“I can’t believe he’s a rapist.” Rini jogged behind them. “I mean he’s cute.”
Cute. Cute! How can she be so stupid. Manny stopped and turned. He crowded Rini against the side of a Ford pick-up. “He’s a murderer, Rini.”
Her blue eyes widened in her mottled green and yellow checks.
“He’s the man I saw dump that woman into the garbage pile. He’s the one the soldiers think killed his wife.”
Rini shook her head. Her spiky blond hair fluttered with the motion.
Didn’t she see? Didn’t she understand that he was a monster? “He’s the reason we had to leave the neighborhood and find the soldiers.”
“Stop scaring her.” Beth wedged herself between him and Rini. “I thought he was cute once too. When I first met him.”
Manny threw up his hands. What the hell was wrong with them? Shoving his hands in his pockets, he stomped down the road.
“But I was wrong. There’s a monster underneath.” Beth wrapped her arm around Rini’s shoulders. Their footsteps crunched behind him. “One that did this to me.”
“Why can’t people look like what they are?” Rini moaned.
“Manny does.” Beth giggled. “He’s nice and nice looking.”
Manny tripped over his feet. He caught himself on the side of a Ram truck. How did they get to talking about him? “We need to get out of here.”
Beth shoved her black hair out of her eyes. “How?”
He scoped out the men with the guns. One stood on the hood watching them, the other on the shoulder, writing his name in yellow on the snow. Although they were forty yards away, he didn’t want to chance bullets hitting them.
A yellow cruiser bumped down into the ditch. The kid inside hooted when the bumper crunched into a tree.
Another scream. Louder this time.
His ears ached from the pitch.
“Can we help her?” Catching up with him, Rini squeezed his hand.
He didn’t know if he could help her—or any of them. “We can try.”
Standing near a black SUV, two boys whispered, looked around then whispered again. One moved his finger over his palm like the lines were a map. They flinched as the next scream started almost before the other ended.
Guess he wasn’t the only one planning an escape.
Manny and the girls would have better luck with others. Wheelchair Henry had taught him that. “Come on.”
Slipping through the cars, he approached the two kids. Snow crunched under his sneakers.
The two looked up, suspicion narrowing their brown eyes.
“What do you want?” The boy on the left spoke first. He was about an inch taller than the other. Lift tickets clung to his black jacket and fluttered like toe tags.
Manny took a deep breath. If they squealed, he and the girls were in big trouble. “I’m Manny. This is Rini and Beth. We’re getting out of here. To find the soldiers.”
“Oy!” The guard on the side of the road yelled at them. “This ain’t no cotillion. Move those damn vehicles.”
Manny shook his head. What the hell was a cotillion?
“Thanks for drawing attention to us.” The kid sneered and his lift tickets jerked in agitation.
“I just thought you wanted to go and help her.” After jerking his chin toward the woods, Manny opened the door of the SUV. Thankfully there wasn’t a body inside. He shifted it into neutral.
Rini climbed into the seat and cranked the wheel so the tires headed toward the woods. “Ready.”
Manny braced his hands along the frame. “We’re going to push you down the slope. Once the car stops, get out and run into the woods.”
The two boys moved to the back. “Why are you going to help us rescue our aunt?’
Their aunt? Crap, now they’d have to suceed. No one should have to lose a loved one like this. Manny shoved the car. His feet slipped in the snow. “We have a better chance of surviving if we stick together until the soldiers arrive. “
The taller boy grunted. “I’m Pete. This is my brother, Paul.”
Paul waved a blue glove and shivered in his green hoodie.
Beth’s hands slipped along the passenger door. “Now that that’s out of the way, we need to do this on the count of three. One. Two. Three.”
The SUV inched forward, slowly at first, then gained speed as it bumped off the curb. Manny released the frame and stepped back. It slammed to a stop after coasting a short distance and the horn honked.
He swore under his breath. Ten yards separated Rini from the woods. And thanks to the blare, the men were looking his way.
Rini rolled out of the door and crouched in the snow.
“Stay,” Manny hissed to her then motioned for Pete, Beth and Paul toward the next vehicle, walking backward so he could watch the men.
The guards stared back.
“Don’t hit the horn when it’s your turn.” Pete glared at Beth.
“I won’t.” Crossing her arms, she walked to the front of the sedan. Sighing, she yanked open the door and screamed when a body fell out. The seat belt caught it at a forty-five degree angle. Liquid oozed out of the cracks in the skin.
After a few seconds, the guard looked away.
Manny waved for Rini to run for the woods.
Crouching low, she bounced over the snow and slipped between the trees.
“That’s not good.” One boy grabbed the body by the arm and tugged it the rest of the way out. “She left tracks. We’ll all leave tracks.”
Manny eyed the holes in the snow. The white stuff hadn’t really accumulated under the trees. “We’ll be fine once we get into the woods.”
He hoped.
Beth shifted the sedan into neutral but didn’t get behind the wheel. She cranked the wheel then set one hand on the dash and the other on the door frame.
Black stained the seat.
Manny opened the back door and shoved the corpse inside before joining the boys in the back.
This one went a little farther than the other.
He checked their guards. Neither was looking their way. “Go!”
Beth ran for the woods.
He turned to the next vehicle and groaned. The bumper of the truck reached his chest and the tires were wider than he was. “Damn.”
“Yeah.” Pete dusted his hands on his pants. “I say we all go after this one.”
“Agreed.”
Scrambling inside, Manny released the brake. They worked the vehicle back and forth until finally they got it moving. His arms trembled by the time it rolled down the hill. As it moved up the next, he sprinted after it then headed for the woods.
“Hey!” One of the guards yelled. “Get back here.”
He pumped his legs harder, kicking the snow in front of him. Damn this was hard.
The gun popped. He reached the woods.
Standing in dark wood, Beth waved at them from in front of a pine tree trunk. “This way.”
Manny veered toward her, too late realizing they were heading back toward the guards and their guns. Rini dashed between the trunks in a flash of color. With a burst of speed, he caught up with Beth. “Are you nuts?”
Rini stopped in a small clearing. Gray sunlight shone on the brown and white ground. “We’ve found blood.”
Jesus. He’d forgotten the woman.
Pete and Paul overtook him and burst into the clearing. “Where?”
Manny staggered to a stop next to Beth.
“Here.” Rini pointed to the ground. Red spots dotted the brown pine needles. A single set of footprints stomped the snow.
“We’ll follow them to Aunt Alma.” Keeping an eye on the ground, Pete jogged to the right. Paul followed hard on his heels. Soon they were shadows in the dim light.
Beth and Rini entered the woods next.
Manny followed.
Pete disappeared, then Paul went down.