Chapter 27
Chains rattled on the other side of the door, the voices growing louder still. Now Ellie could hear their conversation as they yelled over the chopper’s rotating blades. Something about a shootout.
“What do you mean they aren’t locked up?” one asked, sounding perturbed.
“Didn’t you just hear me? We were getting shot at, you moron. Besides, it’s not like they’re armed. I checked.”
Feeling like a huntress with her pointed stick, Ellie waited along the edge. Nash backed up and took center stage, lasso waiting, eyes narrowing, temper blazing.
The door rumbled open with a shudder.
Sharp streaks of sunlight pierced in so brightly they blinded Ellie as she worked to survey the scene.
Her eyes barely settled on the man who'd opened the door when a black cord looped right around his neck.
Fast as lightning, the man's head jerked forward and slammed against the bed of the truck, knocking him out cold.
A gun slid from his grip toward Ellie, where it butted against the toes of her flats.
Two men remained, and the one closest to her reached for the gun.
Heart hammering, muscles tight, Ellie flung the liquid in the jug at his face—a bald man who flew back screaming as the sludge dripped down his head. The fumes wafted into the truck, making Ellie cough and flinch.
She ditched the jug and snatched the gun as the third guy climbed past the lassoed man. He bore a wicked, gold-toothed grin as his nostrils flared, eyes fixed on Ellie. “You want to play, do you?”
Ellie froze, realizing she wasn’t even holding the gun properly. The heavy thing sat awkwardly in her palm, pointed at who knew where as she gripped the stick with her other hand. Should she jab this guy or try to reposition the gun and shoot at him?
Before she could act, the man rushed at her, and Ellie flinched back with a scream, coiling her arm back to keep the gun out of reach, but he didn’t get that far; Nash bolted between them and rammed the stick straight through his side with a low growl.
Gold tooth screamed, writhing as he fell to the ground.
"Run!" Nash yelled.
Ellie obeyed, leaping over one fallen man after the next. With the reach of one hand, Nash secured her wrist and helped her jump from the truck bed and onto solid ground at last.
The bald man scrubbed at his face with his shirt, cursing as he darted after them. She sensed him following her in a zombie-like state as they ran, his footsteps growing fainter behind them.
Ellie took in their new surroundings— a parking lot and an old industrial plant to the right. To the front and left was a trainyard. Hundreds of old, colorful train cars were lined up for miles, creating a maze of sorts.
"This way," Nash called as he tugged her arm and weaved through a break in the line of trains. They ran between the first two rows before Nash nodded to an upcoming split. A long, metal hitch connected the line of trains—something they hadn’t seen from afar—but they climbed over it with ease and kept running.
This time, Nash cut through three more rows, then headed in the opposite direction where the line of trains went on.
They moved further, slipping between subsequent rows, gaining as much distance as they could.
"They went this way,” a man hollered in the distance.
Gunshots sounded, the blast echoing off the metal trains like clashing cymbals.
Nash stopped short and changed course. "This way,” he said, ducking behind one of the double-stacked train cars. He stopped in front of a ladder that led to the top of the second train. The only trouble was, it was so high she wasn’t sure she could climb it.
"Here,” Nash said, hiking a foot onto the ledge and taking the stick from her. He grabbed the gun next and tucked it into the back of his jeans.
“Climb on up.” He urged her to stand on his knee, and Ellie did that very thing.
With Nash’s help, she griped onto the rungs and pulled herself up.
“I’ll be back,” Nash said, but Ellie spun around to stay him. She couldn’t let him stay on the ground and get himself killed. She’d seen it too many times, and that was not how this story would play out.
“Nash, no. If you don't come up here with me,” she warned under her breath, “I’ll come right back down.”
Nash glanced over both shoulders, contemplation etched on his face.
Her heart thundered in desperation. Please, Nash, just get up here with me.
At last, he did, handing up the stick. “Lay flat,” he directed and pulled himself onto the rooftop in two swift moves.
The train’s roof was scorching hot, but it was also a good foot and a half deep, meaning if they remained flat on their backs, they’d go unnoticed.
Unless the men chasing them got back in the chopper to gain a birds-eye view.
"How the crud did you manage to lose them?" a man screamed.
A stream of curses came back in reply, grumblings about how they’d poured acid in his face, and he could hardly breathe.
"You won’t be breathing at all if we don't find those two."
Gravel shuffled beneath their pursuers’ steps, letting the pair know how close their captors really were.
Please don’t climb up. Please don’t climb up.
Ellie kept her breaths even and shallow, hoping the pounding of her heart wouldn't become audible against the metal roof, praying that the heat wouldn't become so scorching that she had to move or yelp out in pain.
The footsteps were still close by, first on one side of the train and then on the other.
“You think they went inside one of these things?” one asked.
“Don’t ask me. Test all the doors and see if any open.”
She waited for something further, for one of them to notice the ladders and to start checking the rooftops as well.
“This thing goes on forever. They’re probably way out there by now.”
“Then get moving,” the other grumbled.
Ellie stared up at the blue sky as the sound of their footsteps waned, then further and further away. Let help come for us now, please, please, please…
Nash, who'd laid closer to the edge by the ladder, reached a hand her way, softly grazing her leg.
Ellie knew just what he was in search of; she extended her hand and sighed when his fingers slid soundlessly through hers. He was there. They were alive. And they were united.
The scene was about to end, Ellie just knew it.
And like an answer to that inner prayer, sirens sounded in the distance.
These, she told herself, were not the sirens from the stolen patrol car. These sirens meant that help was on its way, help that had no doubt been sent by Wyatt and Wade.
Nash’s brothers may not have been able to thwart the abduction, but they most definitely had, in part, aided their rescue and helped save their lives.
Ellie closed her eyes and prayed that it hadn’t been at the cost of their own.