We begin jogging toward the fence in the distance. Red lights blink intermittently on top of it. The access gate is unlocked.
“Fuck,” he says, and I follow his eyes. There’s somebody walking toward the gate. It’s hard to tell if he’s airport security or not.
We duck into the shadow between two hangars, and he turns me to face him. “We need to get out of here, Pen.”
“What the hell is going on?”
He puts his finger to his lips, and cranes his neck behind us. Blood is dripping down his face, mixed with sweat, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“What are you looking for?”
“Fallon’s goons.”
That’s when it clicks for me. Fuck. He ducked out of the fight, didn’t complete his end of the deal. They’re going to be after him now.
“You idiot!” I hiss. “Why didn’t you finish the fight?”
“Because you left!” he whispers angrily. Then his expression softens. “I wasn’t going to let you get away.”
I shake my head, wondering just what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into. But something feels off. He’s acting too skittish.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He looks me dead in the eye. “They didn’t threaten me. They threatened you.”
The sound of that plane taking off fades into nothingness. All I hear is a dull metallic sound, like a bomb has just gone off. I struggle to wrap my mind around it.
“They said they’d hurt me?”
“They implied it.”
“If you didn’t fight.”
“Yes.”
“You fucking idiot!” I say again, slapping his arm. “I can’t believe you left the fight!”
He puts a finger in front of his lips. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
“They’re looking for you,” I say. I point to the man now standing guard by the gate. “Is there another way out of here?”
“No.” He takes a deep breath. “Just stay behind me.”
He goes running off into the night, and I struggle to keep up. He’s keeping low, sticking to shadows formed by the enormous hanger, by parked airport vehicles.
In his tiny fighting shorts, he looks a bit ridiculous.
Without any warning to me he speeds up into a sprint, charges at the man by the gate and lands a punch so hard I swear I hear bone break. The man’s body goes limp immediately. He’s out cold.
“Hurry the fuck up!” he says, beckoning me urgently. I run through the gate, and he follows behind me.
“We need to get to my car, Pen.”
He takes me hand and we run next to the road. There are potted trees and tall plants, as well as a hedge that obscure us from passing traffic.
I hear the crunch of stones and twigs beneath my shoes, and know that he must be feeling it on his bare feet.
Some minutes later, I’m panting, holding onto my side. I’ve got a stitch, and I’m regretting eating that lasagna before coming.
We get to his car, and he throws the door open, pushes me inside. He climbs in after me, guns the engine, and we scream off down the road, racing for the on-ramp to the highway.
“I don’t think they’re following us,” I say, laughing with relief. “Holy shit.” I pull my hair to the side, follow it with my gaze, and that’s when I see the headlights.
All I hear is thunderous, screeching metal.
All I feel is my body being thrown into Pierce, his arms wrapping around me.
All I see is sprinkles of shattered glass glimmering.
Our car flips, rolls, hits a tree. Pierce is beneath me, calling my name, but his words are only a blur, a smudge in my brain.
The passenger door above me is yanked open, and two hands reach in and pull me out. My hair catches on the seatbelt, rips out of my head.
I’m too stunned to feel pain.
I’m being held from behind. Some man is lifting me up. My legs don’t touch the ground.
A man walks up to me with a roll of silver tape. He snaps out a length, tapes my mouth. The smell of plastic and pungent adhesive floods my nostrils.
A bag is shoved over my head. Everything goes black.
I’m forced into a car, and there feel a zip tie tightened around my wrists, binding them together.
“Take her to the chemical plant,” I hear. The voice is familiar. I’ve heard it before. “We’ll finish this there.”
Chapter Thirty Two
The black bag smells like sweat and saliva.
It grosses me out to think that this bag has been over someone else’s head before.
It terrifies me to think that that person, in all likelihood, is no longer alive. Swimming with the fishes. Sleeping with the daisies. Whatever the hell it is they say.
The car slows, and I hear a metal shutter gate pulled up and open. It’s rusty and squeaky… and that man’s words ring through my head again.
Chemical plant.
What are they going to do to me?
All I can think is that they’re going to kill us, but not before they torture us. Pierce ducked out of the fight, the Russian won by forfeit, and all these people who bet on Pierce lost their money.
They want their payback now, and if they can’t get it in greenbacks, they’ll get it in red blood.
I want to hate him, want to call him a fucking idiot, want to blame it all on him, but it’s not all his fault. I know it’s not all his fault.
God damn it, why didn’t he just tell me they’d threatened me? Would I have left? I think about it for a moment before coming to my senses.
Of course I would have fucking left!
I would never risk my life for a boy I just met. Even one I might be falling for… even one about to become my stepbrother.
I hear the car door open, and cool night air floods in. I shiver, and then one of the men grabs me by the wrists and pulls me out of the car. I keep my head low. I’ve got that image in my head where a policeman is pushing someone he’s arrested into a cop car, and he’s got his hand on top of the perp’s head.
I don’t want to hit my head. It’s so absurd to be worrying about this, but I can’t help myself.
“Over ’ere, darlin’,” one of the men says.
I feel his arms around my shoulders as he guides me, and I shiver again. I shake him off me.
“Suit yourself, love,” he says. He gives me a small push in the back. I feel my blood begin to boil. God, I wish I could punch this asshole.
“Stop,” he says. I do, and turn around, heaving a sigh. He pulls the bag from my head, and I’m blinded momentarily by a single bright light hanging from the ceiling.