood in the stirrups and peered further along the driveway and arched her neck up at the wooden structure her father had installed with the aid of a crane all those years ago.

  Cut sharp against the cloudy sky, she saw a figure. Small and slight, there were only a few people from their gang it could be. In the figure’s hands, a gun clutched close with precision. It couldn’t be any of the young girls. Louisa knew how to hold a gun, but the figure looked too tall to be her. Hannah and Jodie refused to even touch a gun. She crossed them off the list too. The silhouette was much too large to be Tanya. It could only be her mother, but why would she ever open fire on her? She wouldn’t.

  Not even to keep her away?

  No. Not even then.

  It wasn’t her mother.

  Katie gripped the reins tight and clucked out the corner of her mouth. Vincent grunted, then did as she instructed and stepped forward.

  She spotted movement up there in the watchtower’s shadows. She yanked on the reins, bringing Vincent to a stop.

  The rifle in the figure’s hands had disappeared.

  No, not disappeared.

  It could look like that when the perspective changed and stared you dead-on.

  The rifle was pointed directly at her.

  “Easy, boy.”

  She patted him on the neck, more to calm her thundering heart than his. She was pleased to feel his own heart beating against hers. Strong, bold, powerful.

  Glancing in the direction of the lodge, she noticed nothing wrong with it. No one stood outside. On the surface, it looked like a perfectly normal day.

  Bill and Aaron trotted up behind her.

  “What are you doing standing here?” Bill said.

  “Whoever’s in the watchtower took potshots at me. It’s not one of ours.”

  Bill squinted up at the watchtower and came to the same conclusion.

  “Think it’s one of the families?”

  “Maybe.”

  Darryl and the twins joined them. Darryl was still out of breath from his earlier sprint to the prison.

  “Darryl,” Katie said. “How did you know to come looking for us? Did someone send you?”

  “No. I saw a gang standing over there in the forest. One of them broke away and approached the lodge. I thought it was Gregory but I’m not sure.”

  Aaron’s head snapped around. “Gregory? Maybe it was the police doing a check of the area?”

  Bill didn’t take his eyes off the lodge. “Maybe.” He didn’t sound very convinced to Katie’s ears.

  “That was it?” Katie said. “Just a gang standing there in the forest? What’s so suspicious about that?”

  Darryl squirmed on his saddle. “It just… didn’t look right. Like they shouldn’t have been there. It’s hard to explain. They reminded me of a pack of wolves, the way they were staring at the lodge.”

  Darryl may not be the bravest person in the world, but he had a good head on his shoulders, and a good eye for danger too.

  “Your instincts look like they were right,” Katie said. “Something’s not right here.”

  Darryl smiled with relief at hearing that.

  “That’s all well and good,” Aaron said. “But what are we supposed to do now?”

  “Did you get a good look at the people in the woods?” Katie said to Darryl.

  “Not really. It was dark and murky.”

  Katie turned to her grandfather. “Could it be one of the families?”

  “I don’t know.” Bill didn’t shift his eyes from the lodge. “I wouldn’t bet on it. Not after what happened yesterday. It’s too soon, too fast.”

  Katie looked at her grandfather. The cogs were turning inside that big head of his, thinking through several different strategies. “What do you want to do?”

  “There’s not much we can do,” Bill said. “If it is one of the families, they’ll have a lot more men than we do. It’s pointless setting up a perimeter or attempt to come at them from a different angle. They’re in that lodge with the rest of our people. They could open fire at any moment. And there’s not one thing we can do to stop them.”

  40

  The gang were quick to assemble those inside the lodge. They removed all sharp implements and made them sit around the long bench they used for meals in the middle of the room. One member perched in each corner.

  They looked haggard to Camden, crumpled like they’d sent several days sleeping outdoors. By the way they stuffed their faces, they hadn’t eaten for days either.

  The guy in the long black trenchcoat was the leader. His name was Michael and he stood beside the large front window, peering out at the main drive.

  In the opposite corner stood Gregory. He no longer wore his uniform, but jeans and t-shirt, and a jacket he found in the back of one of the wardrobes.

  Camden’s lip curled at the sight of the man wearing his late father’s clothes. It wasn’t the fact he took his father’s clothes as if he owned them that bothered him, it was that he took the same attitude with Hannah’s heart.

  Sitting across from Camden, staring at her hands and unable to look up, Hannah wiped away the slow tears that ran down her face. Jodie comforted her the way she’d been comforted
during the journey there.

  “Why are you doing this?” Camden said.

  He aimed his words at the one they called Michael.

  Gregory leaned over and scooped up a handful of roast potatoes. He bit into them and let the crispy skin drop to the floor. “You’ll find out soon enough, little man.”

  Michael looked at Camden with something approaching interest before turning back to the window. “So long as everything goes to plan, none of you will get hurt.”

  “But why us?” Camden said. “What have we done to you?”

  “Done to us?” Michael seemed confused by the question. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Then what do you want with us?”

  “Nothing. Except your obedience.”

  Camden couldn’t get a good look at the man sitting behind him, but he was the biggest of the gang and spilt as much food over the floor as he put in his mouth.

  In the corner closest to the kitchen, the fourth and final man sat with his hands behind his back. He cast a wary eye over those taken hostage. He had a quiet way about him and by the look in his eye, wasn’t particularly happy with what they were doing there.

  “This isn’t going to end well for you,” Nancy said. “I’ve met men like you before. Just when this whole EMP shitstorm kicked off. It’s going to end for you the same way it ended for them. Death. It doesn’t need to be that way. Just leave. We won’t search for you, we won’t hunt you. It’s the only chance you’re going to have. I suggest you take it before the others come back.”

  Gregory scoffed and drank more soup. “You’re forgetting I know what you’ve got here. I know how many of you there are. There’s nothing you can do to us.”

  Michael considered Nancy with some respect. “If only it was so easy as that.”

  “It could be if you wanted it to be. I can find the others and convince them to take a walk. The police haven’t arrived yet. Escape and live out the rest of your lives somewhere else. You can even take some of the food if you want. We won’t stop you.”

  Michael turned back to the window and peered outside again. “Not without what we came for.”

  “How could you do this to us?” Hannah spurted, unable to hold herself back any longer. “How could you do this to me?”

  Hannah’s lips quivered as Gregory stared down at her. She was brave, Camden thought, the way she never broke eye contact with him.

  “Because this is my family,” Gregory said with an encompassing nod. “I joined the police but I’ve never been a part of them, not really. I needed to get inside for when an opportunity like this presented itself.”

  “And me? What was I?”

  “You…” Gregory grinned. “You were a welcome perk.”

  His words lacked venom but they struck deep in Hannah’s heart. Jodie clutched her friend close as she fell into her welcoming arms and bawled like a baby.

  Jack cackled and shook his head. “I think she fell in love with you, Casanova. Maybe you should hold onto her. It’s not many women who can stand the stink of your aftershave.”

  Gregory snorted and turned away. Then Camden saw what he didn’t want anyone to witness. He looked crestfallen. His mask slipped only a moment, but it was enough. He was a man fighting for his identity, fighting between what he was and what he had become.

  It made no difference to Camden. He was still the enemy. And now he had hurt Hannah so brazenly, it would be that much easier to pull the trigger when the time came.

  All Camden needed now was the trigger to pull. And he knew just where to find it.

  41

  Katie was getting antsy. She hated waiting. Worse was the not knowing. What did they want with the others? What did they have that was so important to the Chelsea Smile gang?

  She shivered inwardly at the name.

  It conjured black and white images of dead bodies with artificial smiles.

  “We can’t just sit here!” she said. “Who knows what they’re doing in there.”

  “We wait until they tell us otherwise,” Bill said, cool as a cucumber. “For now, they hold the cards. There’s nothing we can do now but make things worse.”

  “How can you be so calm?” Katie snapped. “Don’t you care about them?”

  Bill’s saddle creaked as he turned and fixed her with a penetrating gaze. “Inside that lodge are the only people I care about. Them and you. I’d do anything to keep them safe, even if it means sitting here like a ninny, waiting for permission to do something. If we do anything else, we’re doing what we want, not what’s best for them.”

  The words washed over Katie. So calm, so clear, it was impossible to disagree with what he was saying. She folded her arms and wore a frown than belonged on a cartoon character.

  Through the red mist that long since descended over her eyes, she could spy the truth and the knowledge that he was right. She knew it and yet couldn’t bring herself to feel comfortable sitting there, doing nought.

  The hard leather was beginning to make her backside go to sleep. Vincent recovered from his exertions and entertained himself by nibbling at the grassy verge.

  Darryl heard the clip-clop of unknown horse hooves coming up behind them first. The others cradled their weapons in their off hands and turned to look.

  The man drew up beside them and raised his hands to either side. It was Wesley. “I’m unarmed. Don’t shoot.”

  “We’re not going to shoot you, you idiot,” Bill said. “Why would we do a daft thing like that?”

  “Probably for the same stupid reason you made me come out here in the first place,” Wesley said.

  The rock in the pit of Katie’s stomach doubled in size. Of the two families, she expected the Wedges to have been the ones to react this way. She had, after all, beaten one of their own. They left with smiles on their faces but they would be quickly wiped with smirks the moment they turned to leave. But to see Wesley Wedge approach with not a single man in tow, well, that just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Katie.

  Were the Thornhills behind this thing?

  “Why should we know what you’re doing here?” Bill said.

  “You were the one that sent me this message, weren’t you?” Wesley removed his hand and reached inside his jacket.

  Tanya pulled the hammer back on her pistol and eyed Wesley suspiciously.

  “What do you think I’m going to do with this?” Wesley produced a single sheet of paper. “Give him a paper cut?”

  “You’d be surprised what I’ve seen a man do armed with a piece of paper,” Tanya said.

  Wesley leaned forward on his elbow with great interest. “How so?”

  Bill snatched the message out of Wesley’s hand. As he read it, his lips moved. When he finished, he lowered it to his saddle.

  “Well?” Katie said. “What does it say?”

  “It says that there might be a situation where Wesley could get his girl back. That he should meet us here.”

  “And now you’re telling me you didn’t write this letter in the first place?” Wesley said.

  “No.” Bill screwed the letter up and tossed it aside.

  “Then why are you sitting here?”

  “Because someone’s taken the lodge and we thought it was one of you fools.”

  “Then we know who’s sat up there in the lodge, don’t we? It has to be Preston and his boys. And I thought we were all happy with how the situation ended the other day.”

  “We were,” another voice said.

  Another set of clip-clop hooves approached. Preston materialised around the corner. Also alone. Also without backup.

  “By the sound of it, I got the same message you did,” he said.

  Now Katie really was scratching her head. “There isn’t a third family like you guys, is there?”

  “In your dreams,” Preston said.

  They shared a look, each of them swearing it would be the other that called them here. But if none of them were pulling the strings, who the hell was?

  The lodge door opened and a man
stepped out. He wasn’t wearing the same dark uniform they were used to seeing him wearing, but it was clearly him.

  Gregory.

  He had a certain swagger about him, a sway of the hips and a smirk on his face that didn’t belong on a man of the law.

  “Gregory?” Wesley said. “What brings you here?”

  “The same thing that brings the rest of you bastards here,” he said. “Opportunity.”

  It quickly dawned on them that Gregory wasn’t who they thought he was.

  Gregory waved a hand. “Let me make this quick so it’s easier for the slower witted among you to understand. I’m the sixth member of the Chelsea Smile gang. No one will be hurt so long as you accompany me and do as we say. Now, if you want to see your children alive again, you’ll want to follow me.”

  He turned to march back toward the lodge and waved a hand at the man in the watchtower. It wasn’t a man at all, Katie realised, but a woman–

  No, wait. It was a man.

  No, a woman.

  She was like one of those magic eye pictures, constantly shifting and changing before her eyes. She shook her head and focused on the ground in front of her for fear she might grow dizzy and lose her footing.

  Gregory waved a hand. “Only the leader of each group will go inside, thank you very much.”

  Preston, Wesley, and Bill got off their horses.

  “Grandfather,” Katie said. “Take me with you.”

  Bill looked ahead at Gregory. “I need my chief negotiator. I don’t take a shit without her around.”

  Gregory pointed at the three leaders. “Only you.”

  “Then I’m not going.” Bill turned to Wesley and Thornhill. “You’ve seen her in action. She runs circles around Inspector Taylor. She brought the two of you together when no one else ever has in the hundred and fifty years of your mutual animosity. Surely you want her on your side in negotiations with these people?”

  The two men exchanged a look and shrugged their shoulders. It could have meant either decision.

  “A second agreement in as many days,” Bill said. “This is one for the history books.”