6. Chapter 4
Hudson
A frightening sense of calm settles over me as I follow Derek up the concrete steps that lead to the back door as quietly as possible. I’m careful not to let the wooden plank I picked up from the ground bump into anything.
I feel like I have shifted into a sort of mental high gear, all my senses operating in a high-definition capacity; I hear the breeze rustling the overgrown grass at the back of the house, the clang of a garbage can a few houses down, the skittering of tiny, clawed feet against the cracked concrete.
The door at this end of the house is clearly the actual entry point for whoever brought Emery here. Boards hang haphazardly from one side of the doorframe, with broken bits of wood and empty nails decorating the other side.
The air has gotten a lot cooler in the last hour, and I fight a shiver that wants to roll down my spine. Although, that might not be from the cold.
Emery is on the other side of this broken door with whoever took her.
As much as I really think we should have called the police, I must admit, if only to myself, that I am looking forward to taking my pound of flesh from this asshole. Then we can call the police.
As we wait for Xavier’s signal, I shift on my feet one step behind Derek, who turns to me, finger pressed to his lips and eyes a little wide, before indicating that I should step up closer.
I do so. “Wh—” I start to whisper, but he points to his ear a millisecond before I hear it—Emery’s voice.
She’s okay.
The way my soul explodes out of me at that knowledge is something that should be written into a movie. The entire car trip here, my thoughts were a constant battle of wondering if she was dead or alive, and wondering what would be better for her.
But she’s alive and talking—that must mean that she is relatively okay, right?
“Twenty thousand dollars?” she says on a strained laugh. “What the fuck, Tray? What did you do? Rip off the Two-Sixers?”
There is silence, then—
“Holy fuck, you did rip them off. Are you a fucking idiot?”
“I didn’t know it was theirs!” a male voice protests, a whiny edge to it. “What the fuck would you’ve done if you walked past a car with the trunk open an’ a whole-ass brick was just sittin’ there? I took my fuckin’ shot. How the hell was I supposed to know there was a fuckin’ camera in the alley?”
“Do you mean the alley behind their fucking stash house?” Pause.
“Fuck, Tray, you are such a shit for brains. You’re lucky you aren’t dead yet.
Do you really think that when they get here, they are going to let you live?
You’ve signed both our death sentences. Fuck!
” Emery is practically screaming at Tray.
There is a muted thud, like flesh hitting flesh—a slap to a chest, maybe?
“I got out!” There is a sob wrapped around Emery’s words. “I got out, I was making something of myself. Why the hell couldn’t you leave me alone? Clean up one of your own messes for once? You can’t use me like this forever!”
My heart sinks with every one of her words, sure I know what she is saying but not wanting to believe it.
Derek turns to me, and I see my own devastated emotions reflected on his face.
We’ve all known, in the backs of our minds, that our girl has gone through things, terrible things that no one should ever have to endure. But if this is exactly what we think it is…
The calmness that has taken over my system for the past half hour falls away as a white heat spreads through my torso and out to my limbs.
Tightening my grip around the wooden plank until the edges bite into my skin and my knuckles ache, I’m forced to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming out my rage.
Suddenly, I’m incredibly glad we didn’t call the police.
Derek’s phone lights up in his hand, and I glance at the screen.
Xavier: 10 sec. BU arriving in 2min.
BU?
Derek shoves his phone into his pocket and raises the gun. I want to question where he learned to hold a gun like that, but figure now is not the right time. If I had to guess, I would say Xavier has something to do with it.
“Be careful of rotten floorboards,” I whisper as I press my free hand onto his shoulder.
He nods, then starts a countdown. “Five, four, three, two, one.”
Raising his leg, Derek kicks in the back door, which gives him zero resistance, and a similar noise from the front of the house reaches us.
The back door opens into a kitchen area with only one other entry, but only if you ignore the massive gaping hole in the wall that leads to the next room, which is where the only source of light is coming from.
Xavier and then Darcy appear in the hallway within seconds, and I indicate the room where I can hear a physical altercation becoming more aggressive as Emery screams. I try to shut it out, but fuck, hearing her scream like that, with pain and fear?
That is something I never, ever, need to hear again.
Derek and I go to the hole while Xavier and Darcy go through the door, the crackling of the taser announcing their arrival.
Xavier’s voice rings out over the screaming and the asswipe’s demands for us to stay back. “Lower your weapon. Let the girl go.”
Derek steps through the hole, bringing him within feet of Emery, her back pressed to Tray’s chest, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and with a knife against her throat, leveraging her to her tiptoes. “Drop the knife!”
“Get the fuck away! I’ll split her throat open, I’ll do it! Stay back!” the piece of shit screams, spittle flying from his terrified lips.
My eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting, but what I see makes my fist squeeze around my heart. Addict. His face is covered in sores, lips chewed to shit, eyes wild as he tries to process all the information slamming into him right now.
“Lower the fucking weapon now, or a bullet is going in your skull,” Xavier threatens, cutting over Tray’s demands. His words are so cold that the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
He doesn’t really mean that, right? Yeah, I want to beat the shit out of Tray, but we’re still calling the cops to deal with him after. Right?
I step through the hole, then scan Emery from head to toe. One of her arms is hanging uselessly by her side, while the other clutches at the forearm wrapped around her shoulders, and one cheekbone is red and swollen and has the smallest split in it.
Tray yanks her back higher against him, trying to cover more of his head with her body, but cutting off her blood flow to her head. The color leeches from her—her skin pales and her eyelids droop.
“Derek,” I mutter, not sure exactly what I’m trying to say to him, but he sees it.
“Emery, baby, you got this, stay with us,” he encourages her, his voice straining as he tries to sound calm. “Keep your eyes open, baby.”
Her eyelids flutter and she looks up, but it’s clear that she can’t focus.
I glance around, trying to see if there is anything in the room that will give us even a few answers, and my gaze lands on the plastic-wrapped block of white powder with the corner cut open.
There are discarded needles, spoons, and… is that a tire tube?
Is she high?
No, she can’t be. Her voice was clear, sharp.
This is something else. My heart makes itself known once again, beating heavily in my chest as I turn back just in time to see Emery’s eyes close and her entire body sag against the arm supporting her.
Tray can’t handle the sudden weight on his arm, and they both tip forward for a moment before he releases her and leaves himself completely exposed.
I don’t get any time to process the fact that she passed out, because there is a quiet thud and pffft, and then Tray’s shoulder snaps back and he is flung back against the wall of the house.
“Emery!”
I’m not sure how many of us call her name, but all four of us descend on her. Derek gets to her first and scoops her up, immediately carrying her to the other side of the room, closer to the door, Darcy trailing after him.
“Help me with him,” Xavier orders as the knife skitters across the exposed wooden floor.
I whip back around to find him kneeling over a panting and sweaty Tray, gibberish about pain and being shot spewing from his lips.
“What?” I ask, and even to me, the question sounds stupid, but I’m struggling to understand why we aren’t just letting him bleed out.
“Grab a rag, wad it up, apply pressure. He can’t die here.”
Striding over to the ratty-looking backpack with clothes falling out of it, I look over at Derek and Darcy when I hear someone vomiting.
They’ve turned Emery on her side as she throws up, body flexing with the motion.
My throat aches, but I grab the rag as requested and bring it back to Xavier, who is still pointing his gun at the semi-upright Tray.
He has turned a disgusting shade of gray as blood trickles from the wound in his shoulder.
Balling up the fabric, I press it to his shoulder.
Tray flinches before grinning maniacally. “You’re all dead.”
“We aren’t the one with a bullet in their shoulder, so I’m going to have to beg to differ,” I reply sardonically, trying not to breathe too deeply once his rancid breath hits my face.
“The Two-Sixers are expecting her to be here for them,” he replies, then groans as I press down harder on the wound. “She needs to pay off the debt.”
“She’s not the one who’s going to be paying off the debt,” I grind out, just as the sound of a car door slamming outside of the house echoes around us.
Tray eyes darken and he starts to laugh, an evil edge to it. “You’re out of time.”