Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
The door handle jiggled as though somebody was testing the lock. That was strange. If Ghost had been the one to close me inside this room, why would he do that?
The person behind the door gave it a harder tug, then swore. Had he locked himself out somehow? A second set of footsteps followed the first. Had he brought someone from his MC back with him? Was he going to let his Brothers rape me too?
The cold fingers of fear gripped my throat and I could barely breathe. I had no possible means of fighting off Ghost, let alone multiple members of his Club. My circumstances had just grown exponentially worse.
“She’s inside. She’s probably still unconscious,” the person whispered from behind the door, just loud enough for me to hear that scrap of information. “Ghost won’t even know.”
Those words were perhaps worse than any other I could have heard in that moment. Because, based on what the man had said, Ghost wasn’t the one trying to get in. It was someone else. Two someones, in fact. And, considering what I’d overheard so far, I couldn’t imagine they had the best of intentions where my safety was concerned.
The second man joined the first at my door. Placing my ear to the wood, I strained to hear what was being said.
“Ghost is going to be pissed to find out that we messed with her,” the second man reasoned, fear the motivating factor behind his lecture.
“Didn’t you fucking hear me? She’s still unconscious. He won’t even know we were here,” the first man countered.
Bile rose in my throat. My fight or flight instincts kicked in and I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet, ready to make a break for it the minute that door opened.
“How the hell are we even supposed to get in?” the second man queried. “Do you have a key or something?”
That question caused the first man to pause. “I think I can pick the lock.”
They squabbled for a minute about what to do next, but the first man was insistent on getting inside my room and his will won out. When he returned from wherever he went to grab his supplies to pick the lock, he began noisily working on the padlock.
In a panic, I looked around the room for anything that I had missed. Anything I could use to defend myself. The only thing I could see were the bedsheets and the lamp on the bedside table, which didn’t seem particularly useful at the moment.
Quietly moving to the bed, I developed a plan. Stripping the mattress of the light comforter, I cut the lights, which neither man seemed to notice, and stood to the side of the door with the comforter in hand. As soon as they opened the portal, I was going to do the only possible thing I could think of. Toss the bulky material over their heads and run while they struggled to free themselves from the cumbersome fabric. Was this the biggest hail Mary shot ever? Yes. Did I have any other options at the moment? Not that I could think of.
My heart thudded wildly as I waited for whatever happened next. When the lock snicked open, and the men cheered their success, I raised the comforter into place.
I would only have one chance to get this right, so I silently prayed that my aim would be true. All of my attention centered on that door as I waited for it to open wide enough to toss the blanket over the men’s heads.
“Find the lights,” the second man ordered, as they pressed further inside the pitch dark space.
Holding my breath, I released the blanket. Immediately, they began to shout and struggle. Tangled up in yards of fabric and fighting like cats trapped in a bag, they fell hard to the floor, arms and legs scrabbling for purchase.
Seeing my chance to escape, I rushed out the door and swiftly closed it behind me. As I glanced down, I saw the silver of the shiny, new lock wink back up at me from the ground.
Thinking fast, I grabbed it and secured it into place. As soon as I snapped the lock closed, the men began to scream and pound at the door, furious that they were now trapped inside.
Shocked that I’d actually managed to do the impossible, I turned toward the stairs and scurried up them. When I reached the top, I thought I was home free. But I soon learned how wrong I was. Ghost opened the door and caught my wrist before I could even think to pull away.
“How the fuck did you get out?” he shouted, forcibly turning me around and marching me back down the stairs.
Hearing the men shouting for help from within the depths of my cell, Ghost quickly put two and two together.
Quickly producing some cord to immobilize my wrists, he bound me so tightly that my skin tore and began to bleed in places. I remained quiet though, too shocked and defeated to accept that I’d been so close to freedom, but was still thwarted in the end.
“Shut the fuck up already. I’ve got the key,” Ghost shouted at the men, and they immediately hushed.
Retrieving the key from his pants pocket, he opened the padlock.
“Ghost, I,” The first man began to speak, but he suddenly began to gurgle instead of form intelligible words.
“No, please!” The second man pleaded, but he was silenced as quickly as his companion had been.
They were both dead before I realized what had happened. In retaliation for their betrayal, Ghost had slit both of their throats with a cold determination that was almost admirable, if it hadn’t been so brutal.
My mouth gaped open at the macabre scene in front of me. Ghost leaned down and wiped his bloody blade on one of the men’s shirts and then sheathed it back in the holster on his belt.
Overwhelmed and nauseated by the smell of the dead men bleeding in front of me, I bent at the waist and vomited onto the floor.
Ghost waited for me to stop wretching before he seized my arm and said, “Change of plans, we’re not staying here any longer. If you want to live to see another day, I suggest you don’t fight or scream when we get outside.”
Too stunned to argue, I simply followed him up the stairs and out into the dark night beyond. Leading me over to a van, Ghost slid open the door and shoved me toward it.
“Get in. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us and we don’t have any time to waste.”