Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
“Whoa, you really gonna shoot us, bro?”
Voodoo froze, his finger halfway to pulling the trigger and firing off shots at the people he’d heard approaching.
“Would be pretty rude,” Blade continued, “considering we left our women at home and have been hanging around in the forest for the last four days without them.”
“Without sex,” Steel muttered, making Blade laugh as the five members of his team stepped out from amongst the trees, and Voodoo finally let out a breath and relaxed a little.
“Don’t want to get shot, don’t sneak up on people,” he muttered, but really, he’d never been so glad to see these guys in his life.
“Indigo cause that?” Thunder asked, waving a hand at the crashed car with the dead body in the passenger seat and two open doors.
“Guess she took some inspiration from Rose,” he replied, proud of his girl for fighting back, doing what she had to do to try to save herself, unaware he was in the car behind her as she’d been driven away from the facility.
“She did good,” Lion said, and everyone else nodded their agreement.
“They’re enacting some sort of plan,” Voodoo explained. “I believe the goal is to use Indigo as bait to get the rest of us, since they know we’re out here.”
“How did you find the car?” Steel asked.
“Borrowed one of theirs and followed it,” he replied, pointing out his, which he’d left at the top of the embankment when he realized a car had gone over the edge and assumed it was likely the one Indigo was in.
“Do you know where they’re based?” Steel asked his next question.
“About twenty or so miles back that way,” he said, pointing in the direction of the small building where Indigo had been kept after they’d taken her.
Where she’d been tortured.
Where her beautiful skin had been marred, and more wounds inflicted on her beautiful body and mind.
“How many of them are there?” Steel asked, and the constant stream of questions helped to keep him grounded. Gave him something to focus on other than the raging terror inside him.
“Not sure how many originally, but I killed twelve of them when they found us and got to Indigo before I could. I killed another two while I was tracking her and stole their vehicle. That’s how I found the place they were hiding out.
There were another twelve of them there that I could see, but five stayed behind, five followed after me in another vehicle, they’re all dead. And two were in this car with Indy.”
Turning his attention back to the mangled car, Voodoo prayed all over again that Indigo hadn't suffered any life-threatening injuries in the crash.
As amazing as it seemed not to be able to truly feel pain, it wasn't just a blessing, it could be a curse as well. Without pain, she was unable to recognize potential injuries, particularly when she was on her own and afraid for her life.
Each step she took as she ran seeking safety could be taking her one step closer to death instead.
“We’ll find her, man,” Dragon assured him, and when he turned to look at his friend, he saw the absolute determination in those unusual violet eyes of Dragon’s. “I can scent her, she doesn’t smell like she’s close to death.”
“But she’s not the only one out there,” he said, his gaze moving once again out to the forest behind him.
Even without the open driver’s side door, he would know that someone was after her, following her, possibly closing in on her even as they stood there. The car hadn't driven itself, and he’d watched as that man had carelessly thrown Indigo into the back of the vehicle before it drove off.
“The driver is injured,” Blade said confidently, and Voodoo wasn't sure if that confidence came from common sense or something he could hear in the man’s breathing.
The crash couldn’t have happened all that long before he came upon it.
He had been no more than a handful of minutes behind the vehicle, and it hadn't taken him more than ten to lead those in the other car out into the forest and kill them.
At most, he would guess the car had crashed fifteen minutes before he got there, and his team had been mere minutes behind him.
Fifteen minutes wasn't a huge head start, especially now that he had Thunder with him, but it was still more space than he wanted between him and his girl.
“There’s blood on the seat,” Lion said, and Voodoo turned to see that his friend had stuck his head inside the wrecked car.
“Course there is, they crashed,” he said simply, pointing to the tree the car was wrapped around.
“No, this blood is slightly darker, it happened before the accident, and see the position,” Lion gestured, and Voodoo sighed but moved in to check it out.
“It’s kind of dripping down the back of the seat,” he said.
“Right. Not where you’d expect to see it when he was thrown forward at impact. Even if he then slumped backward, his seatbelt keeping him against the seat, you wouldn't expect to see blood there,” Lion said.
“There’s blood in the back too,” Dragon said, his nostrils flaring.
“Indigo was thrown into the back, behind the driver’s seat,” Voodoo said slowly. “I thought she might have caused the crash, taking inspiration from Rose.”
“Guess your girl decided to get a little payback in the process,” Lion told him.
“Her hands were bound behind her,” he said, then chuckled. “I'm thinking she bit him. Probably wouldn't let go from the amount of blood we can see, then when she realized she got what she wanted, she let go and huddled down there to minimize her own chances of getting hurt.”
Proud didn't even begin to describe what he felt for Indigo in this moment.
Despite how life had beaten her down repeatedly, despite the dark voices, side effects from the drugs they’d all been given whispering in the back of her mind that she was better off dead, she’d fought hard to live.
“How did you see where they put her?” Steel asked.
“After I killed two of the guards and borrowed their vehicle, I used the GPS to track down where they’d come from.
It’s a small building, and I was going to wait until you guys showed up because I didn't want to risk Indigo being killed if I started a fight I wasn't equipped to win. No one gave me a second glance, I think because they’re all scared of us. That guy.” Voodoo gestured to the dead man in the passenger seat.
“Wanted to wait for more guards to arrive. Apparently, they’ll be here tomorrow, but Dr. Gardner won't wait. They’re terrified we’re going to kill them all.
Terrified of Dr. Gardner as well. When they kidnapped Indy earlier, I tried interrogating one of them, but he would rather be dead than give up intel so I think we can assume that’s true for any others still around. ”
Dragon suddenly stiffened, his nostrils flaring wildly. A murderous expression overtook his features.
“What is it?” Steel demanded, and they all watched Dragon expectantly.
“Him,” Dragon said simply.
There was only one him Voodoo could see his friend caring about. “Dr. Gardner? He’s here?”
“I can smell him,” Dragon replied.
“Must be back at the building. I should have made a move while I was there. I didn't expect him to be here since he seems to have been hiding out ever since the incident with Rose.” If they’d lost their chance at getting the crazed scientist, Voodoo would always carry that burden.
“You couldn’t have known he’d be here,” Steel assured him.
While he knew it was true, that didn't make him feel any better. The man they’d been hunting for a decade had been right inside the building he’d stood looking at for a solid hour or so before Indigo had been dragged out.
Chances were, he could have taken out twelve men.
More than twelve if there had been other guards inside protecting the doctor, which there likely were.
They probably wouldn't have killed Indigo anyway.
They wanted all seven of them alive, they were worth more that way.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Steel said firmly. “What's done is done, and this time he’s not getting away. He wants to try to lure us into a trap, let him try, he’s not going to win.”
“Do we go after Indigo first, or Dr. Gardner?” Voodoo asked, knowing what his answer would be, but he could hardly demand his team pick a woman they didn't know over a man they’d all wanted dead for the last decade.
“You really have to ask?” Steel demanded, clearly offended. The other four men looked offended, too, and Voodoo relaxed a little as he realized they were all on the same page.
“Indigo first,” he said.
“Right,” Steel agreed. “We go rescue your girl, and then we finally get our revenge on the man who played God with all of our lives and make him suffer.”
Sounded like the perfect plan. Now they just had to hope nothing went wrong.
January 25th
12:45 A.M.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Was Indigo saying those words out loud, or just inside her head?
Between the thundering of her pulse, and the harsh sound of her breaths sawing in and out of her chest, she didn't really know.
All she knew was that it was getting harder and harder to do.
As badly as she wanted to keep going, sooner rather than later, her body was going to give up on her. Already she wasn't sure how she was still on her feet, still moving, even if she was going a whole lot slower than she had been at first.
Now she no longer felt the cold, and she highly doubted that had anything to do with her enhanced ability to tolerate extreme temperatures.
If she took the time to look down at her naked body, she was sure she would find it littered with marks from her run through the forest, scratches and bruises dotting her skin, but she had no time and no interest in seeing how badly she was banged up.
If she couldn’t feel them, they didn't exist, that was her philosophy right about now, and she thought it was a pretty good one.
“I know you're out here somewhere, bait,” burning man’s voice floated to her through the dark.