Ten #2
“Both of you, now, or you’re dead!” the voice snarled back.
Aja clutched me tight as I took a step toward the open door. Never-never-never get in a car. Better to try anything, fight wildly, recklessly, than succumb to another’s power and get in the car. I saw the gun and clawed for it, got my hands around the wrist that held it and fought hard.
“Aja, run! Run!” I shouted at her, and she listened because I heard her fumbling behind me and then felt the bump as she pushed away from me and, when I turned to look, saw her running down the road.
She was flying, arms pumping, legs a blur, and then my face was covered with a rag.
I heard the slide of the door, felt the jolt as I lost my balance, and then nothing.
“Jory, open your eyes. Please, please, please…”
My eyes fluttered open, and it was dark except for a slight glow across the room.
When I tried to sit up, I realized my hands were tied behind me. It was all too familiar. Funny, but my first thought was: Sam’s going to kill me.
“Shit.” I focused my eyes and was stunned to see Caleb Reid lying on the floor beside me, his eyes wide open, staring at me, tied like I was with his hands behind his back. “Caleb?”
“Jory,” he said, obviously relieved. “Thank God you’re all right.”
“Caleb.” I was trying so hard to wrap my brain around it all. “What the hell?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I assured him as I struggled to sit up. “What’s going on? Tell me.”
“I dunno—I dunno,” he almost whined, his voice rising.
“I was in town on business, but I didn’t even bother calling Dane ’cause I knew he was still on his honeymoon and—” He stopped suddenly as the door slid open and a man appeared there.
The light was behind him, which made it impossible for either of us to see his face.
“What do you want?” Caleb yelled at him.
I saw the raised gun.
“Face down, you fucks!”
I did as I was told, moving as fast as I could.
“What the—get off me! Get off me!” Caleb screamed, and it sounded like he was being dragged out of the room. I listened to him yell until I couldn’t hear him anymore.
“Please don’t hurt him,” I pleaded.
I felt the foot squarely in the middle of my back. There was scrambling above me.
“You should worry about yourself,” the man warned me, grinding his heel into my back. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t make a sound. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
I nodded.
“I’m already pissed at you for making me lose his wife. You better hope he’ll pay for you, little brother, or you are royally fucked.”
Which was why when I was fighting for the gun, he hadn’t shot me. It was about money. I was relieved because it had nothing to do with me alone, just what could be ransomed from Dane for the people he loved. And yes, it was awful, but not Jory centric.
“Just sit tight and don’t fuck up.”
I nodded again.
“Good,” he said, and then was gone. The door was slammed shut, and I heard a chain and a lock close on the other side.
The room was pitch black. I put my cheek down on the cold floor and waited for my breathing to become regular.
I was terrified for Caleb even as I rolled to my side and realized I was really lightheaded.
Something was wrong, and as the wave of nausea went through me, I wondered briefly if I was more hurt than I knew.
I must have dozed then, because the shouting jarred me awake.
“You crazy piece of shit!” a man roared, and something hit the other side of the door really hard. “You never told me you were fuckin’ around with Sam Kage!”
There was a muffled sound and then a bang, followed by a low moan.
“You don’t fuck with a cop, man, especially not a goddamn detective! How stupid are you?”
No sound, just silence until a sort of light hammering began.
“Let’s just dump the guy and walk away before—” A sharp crack then, and glass shattered.
“No! Get rid of the goddamn—”
There was a firecracker sound and then a low thud, and nothing after that but thundering silence.
That silence you almost hear things in, but really, it’s just your own heart beating.
I sat up, thinking I could hear better, but all alone in the dark, I was terrified that I would never see anyone ever again.
There was nothing to do but wait and see, so I sat there and waited for what came next.
It was scary to have my eyes open and see no more than I would if they were closed. I tried not to think about it too much.
I must have nodded off again, because the door opening woke me up. I was sitting against a wall, thankful for the support.
“Jory?”
“Caleb,” I said. “Come here. Did they hurt you?”
“No.” His voice cracked, and I could hear how raspy his breathing was. When his hands touched my face, I realized he was untied.
“Ohmygod, you’re loose—why’re you loose?”
“He untied me before I talked to Dane and had me carry in a bucket for us to pee in. It’s gross, but it’s something.”
I was stuck on what he’d said first. “You talked to Dane?”
“Just for a second.”
“And?”
“And it’s a ransom. He wants ten million, Jory. Five million apiece or Dane doesn’t get either of us back ever. He said Dane would have nothing to bury.”
“And?”
“And what? That’s it. I was told that as long as I behaved, he wouldn’t shoot you. If I do something stupid, you get hurt, not me.” I felt his hands cup my face. “I don’t plan to be any trouble, so you’re gonna be just fine.”
“Caleb—”
“No, Jory,” he said flatly. “We are going to do whatever is asked of us. All they want is the money. We’re gonna be perfect, and they’ll get the ransom, and we’ll get to go home.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
“What’d Dane say?”
“Dane said the guy could have the money.”
“Why do you sound weird?”
“Nothing.”
“Caleb, please just say.”
“No, I just… I…I figured Dane would pay for you but…I didn’t think he’d agree to pay for me. I’m nothing to him, Jory. Nothing at all.”
“You’re his brother, you idiot.”
“Yeah, but not like you.”
And I knew what he meant. I knew Dane would do anything to get me back, but the kind of man my brother was, I never doubted that he would put in the same effort for Caleb. He was the only one who was surprised.
“Dane thinks of you as his brother too, Caleb,” I assured him. “But right now I wanna know, did somebody get hurt?”
“When?”
“Before. I think one of the guys got shot.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard it.”
“I dunno, J. I didn’t see anything.”
“Shit.”
There was a silence before Caleb gasped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I was instantly terrified.
“Jory, there’s somebody in here,” Caleb whimpered.
“What?” I almost cried out, and then the back of my head exploded and I didn’t hear anything.
The sharp bump woke me, because my head hurt and it rapped me against the floor really hard.
I realized the bouncing was from movement, and from the tiny light I figured out I was in the trunk of a car.
I was no longer tied, not my arms or legs, which was weird.
I didn’t linger on that though, instead focused on the taillight, like they tell you to do in every book on self-defense ever written.
Get the light out and wave to people on the highway.
If there were small things to drop out of the hole, you were supposed to do that too.
I worked as fast as I could. There was the copper smell of blood, and I hoped it wasn’t Caleb’s or mine.
Not that Caleb was with me, which was scary since I had no idea where he was.
But I pushed that out of my head and concentrated on getting the taillight shoved out.
It was an old car, and everything was rusted, so it was harder than it would have normally been.
When we stopped suddenly, I had just enough time to put my hands up so my forehead hit them instead of the trunk.
The ride changed then, from bouncing and quiet to smooth with a hum.
We were off a dirt road or something to an actual paved road.
I tried really hard to get the taillight out, but it was no use. By the time I got myself rolled over and turned around to try the other one, we had stopped. I heard voices, and there was a sudden knock above me.
“Make a sound and Caleb Reid is dead.”
I froze. He had to be in the back seat or somewhere close.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” I rasped, whispering before clearing my throat to speak louder. “Yes.”
“Good.”
I lay there, listening for anything, trying to feel if the car was moving at all, wanting to call out to Caleb but afraid of being heard at the same time.
The mixture of tension, adrenaline, and fear made me have to pee.
It was painful, and I rolled over on my back and was faced with the rusted metal trunk.
I heard the laughter before the car started, the motor was gunned, and I was bounced hard before I got my hands up to shield my face. I was thrown from side to side, and there was yelling and blaring music. I rolled into a ball and tried to protect as much of my body as I could.
The ride went on for so long, evening out, and the steady hum of the tires with only an occasional bump, that I fell asleep.
I tried really hard not to, but I kept jerking hard only to realize I had been drooling.
When the car came to a sudden stop, the brakes squealed, and I was hurled up against the back so hard that I was winded.
Trunk thrown open, I blinked at the light and the bewildered faces looking down at me.
They stared, and I stared back. I absorbed their faces.
“Oh shit,” one of the guys said. “That fucking guy was a goddamn kidnapper!”
“Shit!” another yelled, and I heard their feet pounding the pavement as they ran away.