Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

GRACE

A fter the doctor applied the compression bandage and held it in place, he detailed the next few days to Bones and Voodoo. I still couldn’t believe there had been a tracker inside of me. It had been just below my shoulder blades. I couldn’t quite reach it with my hands, which would have made it impossible to remove on my own.

“You can shower,” the doctor said, meeting my look. “The bandage is waterproof. Leave it in place for at least three days, five would be ideal. Then you can remove it.” He passed over a sheet of paper. I had to wonder if his name was on it. So far, we hadn’t said our names nor had he given us his. Maybe that was how they did things. “Things to keep an eye on, if you begin to run a fever or the area becomes hot to the touch, go to a doctor. Also… avoid any heavy lifting over the next four days or so.”

That seemed pretty basic and straightforward.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said as I eased off the table. Voodoo had stayed with me for every piece of this. Weirdly, his presence helped when I had to lay face down and the doctor dug the tracker out.

I’d gotten to see it briefly, and it looked just like an air tag that I would put in my luggage, just smaller. The tiny looking flat pill was how they kept finding me. I’d be safe now, right?

“You’re welcome,” he said, his stern visage relaxing into an encouraging smile. “You be careful and listen to these reprobates. They might be surly, but they know their stuff.” The older man with his salt and pepper hair made me think of sharing butterscotch candies and sitting around the diner playing checkers in the summer.

There’d been a lot of men like him when Am and I were growing up. They were everyone’s uncles and grandparents. They would buy you a soda when you were short the money, and teach you how to thread bait properly on a hook. If you had a school project, you could more often than not find a volunteer and his friends to help you set it up.

Leaving that life had been the primary driver behind pursuing my career. Probably because life was a lot simpler then.

Simpler and boring.

“Thank you again,” I said, turning to Voodoo who held up my hoodie. He helped me thread my arms into the sleeves, one after the other.

“See you around, Doc. We’ll make sure the bill is covered.” Voodoo shook his hand and then he opened the door to lead me out of the room. Bones waited for us near the nurse’s desks. He straightened, phone in hand, before he gave me a once over.

“All good?”

“For now,” Voodoo said. “We ready?”

“Green.” Honestly, the short hand they spoke in was becoming almost normal. Some of it made sense. Then again, speaking in code meant the words might not mean what I thought at all.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in the backseat of Voodoo’s Jeep with Bones in the passenger seat. They didn’t say much. Probably wanted to wait until I wasn’t paying attention in order to brief each other.

The spot where the doctor removed the tracker was numb. Awareness of the area was ever present in the back of my mind. It was probably going to hurt when the numbing agent wore off. The lidocaine had stung like a bitch going in. Fortunately, once he started the procedure it had gone swiftly.

The sun had gone down while we’d been inside. The headlights of other cars highlighted the profiles of the two silent men in the front. We continued west for an hour before Voodoo followed the instructions to leave the highway.

As tired as I was—and I was dead exhausted, no pretending otherwise—I didn’t think we were anywhere near our destination. With that in mind, I didn’t assume we were heading to where the others were or whatever their home base was.

Maybe I didn’t want to go to their home base. Going there could mean I wouldn’t be allowed to leave again. Voodoo didn’t deny that I’d exchanged one set of captors for another. Not that this set had tried to beat me or rape me, so it could be worse.

I couldn’t escape the fact that just because they hadn’t yet didn’t mean they wouldn’t ever. No matter how nice they seemed. That seemed to be the big problem at the heart of the matter. I didn’t know them, but what I had learned about them made me want to trust them.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I leaned my head against the seat and stared out into the darkness. The lights were coming fewer and farther in between. Wherever we were headed, it was away from the city.

“Hey, Firecracker,” Voodoo said, raising his voice and it penetrated the haze around me.

“Are you talking to me?” Had I missed a question? Bones half-twisted in his seat to glance back at me. Of the four men, Bones seemed the least warm. The least personable. I wasn’t sure if it was just the chill in the air around him or the long, studying looks.

He didn’t say much, even in direct conversation. Yet, I couldn’t escape the idea that he weighed each word before he said it aloud. Yet, he said very little of what he truly thought.

“Yes,” Voodoo said, tugging my attention from Bones to him. He didn’t glance over his shoulder, but somehow, I didn’t think he missed much.

“Do you mind repeating it?” It was a confession that I hadn’t been paying attention, but I couldn’t really hide it.

“Are you hu—” He cut off abruptly, and his hands flexed on the steering wheel.

Apprehension sliced through me.

“Brace,” Bones ordered. I reached up for the “oh shit” handle even as he did the same. Headlights suddenly flooded the interior of the car. The crunch of metal being slapped by metal ripped through the vehicle even as we jerked forward.

I half-expected another hit, but Voodoo was already accelerating. The lights weren’t going away though. If anything, they seemed to be fighting to catch up with us. The light made it impossible to see and I winced for Voodoo who kept his eyes narrowed on the road.

“Get ready,” Voodoo said. “They’re going to hit us again.”

Even expecting it, the slam of car against car rattled through me. My teeth clacked together, pain shivered up my spine toward the numb area the doctor had carved into me. The snapping of my head forward and back just made everything hurt.

“This is going to need a steadier hand,” Voodoo warned. I wasn’t entirely sure what part of this required that, but I could guess it was either dealing with them hitting us.

The scream of metal shrieking against metal ripped through the car. My teeth scraped against my lower lip and there was the dull flavor of copper in my mouth.

“Agreed,” Bones said, then glanced at me. “Stay down, Miss Black. As soon as we come to a full stop, down to the floor and stay there.”

Right. Hit the floor. Stay there. After we stopped.

“Do I want to know how we’re going to stop?” That came out a hell of a lot more pitiful than I intended. Still I licked my lips and tightened my grip as the car hit us again. We fish-tailed and I grimaced at the spin. Another slam and we were whipping around backwards.

The sound of a gun going off cracked through the sounds of tires squealing against the pavement and the metal buckling. I held on for dear life as we spun right off the side of the road.

Then we were plunging downward at a sharp angle. A scream erupted as we fell, then bounced as we hit something. The tires scrambling just added more adrenaline to pumping through my system. I half expected we were going to roll.

We teetered precariously before the Jeep slammed downward with another crunch and we stopped. There was lights above us on the road. Our headlights blazed out into the empty in front of us.

“Down,” Bones ordered. With shaking hands, I unclipped the safety belt and then slid down to the floor. Every muscle in my body hurt and I was shaking all over again. He was already slipping out of the passenger side and vanished like so much smoke.

“Taser,” Voodoo said, slipping a hand between the seats and wrapping my fingers around the device. “Stay down, I’ll check the best side for you to get out if you need to.”

I barely had time to process those words and then Voodoo disappeared after Bones. I hugged the floor, torn between straining to listen for what was happening outside the Jeep and not hearing it.

Gunfire exploded through the darkness. I put a hand over my head like it would stop a bullet if that hit the car and went through it to shoot me. Right. The vehicle shook.

The motion had my stomach bottoming out. Head lifted, I stared upward at the door. Voodoo was going to tell me what was safer to get out, but he was gone.

Did that mean there wasn’t a safe path? Or was it just a case that he was distracted? The explosion of gunfire cracked on. One.

Two.

Three-four-five in rapid succession just added to the terror sliding through me. Guns. Running people off the road. Chaining men and women inside a truck. Being coerced or raped?—

I didn’t know what the hell had happened to sink me so deeply into all of this, but I desperately needed it to stop.

Glass splintered on the passenger side. Another bullet plinked through it and then into the windshield. The spider web of cracks spread out like we were in some kind of disaster movie. The whole effect was made eerier still by the low-radiance blue lights that were on around the floors and doors.

Not enough to really see, but to give everything a blue cast. There was a masculine shout somewhere and my heart plummeted with it as the man fell. He sounded like he was falling and his cry followed him.

Something hit the side of the Jeep and it gave a little shudder.

I needed out of the car. Right now . The bullets hit the passenger side so they had to be firing from that direction. Driver’s side would be safer. I scooted over to that door and flipped the lock to unlocked.

More gun shots ruptured the unsettling silence. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to hear more. Sucking in a deep breath, I pulled the handle to open the door and a light turned on over my head.

Bullets sprayed the back window then hit the seats over my head and more glass broke. Unwilling to stay in here now, I shoved out, staying as low as I could. The ground was uneven. Rocks dug into my knees and grass tickled my palms as I crawled away from the Jeep.

Shouts came from above. There were headlights slicing through the darkness up there. Shadows leapt upward, covering the light then vanishing again. Staying by the Jeep was a bad idea.

Going up would be a bad idea. What I needed was to get away from the Jeep. The battle in the barn had been more controlled. Even then, Voodoo disappeared, and he dealt with the men but I’d had a place to be.

In the dark, with two of them out there and the rest of me hurting? No, I didn’t want to stay still. Not rising, I moved on hands and knees to stay down and figure out where the earth fell away.

It didn’t actually take that long before the surface seemed to be angling downward. I’d encountered more rocks, and pebbles. There was broken glass too. Twisting to sit, I slid down the side a ways. The lack of any light down here made it almost impossible to see. In theory, there was a road down here, right? The road going the other way?

I hesitated with each spot I slid, I didn’t want to fall or go tumbling down the hill. A sound like a boot on a rock scuffed behind me and I crouched lower. I didn’t think anyone could see me, but I couldn’t see them either.

Glancing back the way I’d come—I thought—I searched the darkness for any sign of the men or Voodoo or Bones. But if they were there, I couldn’t make them out. My pulse hammered faster and it was getting hard to take a deeper breath.

Another scrape of a shoe and I twisted to look the other way. Had I gotten turned around? What if I was moving closer to the car? No, the hill beneath me still angled down, so uphill would be where the car was. Downhill was safety.

Maybe.

Did I stay? Did I need to continue scooting?

Rocks went flying, skipping over each other and scattering. Then one of those pebbles hit me.

It didn’t scatter so much as thunk.

Everything went quiet. Even the gunshots and shouts from above. The night was utterly, bafflingly silent.

Then an arm wrapped around me from behind and hauled me upward and backward. Maybe it was the guys?

That hope died with the smell of heavy onions, garlic, and what could only be cilantro.

The taser slid in my palm as I clawed at the arm around me. It released a little whine like it was charging. I couldn’t get his arm off of me, but he was still holding me, so I tased his arm. His guttural shout was a reward as he convulsed around me.

Then we were both falling.