Chapter 33 Pandora #2
“Nah. But I found Zayden’s discarded SUV, and those fucking smart cars, they log all the GPS data even when you think you’ve turned it off.” Ezio glances at me through the rearview mirror. “How do you feel about revisiting Zayden’s last trip?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Or maybe, less fuck? I know the cabin a lot better than Ezio does, and I know where all the hidden weapons are. Unless Ezio was there and removed everything.
Why is there GPS signal out in the middle of fucking nowhere, anyway?
I reach into my jeans pocket and wrap my hand around my charm. The three bones warm me.
I hope River can feel me touching him.
I hope they’re smart enough to follow us.
Samantha is looking strangely at me. “Zayden’s last trip? What is he talking about?”
“Oh. Hmm.” I shrug. “Zayden disappeared after you did. A lot of people thought you two ran off together. Or, maybe some people. That’s what your church friends said, anyway. I think they called you a skank.”
“They’d know better,” she insists, but she doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “They’d have been looking for me.”
“No, that part is true,” Ezio says. “I talked to them while I was looking into Zayden’s disappearance.”
Samantha looks from me to Ezio, then back. Tears have started to form in the corners of her eyes. “They wouldn’t,” she says more quietly.
“What Pandora is neglecting to mention is that she’s the one who murdered Zayden,” Ezio continues.
I huff and roll my eyes. “There’s no neglect. It’s not something I would ever say, because it’s not true.”
Snitches get murder, and I don’t want to have to murder Samantha.
“Zayden’s the reason I was… there,” Samantha says with a surprising amount of ferocity in her voice. “Why should I care what happened to him, anyway?”
“Yeah, Ezio! Fuck that guy.” I smile at Samantha, and extend my fist out to her.
She looks extremely confused, but then tentatively bumps her fist with mine. “Is he really dead?” she asks.
I shrug. “I haven’t seen a body, so how the fuck would I know?”
And I know Ezio didn’t see one either, because not only did I incinerate Zayden, but I washed with so much fucking bleach that there wouldn’t be any evidence left.
I scrubbed so much.
And scattered his ashes out in the forest and cleaned out the incinerator.
No fucking evidence at all.
Okay, except the head. I guess I have no idea what Blaze and Asch and River did with the head.
Ugh. I hope they didn’t bury it in a shallow grave or throw it in the trash where it would be easy to find.
If Ezio found Zayden’s head, I’m blaming them.
It’s getting harder to see anything, but one thing I do notice is that we’re not actually driving in the direction of the cabin. It’s in the opposite direction, still away from Harmony but not somewhere I’d be able to help direct anyone to.
I’m also getting that pins-and-needles feeling again, the one that’s pushing up through my skin and trying to turn me into a literal pin cushion.
Y’know, figuratively.
“Where are we going?” Samantha asks, fidgeting with River’s hoodie. I hear a soft clinking sound, and she pulls keys out of the front pocket, then stares at them.
Those could’ve gotten us out of this, if only we’d gotten to his car fast enough.
“Not a murder cabin,” I assure Samantha. “He doesn’t have the balls for it.” After a small pause, I add, “I’ll make sure to castrate him once we’re out of the van.”
Ezio laughs out loud. “I’ve known about you for all of a month, Pandora, and I still don’t understand who in their right mind lets you near their balls. Zayden had the right idea about you.”
The pins push through my skin, leaving gaping wide holes in their wake.
“Zayden was a fucking pussy who sucked whoever’s cock he thought would let him get ahead,” I snap back.
Samantha is watching me, still toying with the keys in her hand.
She can’t see the holes in my skin. She’d look alarmed if she did, right? Instead of just lost and fraying around the edges.
“I’m going to have so much fucking fun torturing—” Ezio says, but he breaks off into a curse and swerves hard.
Samantha cries out and falls off the bench onto the floor of the van. I cling to one of the chains to stabilize myself.
I hear a gunshot from outside.
“Get down!” Samantha tells me, her eyes wide as she gets as low as she can on the floor. “Pandora, get down now!”
I drop to the floor, and more gunshots ring out. A bullet penetrates the back door and whizzes over our heads, embedding itself in the glass separating us from Ezio.
I grab my knife.
“Fucking…” Ezio rolls down the window. “Blaze! Let me take care of this fucking bitch and I won’t tell your father you pulled all this shit!”
The only response is another gunshot. Ezio curses again and raises the window once more.
I crawl forward, holding on to the bench when there’s another swerve. I wish I could hear the guys. Judging from the sounds around us, they’re in both cars.
I grimace at the thought of Blaze driving his nice sports car and being an easy target. It has to be faster than this work van though, right?
“What are you doing?” Samantha hisses at me.
I lift my finger to my lips to signal her to be quiet. I stand up on shaky feet, my body pressed against the sides of the van, and examine the pullet that embedded itself into the glass.
The glass is still holding, but it’s splintered into a beautiful snowflake pattern. I grip the hilt of my knife and slam it hard against the bullet.
Ezio swerves the van again, and I hear an alarming sound as we collide with something on the left side. Samantha cries out again, but I brace myself so I can slam against the bullet once more.
It takes me two more hits, while bullets are flying and the van swerves around, before the glass finally shatters.
“Fuck!” Ezio shouts. He looks over his shoulder at me. “What’s that going to do? You can’t crawl through there.”
I smile at him. “Hasn’t anyone told you?” I raise my knife and slam it into his shoulder through the opening. “I’m never unarmed.”
Ezio cries out in pain. I expected him to bring the van to a stop but no, I’m not that lucky.
He hits the accelerator, and swerves the vehicle even harder. I stumble back and trip over Samantha.
I think I hear Blaze and Asch shouting. Somebody is honking at us.
“Watch out, watch out!” Samantha yells.
Ezio drives the van off the road.
For a split second, I float.
It’s a strange sensation, the entire van rotating around me. Samantha’s mouth is open in a scream, but I don’t hear her. Her blonde hair fans out around her, framing her face like a halo.
Then we land, and pain courses through me as I get slammed from side to side while the van slides down the ravine or whatever fucking stupid place Ezio decided to drive us off to.
“You suck!” I shout at him. “You’d rather kill yourself than let us go?”
He doesn’t answer, and I wonder if that means he’s concussed or dead.
I should have stabbed him in the neck, but, again, I did not expect him to decide to drive us off a cliff.
The van crashes into something that knocks the doors open, but we’re still moving. I hold onto the chains, wishing this thing had seatbelts like any fucking normal car. The ones not designed to transport unwilling sex slaves.
I guess the ‘slave’ part implies ‘unwilling.’
Samantha keeps screaming, until the van finally, finally, stops moving.
My chest keeps stabbing me.
Samantha is clutching the side of one of the benches for dear life, and I see her mouth open in another scream as she looks back behind us.
I follow her gaze, seeing that the doors are wide open now. It would be a relief if we weren’t hanging over the edge of a ravine. There’s enough room for us to get out, but we’re going to have to move quickly.
I take a shaky step. The van groans and shudders.
Yeah, we have to move very quickly.
“Come on,” I say. “We have to get out of here before the entire van drops again.”
Samantha shakes her head and clings to the bench. “I can’t,” she chokes out. “I can’t.”
“You can,” I tell her firmly.
She lets out a quiet sob, but I see it when she starts to gather her courage. “I… Okay,” she whispers, but she looks back up at the front of the van. “What…”
I look just in time to see Ezio, with his bloody shoulder and my knife still lodged in it, open the driver side door and get out.
The entire van rattles even harder, and it moves forward a few inches.
Samantha’s screeching pierces my chest to meet the knives on the other side.
“Move, now!” I shout, jumping out the back of the van to land on the edge of the cliff. I scramble back enough to see Ezio pushing the van from the other side. “No!” I take a step toward him—
“Pandora! Pandora, help, help!” Samantha yells.
I glance back. Samantha is holding onto the side of the van door, dangling over the side of the ravine.
Shit.
I run up to her and extend my hand. “Grab on to me, Samantha!”
Samantha’s eyes are wide with terror, her knuckles white from how tightly she’s clinging to the inside handle of the door. “I can’t. I can’t. If I let go, I’ll fall!” She sobs, tears running down her cheeks.
I reach for her anyway, trying desperately to grab any part of her.
Behind me, Ezio starts laughing. “What a sight.”
I hear the click of a gun cocking.
I wish I’d counted the gunshots. Is he out of ammo? Does the gun need reloading?
“You realize I had nothing to do with whatever the fuck happened to your family?” I say, still extending my hand to Samantha. “I was a literal baby.”
Why does it feel like the space between my hand and Samantha’s is only growing? The chasm expands, and my face grows hot and dizzy despite the cool night air.
“Do I give a flying fuck? The point is to hurt your father, but now that I know you, I think you deserve this just as much!” Ezio yells.
He’s not shooting though. He must be out of bullets. Even if he isn’t, with the injured shoulder, he might not be able to shoot straight.
I can get him.