23. Claire

"Claire, get up." Bonnie"s harsh whisper calls to me from somewhere nearby.

My head is throbbing as I take a deep breath inhaling the overwhelmingly putrid stench around me. Nausea warps my body. It feels like my stomach"s caving in on itself as I vomit onto the cement floor.

"Who hit me?" I ask.

"Asshole number three," Danny says from her corner of the room.

Dusty grey walls and dirty cement floors are cold to the touch. There aren"t any windows and it"s one room in which I see Bonnie and Danny are sitting against a wall. My body aches on my entire right side.

"Where are we?" I ask them.

"Trash room," Bonnie says.

"What?" My eyes struggle to focus. There"s one dull yellow light hanging from a lantern above us. "Where? What happened?"

"You got hit," Bonnie says. "I tried to get to you in time. I even managed to fire a few rounds before someone jumped me from behind. I couldn"t fight because they already had you two. They tossed us in here, and I"m sure the plan is to kill us."

"I"m sorry," Danny whimpers before she breaks down into a fit of tears. "This is all my fault. I didn"t know this is what he wanted."

"What who wanted?" Bonnie asks.

"I didn"t know his name. We call him The Judge. I didn"t know his name until I saw him the night of the birthday party. He was older and standing by Julian. That"s why I left early. I didn"t want him to see me, but he called me for one last favor."

"Charleston?" I ask her.

Danny nods. "The year our Mom died was a bad year for me. I was in and out of trouble and The Judge said he"d expunge my record if I did favors for him."

"Favors like what?" Bonnie asks, the horror building in her eyes for her sister"s truths that she couldn"t protect her from.

"I"d show up to parties with some girls from school. We all got paid to keep The Judge"s friends happy. There're pictures, videos—" Danny can barely choke the words out. "He said he just wanted Claire out of the way."

"I"ll kill him," Bonnie snarls. "You were sixteen, six-fucking-teen. What he did to you, to those other girls, it was illegal. He needs to be in prison or under it, if I get my way."

"You"ll have to get in line," I sigh, finally pushing myself closer to them. We"re not restrained, just tossed in a dirty basement where a ton of trash is piling up on the other side of the room.

Danny shakes her head. "One of the girls got hurt really bad. Her parents made a big fucking deal out of it which ended up forcing The Judge to retire and the parties stopped. I thought I was in the clear until he showed up at your birthday party. I"m so sorry, Claire."

"Stop apologizing for that shit stain. What are we doing to get the hell out of here?" I ask. I stand, my eyes scanning every inch of the room, looking for anything that will help us escape. Bonnie stands and walks over to me.

"Stand still, follow my fingers," Bonnie says, dragging her finger back and forth in front of my eyes. "I don"t want you running out of here if you"re going to pass out from a concussion or something."

"I"m fine," I tell her, swiping her hand out of my face.

"You"re not, but you"re good to help me get us out of here. There are three guys outside that door. I don"t think there"s anyone else. They"re talking to someone and it doesn"t sound like they"re going to let us out of here alive." Bonnie speaks in a hurried whisper.

"How do you know?" I ask her.

"Because I heard they got their money. Julian probably paid them. I only had a few seconds to give Julian a coded message, but I don"t know if he and Edward figured it out. So, we need to stall, to give them some time to get to us."

"What do you think we should do?" My eyes water as they move from one corner to the next around the hopeless room. There isn"t a back door or window to break out of. There"s only one way in and one way out.

The courage beaming through Bonnie"s eyes is undeniable and contagious as she glances between me and Danny. "We"re going to fight."

Bonnie rubs my shoulder to ease my anxiety, but this is why we train every morning like clockwork. While I never imagined in a million years the routine would come in useful, this is one of the moments where Julian gets to look at me and say, I told you so. My heart swells thinking about him and Dad.

"Danny, get over here," Bonnie commands. There isn"t the typical love or affection in Bonnie"s voice. There isn"t even that hint of parental authority she typically uses when speaking to us. This is a side of Bonnie that"s lethal and not be fucked with.

I can feel my own pulse racing as she tells us the plan. It"s daring, but it"s the only one we have. Danny initiates the scheme by dragging one of the garbage bags over to the corner, suppressing her gag reflex every step of the way. As soon as she kicks it into a long tube-like shape which could look like a body from across the room, she begins screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Claire, get up! Please, Claire! Claire!" Danny shouts at the trash.

Bonnie joins in to make the scene sound real, but she stands by the door so whoever comes in has to pass her. "What happened? We need help. HELP! HELP! Please help us!"

I crouch down behind the door, waiting for my moment.

I hear someone coming and silently point at the door. My heart thumps loudly in my ears as someone opens the door a crack. "Move away from the door. What"s going on?"

Bonnie puts on some of the best acting I"ve seen. "It"s our friend, Claire. She"s not breathing. She needs help. You gotta get us out of here. She was just sitting up and talking to us a minute ago."

The guy brandishes a gun, gesturing with it for Bonnie to take a few steps back. Danny"s still crying and hovering over the trash in the corner when the man walks inside. I lung at the lower half of his legs while Bonnie runs and leaps across the top half of his body, causing him to trip backwards over me.

The man falls to the ground, hitting his head against the cement with a sickening thud. Bonnie effortlessly takes the gun from his hand before she ducks and slips out of the door. I don"t want to leave her by herself to defend us, but I don"t have a weapon.

Gunshots pierce the silence.

"Get down!" I shout to Danny.

I don"t want to stay here. I gesture toward Danny to come toward me where we swipe keys from the unconscious guy who now has blood pooling under his head. I don"t recognize his face, but Danny"s eyes water as if she"s going to cry again.

"Don"t, not now. We"ll cry later," I warn her. "We"re okay. We"re going to see if there"s any way we can help Bonnie."

Danny nods, and we slip out of the trash room into a much larger area that opens onto a loading bay. There are three cement landings with enough space for large box trucks or garbage trucks to back into and a metal gate to close once they do. There aren"t any trucks, just a flimsy folding table with three flimsier folding chairs. The lights out here are bright enough to make me squint.

One of the garage gates is open. A sign of hope that we"re getting out as it leads directly outside. There"s a body on the floor by the release button, which is what probably lifted the gate. Three bullet holes and blood splatter surround it as me and Danny hurry past it to get out. Once we"re outside, there are sounds of a struggle.

The sound of Bonnie"s grunts, groans, and the curses of combat trigger the training inside me as I rush to her aid. The last guy is one big motherfucker. I don"t reach her in time to double team him like the first guy. He wraps his arms around her waist, hoisting her into the air and slamming her onto the ground. It causes the gun to slip from her hand.

Bonnie scrambles to get the firearm back, but the huge man uses his thick tree trunk of a leg to raise it in the air and bring it down on the back of Bonnie"s thigh. The sickening sound of her bone breaking angers me and I scream with every ounce of energy I have, charging toward him.

He snickers and stands there, because in a way, we both know me charging into him is the same as running into a brick wall. However, I"m not trying to fight him. I"m only trying to distract him long enough for Bonnie to crawl away.

As I reach the giant kidnapper, he steels himself for impact, but I dive between his legs and kick his right one behind the knee. He goes down immediately and it"s enough time for Bonnie to grab the fallen gun, to pull the trigger and put a bullet through the man"s leg.

"You"re not going to kill him?" I ask her.

She pants, her entire face scrunching in sweat, dirt, and pain, shaking her head. "Julian and Edward are going to want at least one of them alive."

The sight of headlights approaching makes me nervous. Bonnie trains the gun onto the car and says, "Get behind me, Claire."

I never thought I"d be happy to see one of the most irritating faces of my life but seeing her get out of the car shocks the both of us. That"s when I realize it. The shock on her face is because I"m alive. The shock coursing through my body skyrockets as I ask her, "What are you doing here, Ms. Marzano?"