45. Nash
FORTY-FIVE
NASH
I’d never run faster to that damn car in all my life. Hell, I didn’t even bother slipping the seat up to get in the damn thing.
One thing was certain: now was not the time to have a slow driver behind the wheel.
"Ro—gimme the keys!"
He tossed them to me wordlessly and I slid behind the wheel, turning the engine over as Angel dove through the center gap and climbed into the backseat, Rowan hot on his heels. Their door slammed closed just as I spun tires in the grass and booked it out of the damn driveway, running a few of Father’s men down in the chaos.
Tires chirped as I went from cobblestone to concrete, narrowly missing an oncoming car and two motorcyclists who zipped by, flipping me the bird.
I didn’t need to ask what direction to go. I’d stalked her for so long these last few weeks that it was second nature.
It was as normal as breathing for me.
Hold on, Harpie girl, we’re coming.
I was two blocks away from her apartment building when Rowan’s phone rang. He pulled it out and swore, fumbling it as he answered with a shaking voice.
"Harper?"
She didn’t answer, but it was definitely her—and from the sound of it, she was running. I could hear the familiar slap of rubber on pavement as she raced down the street, from what—or who— I didn’t know.
"Harper!"
Answer him, dammit, Harpie girl, I pleaded in my mind, hoping she could hear my thoughts, praying for a word, a sound, anything.
Nothing came through the receiver save for her labored breathing, short gasps, and heavy panting. She was running for her life, and all we could do was listen and panic and edge closer to a breakdown with every second that ticked by.
I heard the revving of a high-performance engine and the squealing of tires and pressed my foot heavier on the pedal. If I could just get to her in time, if we could save her, maybe she’d forgive us. Maybe she’d come back?—
"Listen, bitch, if you just stop now, we’ll make it fast and painless. A bullet between the eyes, smooth and instant."
Rowan and Angel were glued to the phone, which was now sitting on the center console beneath my elbow. I met Ro’s eyes in the rearview, and Angel’s stare was a mile and a half deep and void of any emotion.
Scary on a typical day. Now, it was downright terrifying.
We knew that voice. It featured in some of my least favorite Guild memories.
Clyde. Half of a duo with no morals, no code, and no desire to follow the rules of the voluntary Guild they’d joined.
As if I’d conjured her by thinking of her, Bonnie’s shrill voice echoed out now. Still, Harper said nothing, and I was beginning to wonder if she just . . . couldn’t. Or if she didn’t realize we’d gotten through.
Hold on, Harpie girl, we’re coming.
"But Clyde, you said we could have fun?—"
Clyde cut the whore off and snapped at her.
"Bitch, I told you, let me do the talking. I’m not really gonna make it easy on her. I just want her to make it easy on us."
Infighting was what I wanted to hear. If they were fighting each other, they wouldn’t have time to fight our girl, and she’d have an opportunity to escape.
As if on cue, I heard her voice loud and clear for the first time since Rowan picked up the call, jerking the wheel as I peeled rubber across the pavement and swung into a back alley, hoping she hadn’t made it far, and that my shortcut would pay off tonight .
"Get fucked, assholes. I’m no easy mark."
That’s my fucking Harpie girl. You tell ‘em.
The sound of shattering glass echoed on the other side of the line, and then she was back to running, the steady thud of her feet on the pavement nearly drowning out everything else—the sound of her labored breathing, the rev of the Torino as I pushed her harder and harder, and the sound of?—
"Was that a gunshot?"
Angel’s words registered slowly, like a nightmare where you’re running through the fog, and you know there’s something on the other end of the distance, but you can’t get to it no matter how hard you try. You just sift through the cotton-like, thick-as-soup fog and hope that you’re gaining ground and just hallucinating.
Rowan swore as I took a turn so fast I smashed him into the other side of the car. "Fuck, man, drive like you have a brain. We’re no good to her dead."
He had a point, but my brain wasn’t registering logic. It didn’t care about anything but finding her, helping her, saving her.
Another gunshot rang out over the speakerphone, and I winced like I’d been shot myself, hoping they had horrid aim. Last time I checked, guns weren’t their thing. They preferred to rape their targets and then make it look like an ‘accident.’ They were the worst of the worst.
And I had no doubt they were working for my father.
He’d get his soon, too. But Harper came first.
I skidded to a stop in front of the damn garage, but there was no one there—the last bay, her bay, sat empty, the door wide open, a worklight still sitting abandoned on the floor.
Fuck.
"She’s not here," I whined, desperation slinking into my veins. It choked me, and for a split second, I turned to the phone just as the line went dead on the other end.
The last sound we heard from it was an ear-piercing scream .
"Drive, dammit, Nash!" Angel screamed at me, his nails sinking into my right arm and drawing blood just as I resigned myself to the idea that she might not survive. Just as the black started to creep in, he drew blood, and the dark red droplets welling up from the tiny wounds shattered my mental breakdown and helped me return to myself.
I couldn’t let the monster run me now. I needed my wits about me to help our girl.
"Where?" I breathed, staring down the many options of an escape route Harper had from the garage.
Rowan leaned forward, but it was Angel who pointed in the direction of the wharf, his eyes seeing something I couldn’t, perhaps.
"She ran for the lights. That’s the closest public street with traffic. Go—we’re not far behind, I’d bet."
The first thing we came across was the wrecked Firebird. The poor cherry red paint job had been scratched to hell on both sides, both driver and passenger doors left open wide, blocking an alley we’d come down because we spotted tire tracks.
Someone had shattered the windshield, and I smiled despite myself.
"She’s a hell of a fighter." A certified junkyard dog, our Harpie girl. Dollars to doughnuts, she did that to buy herself time.
She was smart like that.
Detoured around the Firebird and followed the trail as best we could. Someone—probably the deadly douchebag duo—had knocked over a trashcan, pointing us down the road. A few feet after that, I found a wrench lying on the ground,
At the corner, we lost the trail, so we parked the car and got out.
I saw it first.
Blood.
Blood everywhere .
"Someone took a bullet," I nearly whispered, my heart sinking. "Do you think?—"
Rowan grabbed me by the collar and shook me violently, his eyes filled with the same panic and fear I knew reflected in my own. "I don’t think shit, and you better not, either. Don’t even contemplate any option that doesn’t involve her being alive at the end of this road."
"Rowan," Angel said cautiously, his hand reaching for Rowan’s shoulder. "We’ve gotta move, man. We’re wasting time."
His nod was wooden and stiff, and I waved them on as I followed the blood on foot, leading the way to our girl— I hoped. Down the sidewalk a bit, I found a discarded wrench, which had to be hers.
We were going the right way, at least.
The blood doubled in volume just as the trail hit the main road, and I swore as it ended abruptly at the edge of the sidewalk.
Rowan parked and got out of the car, and Angel held out her phone—I’d know it anywhere—as he approached, the three of us staring down at a sizeable puddle of blood from what was probably a life-threatening wound, and a little scraped skin still clinging to the rough pavement.
She fell right here. She should be here. Where was she?
They couldn’t have taken her anywhere in such a short time, could they?
"What now?" I panicked, clutching the lapels of Angel’s perfectly starched white shirt. "What the fuck now?!?"
His hands moved to my wrists, but he didn’t yank me loose. His eyes held sadness, resignation, and defeat as they stared into my own, tears welling at the corners—though I knew he’d deny them if I mentioned it.
"Nash, get it together, man. We’ll find her, okay? We’ll find?—"
"The trail goes cold here, man. What if they killed her already and just took the body with them? What if they took her and she’s not dead—we all know what they’re like." I shuddered as the thought ran through my brain, pure, unbridled rage like a white-hot poker in my brain as I imagined, however briefly, the thought of her tied up and subjected to Clyde as he forced himself on her. Violently. Over and over.
I’d kill him. I’d kill them both, but him? I’d cut off his dick and feed it to him.
I barely registered the sound of Rowan’s phone ringing again, and the fucker actually took the time to answer it. I opened my mouth to scream at him, but the voice on the other side of the call stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Blackwood? We’ve got your girl. She nearly ran out in front of our bikes tonight on the thoroughfare." A pause as he cleared his throat, and I focused on my breathing while he took his sweet time finishing his thought.
Rowan didn’t have the patience I did. "Is she okay?"
"She took two bullets, man, but she’s not dead yet. You’d better get back here. I dunno how long she’s going to make it."
Fuck.
As if our night couldn’t get any better, or rather, worse. Now our girl—my Harpie girl—was bleeding out, and the only help she had was the fucking Neon Dogs.
None of whom knew first aid that didn’t include some antibiotic salve and fucking band-aids.
Rowan didn’t waste a second. He was behind the wheel in seconds, and the rest of us climbed in after him, me taking the backseat as Angel settled into the front.
"We’re on our way."