Chapter 4
Something That Big
Ryan
“Jeez, Pop once told me moving a limp body is the hardest lifting you’ll ever do; he wasn’t kidding. For a such a little thing, she sure is heavy.”
Even though I’d woken up earlier when the truck bounced along a dirt road, I’d dozed off again. Those words immediately brought me out of my heavy stupor. I didn’t want either of these assholes touching her. I didn’t want anybody touching her.
“Looks like he’s coming to, leave her for now,” Boyd said.
“Maybe he can carry her. I don’t want to throw my back out, man,” Campbell said.
These assholes didn’t know their heads from holes in the ground, and definitely had no business abducting anyone.
My door was thrown open and Boyd held his gun pointed at me and jerked his head to the side. “Outta the truck, nice and slow.”
I couldn’t stand that I’d let this go so far.
Seeing Campbell talking to Ivy outside the bar made my blood boil, then I’d seen him holding a gun and that boiling blood rushed to my ears.
Maybe if I’d taken a moment to think, I’d have been able to handle this whole situation better, but it was like my instincts were on a trigger-wire that wasn’t under my control.
Whoever drove us, must have left the ignition switch in the run position because the digital clock was still lit and the radio was still on. As I slowly swung my feet toward the exit, I made note of the time, five minutes after seven.
Standing in front of Boyd, he eyed me up and down. “For once, Camp, I think you got a great idea. We’ll let this jackass carry her dead weight.”
He grabbed my bicep and marched me to the other side of the truck. It wasn’t lost on me that I’d marched him out of On a Lark the same way. Both men looked at me with blank expressions as we stood staring at Ivy.
I cut my gaze to Boyd, who seemed to be smarter than Campbell, though that wasn’t saying much. “I’m strong, but I can’t carry her with my wrists tied.”
The two of them exchanged a look. I’d wanted to tell them her wrists needed to be untied as well, but that would be pressing my luck.
Finally, Boyd nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. Camp, cut his tie.” He leveled a look at me. “I’ll be right next to you and if you pull anything, I shoot her in the head.”
Campbell started to grab my wrists, but his eyes darted to my hip. “Boyd, get his phone. We need to get her phone, too.”
“Good catch,” Boyd said and snatched my cell off my belt.
They fumbled around Ivy’s pockets, and I realized I was grinding my teeth.
Why did I react this way?
“Can’t find anything, she must have dropped her purse or some shit when you pulled the gun,” Boyd said.
Campbell came back to me and cut the zip-tie, narrowly missing the inside of my wrist.
Asshole.
With my hands free, I quickly slid an arm under Ivy’s knees and my other arm along her shoulders. I slid her out of the cab and started walking toward the front of the truck.
We stood before a run-down farm house. The siding was painted a drab shade of olive green, most of which had chipped off. Many of the windows were boarded up, and the stairs to the front porch were on their last legs. The first step had fallen down on one side.
I raised my leg higher and used the second step to get onto the porch.
“Slow down, motherfucker,” Boyd said.
If I’d had more of my bearings, I’d have set Ivy down and taken on Boyd and Campbell. Unfortunately, the pain in my head was so intense, I felt dizzy every so often from it.
Campbell pushed past me and opened the door.
Boyd tipped his head for me to go in the house.
The inside was worse than the outside. No light fixtures, just bare bulbs.
Wallpaper hung off the walls like the room was molting.
The entire place reeked of must and stale weed.
We moved through a kitchen and I noticed there were no doors on any of the cabinets.
Boyd passed by me, unlocked a door, and pushed it open. “Put her in there.”
I trudged into the room and felt ill. It was barren except a thin mattress on the floor. I put Ivy down as gently as I could.
When I straightened, I heard the door close and a lock clicked.
At least they hadn’t separated us.
I dug my pocket knife out and sliced the zip-tie binding Ivy’s wrists.
Her hands felt cold, so I took them both in mine and massaged them. I ignored how much I liked holding her hands.
On a sigh, I crossed to the other side of the room and sat down, fuming that they knocked out a woman who was probably pregnant.
Sleep beckoned to me, but I had to stay awake. Not just because I might have a mild concussion, but also because I needed to stay on my toes for these assholes. They never should have gotten the advantage on the two of us, but beating myself up about it wasn’t productive.
Times like these made me wish I had twin telepathy with Killian.
Or even Mick. She’d freak and then she’d jump for joy that I was stuck with this woman who got under my skin.
However, we didn’t have true telepathy. Best case scenario, one or both of them knew I had a massive headache, but wouldn’t know I’d been knocked out.
Back in high school, Mickayla had played basketball and during a practice she fell and landed on her arm, breaking it.
Killian and I both knew something was up because we’d both had a sharp, fleeting pain in our left arm, too.
That was the extent of it for us. It wasn’t like I could hyperfocus on the word taken or kidnapped and make them realize what was going on.
I forced myself to concentrate on the sounds coming from the kitchen – not that there were very many.
Boyd and Campbell weren’t the brightest crayons in the box, but there had to be a reason they brought us out here to a run-down house in the middle of nowhere – or so it seemed.
I had to remind myself not to make assumptions.
On a Lark was in a small shopping strip on a rural stretch of US 90.
The building seemed so out of place, it was like it popped up out of nowhere, but it had been there for over twenty years.
One of the first things Lark had insisted Killian, Mickayla, and I do was to drive around the area in a five-mile radius.
Then he expanded it to ten. As I recalled that research, it struck me that this place could be close to the bar, and yet, it could be over half an hour from the bar.
If the time I’d noted in the truck was right, then we’d been on the road for over half-an-hour.
The problem was I had no idea how fast they’d driven.
With an open stretch, plenty of people got the lead out on US 90.
Yet, even as I considered all that, my gut said we were as far west as they could take us.
If I’d been out for just over thirty minutes, we could be as far as Sanderson or even Olustee, depending on whether they’d gotten onto I-10 or stuck to US 90.
Either way, we were well over twenty-five miles from the bar and I didn’t think we could walk back – assuming I was right about where we were.
It was highly unlikely we were still in Duval county, I was pretty certain about that.
Dammit! I really should have grappled with Campbell – gun or no gun.
I shook my head because that wasn’t true. I couldn’t put Ivy in danger.
It made no sense to me though, because I didn’t even know this woman.
Except for the fact she wanted to talk to Lark about something that was private.
Which I believed could only mean one thing, but my sister was right: I couldn’t make assumptions about something that big… but hell if I could stop myself.
Out of habit, I reached for my phone holster and shook my head. It sucked not knowing what time it was, and the only window in the room had been boarded up so I couldn’t even rely on waning sunlight to gage the time.
Shit.
It had to be closing in on seven-thirty, and if they knocked Ivy out soon after hitting me, then she was past the half-hour point. She had to wake up soon. Otherwise, I was going to raise holy hell to get her an ambulance because she definitely had a concussion.
Pots clanged in the kitchen – or it sounded like pots, then I heard male voices and the sound of a door slamming.
I heard Boyd’s muffled voice from outside. “Yeah, we got two of his kids.”
“One of his kids, that bitch isn’t his sister,” Campbell said.
“Shut it, Camp,” Boyd hissed.
Just when I thought they couldn’t be more ignorant, they proved me wrong. To be fair, though, I could see it. But only because I was young enough to be Lark’s kid.
Still, assumptions led to trouble.
When I heard him again, Boyd had raised his voice. “What the hell do you mean we weren’t supposed to take anyone yet? You don’t have any way of—” He paused abruptly, then said, “Contact the club, man.”
After a much shorter pause, he said, “Then call the bar.”
“What’s the problem?” Campbell asked.
From Boyd’s response, I guessed he ignored Campbell. “Too bad, we’ve got them at the old house. We can’t let them go now. You said we’d get paid no matter who we took. Make those bikers pay. We’ve got one of the sons and his girlfriend.”
That was so fucked up.
I couldn’t think of another group of bikers who would pay these men to take me, Mickayla, or Killian. They would just do it themselves.
“What do you mean they want the fuckin’ old man?” Boyd yelled loud enough it made me jolt.
Another short pause.
“We could still ransom these two back to Lark,” Boyd said in a normal voice.
There was a much longer pause after that.
Then I heard Boyd speak again. “Come on, Campbell. Rusty wants us back in town.”
“We’re just gonna leave them here? He isn’t tied up,” Campbell said.
“So what? We locked them in that room. Even if they get out, they don’t know where they are, it’s gonna be dark in under an hour, and we have his cell phone. If they leave, they’ll have to walk, and they won’t get far before we come back.”
My head twisted toward Ivy when she made a moaning sound and shifted on the mattress. Her eyes weren’t open yet.
I heard the truck start and then the engine noise quickly faded away.
We were alone, which ought to be good, but Ivy needed to wake up if we had a shot at getting out of here.