Chapter 3
3
AMARA
Well, this certainly isn’t how I foresaw my day turning out. Then again, how does one prepare for a random shootout, a fiery crash, and now being stuck in an abandoned town with a giant of a man who clearly knows how to use a gun? I’ll bet everything I have left that he’s not a good Samaritan, in the right place at the right time. But seeing as I’m now in the middle of the whole thing, it’s not like I have much choice.
Though running isn’t off the table if shit gets weird. He might be big, but I’m small and fast, and I know all kinds of places to hide in the desert. Not to mention, how to find water and food if I need it. When you’re an unwanted kid, and later, a down on your luck adult, you learn a few things.
Still, Old Mill Town is a place I’ve never really looked into. Mostly because whenever I’m out this way it’s full of people, and I try not to spend too much time around others if I can help it. I put up with enough abuse on a daily basis, why add to it? Now I’m wishing I just sucked it up and dealt with it, because knowing where to hide right now would be helpful.
Not to mention, a good way to shake the big guy if things go bad.
We walk up the steps into the post office, and I try the handle. Unsurprisingly, it’s unlocked and the door swings open with a loud groan, making me wince. The air smells stale, and the room is full of dust, dirt, and sand, but it’s mostly empty. There’s not a thing to hide behind or under. The main counter with all the empty boxes sits on the back wall, along with an ancient-looking cash register.
“Probably not the best place to hide,” I muse, looking around again.
Lazaro—if that’s even his real name—moves behind the counter, bending to inspect underneath. I hold back a laugh at the sight. He’s as large as the entire space back there, and I’m surprised he even managed to fit. Finally, he straightens and suggests, “Let’s keep moving.”
Nodding, I turn to the door at the right of the room. “All of these buildings are connected inside,” I explain. “Which means if we find a spot to hide in, we’re going to need to barricade a few doors.”
He nods and follows me, ducking to get through the doorway. I stop once we’re inside what I assume was a tailor shop, if the pedestal and three-sided mirror are anything to go by. The mirror is caked in a layer of dust, so I can barely make out our reflection. I glance toward the back and see an empty sewing station, the lone chair’s leg snapped and propped up only by the table. To the front is a single pane window, and what I assume used to be the cash register near the door. It’s nothing more than an empty wooden decoration now.
“Not much here, either,” Lazaro remarks, moving to the sewing area. “And it’s too open. Even sitting behind the counter there, we’ll be too close to the window. One look inside and they’ll spot us.”
“Spot you, you mean,” I correct pointedly.
He looks over at me, and his lips pull up into a knowing smile. “Fine, yes, they’ll spot me. So we need to find a place where they won’t.”
“I hate to tell you, big guy, but there aren’t many places on this planet you won’t be spotted. Or fit in to.”
His smile turns downright dirty at my words, and I nearly facepalm myself. Damn it, I walked right into that. “I might be big, dolcezza , but I can fit into tight places when I need to.” The low baritone of his voice sends a shiver up my spine and heat spreads to my core. Add in that sexy accent, and I’m surprised I’m not already trying to hump his leg.
The man is sex personified. Good thing I’m used to ignoring those urges.
I roll my eyes. “That was almost too predictable.”
He chuckles. “Perhaps, but it made you think about it.” He winks at me before adding, “Let’s check out other places. We’ll have to go toward the first two buildings.” He heads for the door we just came through, not waiting to see if I follow.
Almost everything inside me is screaming that this is my chance. I need to make a run for it. But another small part of me wants to know what the hell is going on and not chance those assholes finding me on my own. Not to mention, having Lazaro as a bodyguard if shit goes south is definitely a plus.
“If you run, I’ll just have to chase you,” Lazaro calls out. I jerk at that, moving to the door to see him already on the other side of the post office, going through to the next attached building. He’s not even looking at me. How the hell does he know I’m thinking about running?
Unperturbed, I follow him, deciding that making the man with the gun angry at me probably isn’t the smartest move.
I walk into the other building, realizing it’s the barber’s shop, and see him already rooting through drawers and cabinets. I look around, taking in the old, uncomfortable-looking chair, and some of the rusted tools still lying around. Nothing that can be used again, but they’re cool to look at. Well, at least to me.
“Here,” Lazaro says, drawing my attention. He holds out an old razor—while the handle is rusty, the blade still looks in good shape. “Keep this on you, along with those scissors in your pocket in case you need to defend yourself.”
Wait, how did he remember I still have the scissors in my pocket? So much for the element of surprise.
I run my finger over the edge of the blade. It’s utterly dull. “It won’t do much damage,” I warn him. “Not unless we sharpen it.”
“We’ll look around, but at least it’s something. Even if you just throw it at someone to buy yourself some time.” Then he’s moving to the door leading to the final building. This one is the gun shop.
Too damn bad it’s clearly already been looted.
The place is torn apart, other than a few shelves and cases bolted to the floor and walls. The glass in them has been shattered, shards littering the floor, while other pieces hang on by what has to be sheer will to the large wood-framed cases. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to find much here,” I remark as I move carefully into the room. Thank goodness I’m wearing sturdy shoes today, because getting glass in my feet does not sound like a pleasant time.
Lazaro doesn’t answer; he just moves around until he finds another door between two of the shelves and shoves it open, quickly ducking inside. While he’s doing that, I take in the room. It’s a shame really, that people feel the need to destroy places like this. Ancient history should be preserved. I wonder if Old Man Withers knows about the destruction out here. He’s a bit of a history buff and is one of two members of the town’s historical society. This whole scene will make him cry.
Or really piss him off.
I move over to inspect one of the cases that’s still mostly intact. They don’t make things like they used to. This thing took a beating and most of it is still standing. I vaguely hear Lazaro rummaging around in the other room as I continue to move around the cases, seeing if there is anything left that might be helpful. I would think a gun shop like this would have had a hidden drawer in it. Or maybe not, since back then people just wore their guns on their hips.
Doesn’t hurt to check though.
I run my hands under the glass until suddenly I feel a small notch. At first it feels like a little hole in the wood, maybe where a knot was dug out, and I keep moving. But then I go back to feel around it, and that’s when the tip of my finger snags on it.
I give it a gentle tug. That’s when I hear the click behind me. I turn on my heel and stare in shock as one of the cases pulls away from the wall, revealing something dark behind it.
Holy shit! I gape for a second before I manage to get up and walk toward it. Whoever put it here didn’t want just anyone to find it. I look at the case, realizing now that the lower part of the display and the wood around it are straight, unbending. Which means the mechanisms that open this door have to be connected to that.
I turn back to the door and push on the shelf a bit, trying to open it further. It barely budges, and it groans under the pressure. So much for being able to look at it myself, because no way Lazaro didn’t hear it, though, I suppose I’ll need him to get this all the way open.
Right on cue, he stalks back into the room, and his eyes widen when he zeros in on what I’ve discovered. “How the hell did you find that?” he asks, pulling at the door and opening it further with what seems like little effort. Show off.
I walk over to the display cabinet and run my fingertip over the notch. “I caught my finger on this and when I pulled it, it opened.”
“You Americans are clever bastards when you want to be,” he remarks, turning back to the open door. He pulls out his phone and taps on the flashlight, revealing a small landing and then the top of a set of stairs that descend into the dark. Lazaro steps inside, the beam of light from his phone shifting across the walls until he makes a small sound. I hear another click as a dim light fills the space inside.
Holy shit!
I move closer, though I don’t walk inside. It might be cool, but the light only illuminates the top of the steps, not the darkness below. I’ll never admit that I hate the dark.
That is not something I’m about to share with the giant in front of me.
“What is it?” I ask instead.
“It looks like some sort of bunker,” he finally answers. “I’m going to check it out. Stay here.” Yeah, I don’t need to be told twice.
He descends down the steep steel steps, and I distantly hear him touch the floor. Damn, that thing is deep. The sound of another door opening echoes up the stairwell, old hinges squealing their protest. Again, I should be running the hell away, but I’m too invested to move. After a few more indistinguishable sounds, a loud whirring noise has me instinctively stepping back.
Shit. What was that? If Lazaro is dead, there is no way I can get his big body back up here.
“Um, are you still alive down there?” I call cautiously.
I don’t get a verbal response, but I hear movement and then footsteps on the stairs. Within seconds, Lazaro’s head is visible and he looks like a kid in a candy store. “It’s an old military bunker,” he says. “And it’s still operational. Water, power, and even an old camera system that looks out on this room. It’s a place to hide out if we need it. It’s perfect.”
Perfect? Yeah, no way in hell. I am not going down there.
I open my mouth to tell him that, but that’s when I hear it. Shouted orders, followed by the sounds of dogs barking. Lazaro hears it too, and he moves quickly around me to get to the window before he curses. “Fuck. Time’s up. We need to get down there now.”
“I’m not going in there!” I yelp. “It’s a metal coffin if we can’t get out. And I still don’t know what the hell is going on. Or if I should trust you. Hell, you?—”
“Amara,” he barks, interrupting my panicked rambling. “We can get out, I promise. There’s another button on the other side of the wall that will open this door again. But in there, we have the upper hand. There’s a door at the bottom that we can close to keep them from getting to us if they somehow manage to figure this one out, and I can defend us better down there than I can out here. Now, I need you to trust me. You’re safe with me.”
Safe? Safe ? Are there some kind of weird gases down there affecting his brain, because safe is not the word I would use right now. The shouts and barking get louder and closer. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.
Trust the giant of a man who got me into this mess, or the men out there who probably want to kill me, or do worse things to me? Hell, even if it’s not those guys and it’s the people in town, it’ll still be a witch hunt. They’ll probably try to throw me in jail or something.
Damn it. Looks like I don’t have a choice.
I turn and walk for the open door. As I step inside, I hear Lazaro move quickly behind me. I try to calm my pounding heart and the panic creeping up my throat as he steps onto the small platform, closing the door behind him. The lock clicks loudly into place.
Oh, God, what have I done?
“This way,” Lazaro says, moving to the steep steps.
I force myself forward, and when I peer around him and down the stairs, I thank all that is holy that he found another light switch down there. Alright, I can save my freakout for later. I follow him down, careful to take the steps slowly, because I don’t need to fall and break my neck. For a giant, Lazaro sure is nimble on his feet, as he goes down them with ease.
When he reaches the bottom, he ducks to get inside the lower bunker, and I carefully walk, stopping to peer in. My eyes widen as I take in the sight.
Wow. This place is far bigger than I expected.
The ceiling has to be at least eight feet high, and if I’m eyeballing it right, it spans a good forty feet. At the far end of the room are desks, each one containing a typewriter, scraps of paper and a few broken pencils and pens. Other machines and what looks like some kind of circuit board line the other side, covering the entire wall. Along the right side of the room are a dozen military bunk beds, still crisply made, even with all the dust covering them. To my immediate right, I see another door that leads to a bathroom, and though I don’t smell anything coming from it, I’m not setting foot in there just yet.
Gross.
I look to my left and see Lazaro standing along the wall where a large cabinet sits in the corner, the doors now open as he looks inside. The rest of the wall to his left is bare, the old plaster missing some chips. To his right is the kitchen area and a door marked Pantry. In the middle sits a large boardroom table littered with old papers, newspapers, and empty files. Whatever branch of the military was in here, they left in a hurry.
“They’ve entered the shop,” Lazaro announces, pulling me from my thoughts. I move to stand next to him and stare at the old surveillance system. The video is grainy, with thick lines moving through the screen every couple of seconds. Still, I can see the people coming into the shop. Leading the pack is the sheriff, who looks around the place with a hard gaze.
I’ve always hated him. He beats his wife and daughter all the time, and yet neither of them say a thing. His son is free to go out and do whatever the hell he likes. He orders his men to search, the dogs putting their noses to the ground when they enter. I recognize the old bloodhound that he loves more than his own family. Shit.
“The dogs are going to alert them,” I predict worriedly, looking up at Lazaro. He doesn’t reply, just continues to watch the screen. I turn back, my mind already spiraling to figure out what to do next.
Amazingly, the dogs sniff the bookcase a little longer than normal, but then move into the other room before coming back out and going over to the door that adjoins the other building. Everyone clears out, save for a couple of men that stay behind, huddled together and talking.
They aren’t cops. Everything about them screams something else. They’re wearing suits similar to Lazaro’s, but one of them is hunched over a little, like he’s injured and trying to hide it. “Are there more men after you?” I ask.
“They’re not after me,” he says absently as he continues to watch the screen. “But yes, that’s them. The injured one was in the SUV when it crashed, he must have gotten out before it went up in flames. The other one, I haven’t seen him, so he’s new. Which means there are more of them.”
“Wait, what? What do you mean they’re not after you? Who the hell are they after? If you’ve been dragging me all over the fucking desert for no reason, I’m going to kill you.” I don’t care about any of the other stuff.
He doesn’t even react to my threat. Probably because he knows unless I manage to find a gun, I won’t be able to do any such thing. Damn it. Finally, after another minute, he says, “They’ve left, probably checking the other spots. We’re safe enough for now, but we’ll need to keep our ears open.”
“Oh, well, alright then,” I snark sarcastically. “Would you like to tell me what the hell is going on now, or would you like me to start guessing? I’m warning you, most of them are going to be out there.”
He finally looks at me, and I see amusement in his dark eyes. No, wait, I’m not supposed to be noticing that. I’m pissed, and I need answers. Then the man has the audacity to say, “You’re cute when you’re mad, dolcezza . Like some sort of pocket pixie.”
Oh, wrong thing to say, fucker. I seethe internally, my glare on him intensifying. Before I can tell myself it’s a bad idea, I lash out, punching the bastard straight in the balls. The sound he makes is immensely satisfying, and I quickly jump out of the way as he collapses to his knee, cupping himself.
Is this the part where I yell timber?
“Am I cute now?” I demand, glaring at him furiously.
He curses, coughing and gagging as he tries to work through the pain. Finally, he manages to get himself under control and his head whips toward me, eyes dark and foreboding. “You just killed our future children, dolcezza ,” he grits out through clenched teeth as he hobbles to his feet, wincing with each step.
“Considering the size of you, that’s probably for the best,” I toss back. “I’d split in two. Now, what the hell is going on? If you don’t start talking, next time it’ll be scissors in your balls and not my fist.”
“You’re a bloodthirsty one, aren’t you?” he rasps. “Thank fuck. I don’t want to deal with a crier. But just so you’re aware, dolcezza , turnabout is fair play, and I have my own ways of making you beg for mercy.” His voice takes on that silky note that has my core turning molten.
Okay, I need to get some headphones or something that will change his voice because, damn it, every time he talks like that, he makes me want something that I can’t. Chemistry is a bitch.
“Cut it out,” I snap at him. “If you think flirting with me is going to distract me, you’re sorely mistaken. Get talking.”
I hope I’m able to handle whatever the hell he’s about to say.