Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pyro was ready.
He might not have fought back when he and Bowie were taken, but now he wouldn’t be taken by surprise.
And because Bowie wasn’t here, and he wasn’t afraid of doing anything that might scar her for life—more than she might already be, after being kidnapped and sent out into the world by herself—Pyro was more than ready to show the assholes who dared put their hands on that precious little girl that he was someone to be reckoned with.
They might think he was a pathetic, scared wimp, out of his element… but they were dead wrong.
His leg hurt like hell but he wasn’t going to let a broken bone keep him from doing what needed to be done. His bone wasn’t sticking out of his leg, so he was good. He had plenty to fight for. Penny and Bowie. A family of his own. Something he’d never had and wanted down to his very soul.
If he was overpowered and taken away, so be it. But he wouldn’t make it easy for them.
The guilt he felt about putting Bowie out the window and sending her on her way still weighed heavily on his mind.
Where was she? Was she okay? Had she found someone to help her?
Someone decent who wouldn’t take advantage of a vulnerable little girl?
Pyro knew better than most about the evil people living in this world.
After about twenty minutes of despair, during which he let his emotions flow without trying to hold them back, Pyro got control of himself and planned.
The only entrance and exit to this basement was apparently the elevator.
He hadn’t been able to find any kind of outside entrance other than the windows, which he’d known with a glance he wouldn’t fit through.
The chair he’d been shackled to was in plain view of the elevator.
So that’s where he had to be when someone came for him and Bowie.
Ignoring the pain, he’d stacked a few boxes under the window that sat a few feet directly behind his chair.
When whoever came for him didn’t see the little girl, they’d immediately make the connection between the boxes and the window.
His plan was risky at best. If several people came for him at the same time, the odds of him getting dead were high.
But if they underestimated him—and he hoped like hell they did, especially after his helpless performance last night—he might have a small chance to make it out of this house of horrors alive.
Pyro wasn’t counting on Bowie finding help and sending reinforcements. Not because he didn’t believe she could do it. But because it simply wouldn’t be smart to rely solely on the little girl. Realistically, he was on his own until the police or his team came through the door.
Taking a deep breath and slowing his heart rate, Pyro sat in the chair, his hands behind his back, feet carefully placed, ropes looped around his calves.
Looking exactly like he’d been left the night before.
He forced his mind not to think about the pain, or Bowie and Penny, or anything other than the different scenarios that could happen when someone appeared.
It was getting light outside when he finally heard the machinery of the elevator start up. His body tensed but he forced himself to relax. This was it. He’d been trained for this moment. To overpower captors and escape.
Lowering his head and hoping he looked sufficiently beaten down, Pyro waited.
The elevator dinged with the arrival of the car, and Pyro heard the whoosh of the door opening. Lifting his head slightly, he saw with glee that only one man exited. The same one who’d wielded the baseball bat the previous day.
Pyro would feel great satisfaction from taking him down.
“Good morning!” the man said—but the fake smile on his face quickly faded as he glanced around the room. “What the fuck? Where’s the girl?”
Pyro didn’t speak. Instead he held his breath, hoping against hope the asshole fell for the deception he’d painstakingly set up.
He saw the moment the man spotted the boxes stacked under the open window.
“Motherfucker!”
Just as Pyro hoped, the man raced over to the window to look out, not bothering to take a second glance at the guy secured to the chair. Moving silently, Pyro stood and swung around to the man who had his back to him, still searching out the window.
Using one of the ropes that had previously bound his legs, he threw it around Bat Guy’s neck and pulled taut.
The man immediately brought his hands to his neck, but he was too late to get his fingers under the rope to reduce the pressure.
He thrashed and fought, but Pyro had the upper hand. Not to mention tons of anger on his side over what had been done to him and Bowie. Rage that this guy had kidnapped a helpless little girl for another man’s sick need for money.
Pyro’s intention wasn’t to kill the guy, he just needed him unconscious. His arms shook with the strength it took to cut off his air, because the man was fighting as if his life depended on it. Which it did. The life he’d known up until this point.
Suddenly, the man threw himself to the side, forcing Pyro to take a step in the same direction to keep the rope around his neck—a step on his broken leg.
Which was why he didn’t move fast enough when the man reached into a sheath at his waist and pulled out a knife.
He plunged it into Pyro’s thigh.
Pyro let out a loud bellow as his already injured leg suddenly became almost useless. He fell to the floor, taking Bat Guy with him.
By no small miracle, his wild effort of using the knife seemed to drain the last of the man’s strength. He went limp in Pyro’s arms, making him grunt as he suddenly bore all of the asshole’s weight.
Quickly, Pyro shifted him to the side and removed the rope.
There was a deep red mark around his neck but the man was still breathing.
Sitting on his ass and using his good leg to maneuver, Pyro pulled the man over to the wall of the basement, where a few large pipes ran from the floor to the upper level of the house.
Then he took out the handcuffs he’d stashed in his pocket, securing the man to a thick pipe before looking down at his injured leg.
Blood had already soaked through his pants, leaving a very visible and horrific path on the floor where he’d dragged Bat Guy’s body to the pipes. Pyro put his hand on the knife, preparing to pull it out—then thought twice.
He’d had extensive first-aid training by some of the best medics in the military, and something a green beret had once said flashed into his mind.
She hadn’t seemed big enough, mean enough, or old enough to be a green beret, but she’d impressed him and the rest of the Night Stalkers, and they’d respected the knowledge she’d willingly shared.
Her name was Annie Fletcher, and she’d been adamant that no matter how badly you might want to remove an impaled object from the body, don’t.
Secure it by whatever means you have at the moment and leave it.
She’d used the analogy of someone sticking their finger into a hole in a dam, like in a cartoon.
The second they remove their finger, the water always gushes out and there’s no stopping it.
She said the body was much the same, and if something vital had been pierced by the object, removing it could result in the person bleeding out.
But even if Pyro had wanted to remove the knife and find something to bind the wound, he didn’t have time. Because as he got to his feet and hobbled back to the chair, he heard the elevator starting again.
Someone else was descending to the basement, and he needed to be ready.
Grabbing the chair, Pyro used it to help himself limp to the wall next to the elevator. He cursed when he saw the very obvious trail of blood he was leaving behind. Whoever entered the basement would see it immediately. But he had no time to do anything about it.
The elevator dinged again, announcing the imminent arrival of his next foe.
Lifting the chair above his head, Pyro waited.
The second a man stepped out of the elevator, Pyro swung the chair with all his might.
It cracked the guy in the head, and he went down like a rock.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. And Pyro was without another weapon.
Except for…
Knowing he had no choice, Pyro grabbed the hilt of the knife sticking out of his thigh and lunged at the third man.
The guy was ready. Seeing his buddy get taken out by a chair to the head had obviously given him more than enough advance warning that all was not well in the basement. That their meek and mild captive had morphed into an adversary who was ready and willing to fight back.
The third man was big, tall, and muscular. Easily three hundred pounds and about six foot five or so. He had nearly a foot on Pyro, but he wasn’t intimidated. He’d taken on men just as big and tall as this asshole, and he didn’t have nearly the motivation then that he had right now.
The most pressing was Bowie. He needed to find her. He’d sent a blind six-year-old out into the night by herself, in a strange place, and he had no idea if she was all right.
The two men circled each other, each limping step sending shooting pains through Pyro’s leg. He could feel blood running down his thigh but he tuned it out. Ignored the way his head spun from blood loss. He wasn’t going down easy.
The man now had a knife in his own hand, and he lunged.
Pyro dodged and struck out with his blade, hitting paydirt with a long slice across the man’s chest.
He swore loudly, then growled, “You’re gonna die.”
“Fuck you,” Pyro returned.
“Where’d you hide the kid? Because you know what? I’ve got time before she leaves to have some fun with her—while you watch.”
Pyro didn’t let the words get to him. Bowie wasn’t here. She was safe. What this asshole was suggesting was perverted and sick, but he wouldn’t get his hands on her. Not a chance in hell.