Chapter 40 Sloane
Sloane
A creeping dread wakes me. It settles over me like a blanket, suffocating, as I lie frozen still in bed.
The house settles, creaking, sighing, the wind teasing inquisitively at the windowpanes, and I hold my breath.
My heart gallops. Moonlight pours through the open curtains at the other end of the room.
Outside, it washes over the swaying tree line beyond that marks the border of my property, gilding branches and leaves in silver.
I can see perfectly. The closet door. The chest of drawers.
The small chestnut wooden blanket box at the foot of my bed.
Everything is lit up and where it ought to be. Nothing is out of place.
Perhaps Lacey’s presence here, sleeping in the guest room, is enough to set me on edge.
I’ve always been able to sense when I’m not alone, even in a house as big as this.
I never sleep well when I have guests. But…
no. It isn’t that. This feels different.
Awkward. Tense. There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep.
My throat feels like the Sahara. Might as well refill my water glass.
I toss back the duvet and tiptoe across the room. No sense in waking Lacey, just because I’m restle—
I freeze, hand still on the door handle, staring slack-jawed at the intruders in my hallway. There are two of them. Two men, dressed in black pants and T-shirts. They mirror my surprise, locked in place.
They look at me.
I look at them.
I look at the girl they’re carrying between them.
The guy closest to the top of the stairs—the one with a nasty-looking scar twisting his bottom lip—has Lacey’s legs.
The other guy—a tall fucker with a shaved head—has her arms pinned to her torso, his hand clamped over her mouth.
He needn’t bother. She isn’t even trying to scream.
She’s stiff as a board. Her gaze meets mine, and the animal terror in her eyes spurs me into action.
“What the hell are you doing?” Stupid question. It’s pretty fucking obvious: They’re kidnapping Lacey. The girl Zeth left in my care. The girl I said I would look after.
The guy with the scar shakes his head very slowly. “Turn around. Go back to bed. You don’t wanna make this your business.”
My voice quivers with rage. “Put her down. Get the fuck out of my house.”
The two men huff in synchrony. Was I not part of the plan? They must have known I was here. “You wanna die tonight?” the one with the shaved head asks.
The other guy grunts. I don’t like the malicious glint in his eyes. “Fuck it. She’s seen us now. We’re gonna have to deal with her.”
Lacey hasn’t moved a muscle. She’s either been paralyzed by fear or playing dead, but this lights a fire in her.
She bucks, thrashing, and manages to free one of her legs.
For a moment, the intruders are distracted.
They fight to regain control of her, and I move.
Lacey’s eyes plead with me as I dart back into my bedroom and slam the door closed behind me.
The lock slides home.
I’m not leaving you. I promise I’m not leaving you. Hold tight.
Lacey isn’t a mind reader, but I hope she knows I’m not abandoning her.
Unarmed, I can’t help her, though. I can’t reach the only weapon in the house—the baseball bat I keep by the front door—without having to pass her kidnappers, so I go for the next best thing: my medical bag.
It’s where I always keep it, in my en suite, on the floor beneath the sink.
“Open the fucking door, bitch!” Thunderous hammering rattles my bedroom door. My hands shake like crazy.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Move, Sloane.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
My pulse is everywhere.
I fumble with the zip, upending the contents of the bag onto the bathroom floor.
Blister packs of drug samples, small glass vials, syringes, dressings, tongue depressors—everything tumbles out onto the tiles.
I grab a syringe and the first vial I lay my hands on, and then I run for the door.
Not the one that leads into the hallway.
The connecting door that leads into the third bedroom. I hold my breath a moment, listening.
“… back up for her. We need to get this one in the car first.”
“No way. She’ll get out!”
“So?” The guy with the deeper voice, the one with the scar, sounds pissed off.
“She can’t go anywhere. We slashed her tires.
She can’t call the cops. There’s no reception out here.
Landline’s dead. Internet’s dead. What’s she gonna do, send a fucking smoke signal? Come on. We’ll let her stew a minute.”
A few years ago, someone asked me how I thought I’d fare if I suddenly found myself smack bang in the middle of a war zone. Would I fight, or would I crumple under the pressure? I hadn’t known then. I do now.
I wait a minute, evening out my breath as the bastards grunt and scuffle, carrying Lacey down the stairs.
Then I move.
Thank fuck for trauma surgery.
That’s what races through my head as I fly across the landing and down the stairs. If it wasn’t for trauma surgery, I wouldn’t be able to snap a syringe from its packaging, plunge the needle into a vial, and draw up meds while hustling like my ass is on fire.
The men are at the front door, exiting with Lacey. She’s flailing now, finally screaming through the hand over her mouth.
Which vial did I grab from the bag?
Diclofenac.
Great.
25mg if you have bad period pains. 200mg if you wanna send a kidnapper to the back of beyond.
I load the syringe and run.
It’s raining outside.
Gravel tears into the soles of my feet.
The guy carrying Lacey’s feet sees me coming.
Too late, motherfucker.
I plunge the syringe into his buddy’s neck.
The guy with the shaved head sags like I just shot him. Good. He hits the ground, all arms and legs. Lacey goes with him, landing heavily on his chest.
“FUCKING BITCH! What did you do?” Scarred Mouth roars. “You killed him!”
Maybe. Maybe not. No time to check for a pulse.
He comes at me, a gun suddenly in his hand.
“Get in the fucking car,” he seethes, jerking his head over his shoulder.
The black sedan that followed us earlier is parked to his right, the rear door yawning open, waiting for Lacey.
Rainwater pools on the leather, soaking the seats.
The panic hits home at last. I only had one syringe, and now it’s stuck in the neck of the asshole sprawled out on my driveway.
Fuck. I should have grabbed the baseball bat from its resting place as I ran past. Not that a baseball bat is much use against a gun, but still.
“Are you fucking deaf as well as stupid?” Scarred Mouth spits. “Get. Inside. The. Fucking. Car.”
I’ve always loved living out in the sticks. No one to harass you. No cars burning by at all hours. No nosy neighbors spying on you from behind twitching curtains.
Now, living so far out of town doesn’t seem so smart. No one to come to your rescue. No cars passing by to flag down for help. No nosy neighbors to witness a berserk gunman and call the police. Shit.
This guy could have already shot me. I don’t know why he hasn’t. I do know that if I get in that car, I am definitely dead, though.
“No. I’m not getting into the car.”
“No?” The gunman’s face scrunches in disbelief. “You do see this gun in my hand, right?” He holds it up sideways so I can get a good look at it, index finger hovering over the trigger. He stalks forward, sick of waiting. He’s going to force me into the car, conscious or unconscious, dead or alive.
I have no options. Bravado will get me only so far. When he grabs me, my show of strength disintegrates into smoke.
Zeth. I need Zeth. When I don’t need him, he’s always there, causing trouble, but now that his proclivity for violence would actually come in handy, he’s a thousand fucking miles away. Of course he is.
Scarred Mouth wrenches my wrist like he’s planning on breaking it.
He’s about to bring his gun crashing down on my head when he jerks erratically and stumbles into me.
With vacant eyes, he slides down my body, hand locked around my wrist. He isn’t restraining me anymore, though. He’s trying to use me for balance.
I choke on a gasp when he finally lets go and drops to the wet ground, convulsing. His arms and legs spasm, tendons in his neck bulging as his head trains back.
Lacey stands over him, clutching a gigantic hunk of rock to her chest. It’s so hefty that she has to hold it with both hands. Something dark and wet stains its underside. Blood.
“Did you just…” I trail off. Why am I even asking?
Lacey startles, as if coming back into herself. She drops the rock, and it lands with a weighty thud by her feet, sinking three inches into the mud. She looks at me like she has no idea what she just did. “I just—he needed to let you go,” she whimpers. “Is he—is he dead?”
“His chest is still moving. He’s breathing.
He’ll be fine, Lacey. But we need to get out of here.
Like, right now.” Am I telling her the truth?
I don’t know. He is still breathing, but who knows how long he’ll keep that up for.
I don’t give a fuck. We’ve just dodged a bullet, probably literally and figuratively.
I don’t plan on checking in with our attacker to see if he’s fucking all right.
“Get in the car, Lace.” I point to the sedan, indicating which one I mean.
We can’t take the Volvo, after all. I heard him say he’d slashed the tires, loud and clear.
Lacey complies, hugging herself as she clambers into the back seat.
The back seat? What the hell is she doing? But then I remember Zeth’s words when he first put her in my car: She can’t. She won’t.
Okay. Fine. So long as she’s in the car…
I climb in the driver’s seat, and panic hits me.
I don’t have anything with me.
Think, Sloane! Blunt force trauma. Diclofenac. Are either of them fucking dead? How much time do you have? Any time at all?
I can’t run upstairs and pack a suitcase. That’s out of the question. But we’re not going to get very far without money, are we? My bag. It’s on the mail stand in the hallway. My cards and my ID are inside. That’ll have to do.
“Stay here, Lacey. Don’t move.”
I risk it. The rain lashes me as I sprint back toward the house. My pajamas cling to my body. My feet are wet when I hurtle through the front door, and I skid, falling, landing hard on my ass in the entryway.
Pain shoots up my spine, making my ears ring. That’s gonna leave a bruise. No time. No time. I get up, nearly slipping all over again. There’s my bag. I grab it, yanking it open. Gotta make sure…
Yes. My cards are there.
My cell phone is still upstairs, though.
I should—fuck. No. I can’t. The bag will have to do.
I run back to the sedan and find Lacey shaking like a leaf in the rearview.
Another spike of panic pierces me through the chest when I realize I might have to go fishing in those fuckers’ pockets for the car keys.
But no, they’re in the ignition, thank God.
They must have wanted to make a quick getaway.
“Why are we taking their car?” Lacey’s teeth chatter when she speaks. She’s in shock. I need to get her some sugar, and soon; otherwise, she’s gonna crash. Hard.
“They said they’d slashed my tires. Remember?”
She shakes her head, her eyes losing focus. Oh, boy. This is going to be a long night. “Whoever sent those guys knows what my car looks like, anyway. They’ll be looking for it when they realize how badly this has gone. Soon as we can, we’ll get a rental car, Lace.”
No response.
“Lacey?”
In the rearview, I see that her knees are pulled up under her chin and she’s rocking back and forth. Goddamn it all to hell.
I gun the engine and burn away from the house, leaving the bodies of our attackers sprawled out in the dirt.