43. Sage
sage
Alightning strike flashed across the night sky, rain pummeling the black Escalade as it traversed mountain roads.
At some point I lost track of where we were.
I tried for so long to memorize landmarks, but with the storm coming in, the darkness seemed to wash out every noticeable feature.
I inhaled through my nose then blew out a long breath, trying to calm my heart, trying to focus.
The duct tape around my wrists and legs was unforgiving, sticking to my arm hairs and clothes, absent of any stretch.
Alani sat beside me, ready to shove that syringe in my arm if I caused any trouble. I glared at her, a sudden surge of bravery filling my chest.
“Fuck you,” I hissed at her, keeping my voice low enough Clayton couldn’t hear my next words.
“Fuck you for ever using domestic abuse as a cover. Fuck you for taking advantage of someone’s trauma for your own gain.
How dare you take advantage of my kindness to help him.
How could you?” I was seething, anger fueling my bravery.
I shifted to sit straighter, to look her dead in the eyes.
“Instead, you could be using your investigation skills to find all those missing girls stolen from reservations. Do that. Not this.” I shook my hands to emphasize how she’d helped bind me.
She only stared back at me, her face emotionless. Her eyelids lowered as if she was looking down at me.
A call rang through the vehicle.
“Sssh, doll.” Clayton shushed me. “I need to take this call now.”
His words had only been gentle and serene, driving me nearly mad because it was just another way he used to placate me, to manipulate me.
“Fuck you,” I cursed. If I could get any closer from where I was buckled in the back, I’d have concluded that with spit in his face.
Clayton didn’t even respond, accepting the call.
“What do you got for me?” Clayton asked as the call connected.
“They’re here,” came a male voice. The voice sounded oddly familiar. I strained to listen.
“Good work,” Clayton praised, turning the steering wheel.
I perked up to see where we were heading.
“Stand by until I give you a call.” Clayton pulled off the road. In the rain and darkness I couldn’t see beyond the trees that lined either side of the country road. He hung up the call and put the vehicle into park. “Alani, switch with me.”
I scooted back into my seat as far as I could. “I’d rather Alani stay back here.” Maybe I could get to her? Maybe I could convince her not to do this after all? She could help me …
Clayton only chuckled. “You want the woman with the syringe filled with propofol to stay back there with you? Come on, Sage. Don’t be stupid. Alani?”
“You want me to continue on?” she asked, as she and Clayton switched seats.
Clayton settled himself beside me, but other than the brush of my hair and my tears earlier, he still didn’t touch me. “You know I never wanted it to go this way. If you’d just come back to me and not made me miss you for all those years, this would’ve gone so much easier.”
I glanced down at his lap where he had a black laptop with him.
“You know I would’ve never gone with you willingly,” I said as I shook my head. “That’s why you felt like you needed to threaten me and tie me up. I fucking hate you, Clayton. You made my life a living hell.”
“No, doll. It was you who made it that way. It never had to be this way.”
It was then that he opened the laptop, while Alani got the Escalade back on the road.
He clicked open an application. Two surveillance videos immediately popping up on the screen. The video was dark and a little grainy with a slight glow of green night vision. Both cameras were trained on a motel room, showing different angles.
My brows pinched. “What’s this?”
“One sec.” Clayton backed up the footage and pressed play. “Watch this.”
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding. For some reason I knew what I was about to see before I even saw it.
The air froze in my chest.
There on the screen was Christian standing at the door.
I didn’t need to see his face. I knew it was him.
I knew his form by heart. He wore his Wranglers and a dark hoodie.
I couldn’t see his face beneath his cowboy hat, but I knew it was him.
Two others — Kale and Jude — walked around the back.
My heart hammered in my ears. My eyes darted around the screen attempting to take in every detail.
Fuck. They were all there. Reed and Chuck were hanging back against the wall, waiting.
Waiting for what? I didn’t know. Then the door popped open and they all rushed in, Chuck quickly closing it behind them.
I hoped to see something more, anything that would show me they were okay. That they hadn’t just walked into some trap. But the video went quiet. And all I was looking at was a closed door.
Clayton pointed to the two screen views. “See these cameras. At each one I have a man with their sights trained on that room. All they need is the order from me.”
I jerked my head back to Clayton, shock rolling through me. I felt like I was going to be sick.
“Now, here’s what I need from you. As I said, we can make this really easy.”
I gulped trying to force myself to breathe again. To swallow down the bile. Clammy heat washed over me, blood rushing from my head, and my mouth filled with saliva. If I didn’t start breathing I was either going to pass out or vomit and I couldn’t afford either right now.
“I can call my guys and tell them to back off, or I can have them stay there all night if they have to, pick them off one by one as they leave. Because eventually they will leave. They aren’t going to stay there all night.” He said it all so matter-of-factly, like he was laying out a business plan.
“Who — who’s in that room?” I asked.
A slow smile creeped across his face. “Junior offered to stay behind to ensure the deal went through. He knew they’d come looking for him or at least come look for Alani since she was going to be the last one to see you before you disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” I shuddered.
He waved me off. “You know what I mean. Took off, returned home.”
I shook my head. He was still trying to spin this to make himself feel better.
“You’re coming with me regardless, but I need you to promise you’re not going to run again.”
“I’m not promising shit,” I gritted out.
His lips tipped slightly. “Oh, yes, you are. You know I keep my promises. It’s your turn now.”
He reached out to brush a lock of my hair, but I pulled away before he could touch me.
He shrugged it off like it was no consequence, taking his phone out of his pocket instead.
“It’s your call, doll. What’s it going to be?
Fight me all the way there and we watch them go down one at a time?
I mean, I’d especially like to see that husband of yours end up bleeding out on the pavement for what he did to me. ”
“You deserved every hit he landed,” I spat.
Clayton chuckled, shaking his head. “I should just make you a widow for him taking what wasn’t his.”
“I was never yours to begin with.”
“Very well.” Clayton tapped on his screen to call back his last caller. The ring sounded through the vehicle again. Just then I saw Kale open the door as if to check something. Clayton’s eyes flicked back to the screen with the movement. “We can watch your brother go first.”
“Wait!” I held out my bound arms as if I could stop him. I couldn’t let him do this. I couldn’t let him take out my friends, my brother, Christian, one by one. I’d rather die than see them lose their lives, to shatter Romy and Lina’s hearts like that.
“We have our sights on one,” the voice sounded from the other end of the phone.
Fear ricocheted through me. “I—I promise I won’t run,” I said the words in a rush to stop him.
Clayton turned to me. He reached his hand then, running his fingertips over the side of my face. I closed my eyes, trembling, trying to disassociate from his touch. “You made the right choice, doll.”
“What’s your call?” asked another voice over the line.
I knew those voices, I just couldn’t place them.
“We’re calling it off. Stick around though, I want you to watch the motel until they’re gone.”
Clayton hung up the phone, returning it to his pocket. He reached out to take my hand as tears began to bubble up my throat, stinging on their way up. I closed my eyes, willing them not to fall. I pressed my lips together in a vain attempt to stop my chin from trembling.
“You did the right thing.” He sighed, squeezing my fingers. “Let’s go home.”
I didn’t even open my eyes again, wanting to be anywhere but here.
I found myself nodding acquiescence as the tears fell. Because what choice did I have?
christian
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Kale asked for the umpteenth time.
“I don’t think we have any other choice right now,” I reminded him, returning to watch Chuck pace the room while he was on the phone with a lawyer.
“This better work,” Jude agreed.
We all sat huddled around the table back at my house. I needed us to be here. Just in case Sage came home.
Even if that was a long shot at the moment.
The more time we wasted, the further she could be getting away from Willows.
Chuck hung up the phone and returned to his seat between Reed and Jude, smoothing his mustache before intertwining his fingers on the tabletop. His eyes looked at all of us seriously, making eye contact like he was our father about to distribute some wisdom.
“She’s taking care of it right now and will drive it out here herself.”
We all breathed a sigh of relief. One problem partially solved, a hundred more to go.
“Do you think he’ll call?” I asked.
“He better fucking call,” Reed grumbled beside me.
“I don’t know how much longer I can sit here and wait without doing something,” I confessed. “We could still just jump in our trucks and drive straight to the reservation.”
“You honestly think he’s going to take her straight there?” Kale admonished.
I released a heavy sigh. “No. I just feel helpless right now. I can’t do anything to find her.”