Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Her legs didn’t feel like hers. Too light. Too slow to answer. Pins and needles stabbed through her feet each time she shifted her weight, the dirt floor tilting beneath her as the edges of her vision flickered in and out.
Steeling herself, she pushed off the wall and forced herself toward the ladder, just barely managing to catch the last rung with both hands. The sudden strain sent pain shooting through her wrists and straight through her head, nearly knocking her down again.
Breathing hard through it, Cassie hauled herself upward with a strangled groan, shoulders trembling with the effort as she fought to get one foot onto the bottom rung. Once she managed it, she climbed one creaking rung at a time until the square opening loomed just above her head.
She paused, pressing her ear to the cool wood and listening—nothing. Or nothing she could hear over her own wild pulse.
She tested it. The door didn’t move.
Cassie pushed harder, shifting her grip, bracing her shoulder against the wood and trying again.
As a fresh wave of panic began to swallow her waning resolve, she slammed her shoulder upward and shoved with all her might, feeling it give just a fraction before settling back into place.
Not locked, she thought, relief flooding her. Blocked.
She strained upward again, forcing it inch by inch, whatever sat on top scraping as it shifted—slow and stubborn—until the hatch finally gave and pushed open.
Cassie surged up with it, bursting through into daylight as she pulled herself onto the wooden floor.
It looked like any other hunting cabin.
A small table lay tipped nearby, knocked into a sagging sofa. The edge of a rug bunched beneath both. Two mismatched chairs sat crooked around it. A wood stove in the corner. A pair of camouflage boots by the door.
Cassie moved fast, scrambling to her feet, crossing the room in unsteady steps and grabbing for the door.
The knob wouldn’t turn, the mechanism catching beneath her hand, no lock in sight.
She spent precious seconds searching for some kind of latch, a keyhole, anything, before turning to the windows and shoving at the nearest frame with both hands.
It didn’t budge. The second was the same—paint sealing the sash tight, the wood fused in place.
She spun, scanning, as every passing second sent fresh panic clawing higher. A narrow bathroom alcove caught her eye, and she ducked inside, reaching for the small window over the sink. It held firm, sealed tight along the edges, no give no matter how hard she pushed.
Racing back to the living room, she searched frantically for anything she might’ve missed when a sound reached her—low at first, then building.
She shot toward the window, easing the curtain just enough to see.
Beyond, trees stretched out in every direction, the long drive cutting through them in a narrow, overgrown line—
—and a silver pickup truck making its way up it, headed straight for her.
Her stomach dropped hard enough to make her sway.
She backed away from the window, her gaze raking the room, her mind racing ahead of her, searching, rejecting, circling back before darting toward the kitchen, wrenching open cupboards and drawers—junk, empty, nothing—until finding a shallow tray of mismatched silverware. Among it all, a small steak knife.
Grabbing the knife, she rushed back to the door just as the engine outside cut off. Flattening herself against the wall, she forced herself still even as her pulse thrashed out of sync and the knife trembled in her grip.
Outside, a door creaked open. Then slammed shut.
Footsteps followed, crunching over gravel and brush, drawing closer.
Cassie held herself still, every muscle drawn tight, listening as the steps reached the other side of the door.
Keys struck metal. A pause. Then the knob turned.
The door opened inward, swinging wide and blocking her from view. It thudded shut behind a tall, slim figure—
—who took one look at the mess by the hatch and spun straight toward her.
Deputy…McCoy?
“You little—”
He lunged before she could think, grabbing her. Pain shot through her wrist as his fingers closed around the burns, driving her hard against the wall, nearly knocking the knife from her grip.
She cried out, slapping at him with her free hand, dodging as he tried to pin her.
“Hold still!” he barked. “Goddammit, just—”
Cassie drove her knee upward as hard as she could, the hit landing solidly between his legs and knocking a strangled sound out of him as his grip loosened just enough for her to wrench free.
Surging forward on pure instinct, she crashed into him with her full weight, driving the knife into the front of his neck.
McCoy staggered backward with a choking sound, one hand flying to his throat while the other clawed for the service weapon at his hip.
Cassie stumbled back, eyes wide. Blood pumped through McCoy’s fingers in dark, uneven bursts, but he was still fighting for his gun, movements weak and jerky. He dragged it halfway from the holster before his knees buckled beneath him.
She hadn’t meant to—
She just wanted him off her—
Oh god, oh god…
“Hey, McCoy—what’s the holdup?”
Cassie’s head snapped toward the new voice, then back to McCoy, her gaze dropping to the gun at his hip.
She scrambled for it; McCoy lunged weakly, his hand catching her arm before the effort pitched him onto his side.
Tearing the weapon free, she stumbled back to her feet just as the door swung inward—and came face to face with Ollie Caldwell.
For a second, it didn’t make sense.
Ollie filled the doorway in plain clothes, his expression shifting from irritation to confusion to something cold and alert as he took in McCoy choking beside her.
And then it did.
Cassie raised the gun with both hands and aimed it straight at his chest.
“Where the fuck is Maya?”
The man held up in front of Nash couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, but he looked twice that. Teeth missing. Hollow-cheeked and sickly, blood dripping down his chin where Nash had split his lip open.
Boone and Snake had him pinned between them, one on each arm, holding him upright when his legs kept trying to give out.
“Stop hurtin’ him—please stop!” A young woman huddled in a nearby corner kept shrieking, freshly picked scabs covering her face and arms.
Nash couldn’t have cared less about the woman, about the guy, about the meth they were cooking and smoking—about anything other than finding Cassie.
He hadn’t slept, hadn’t stopped moving since the night before.
Finding Cassie’s car at the rail yard—and no Cassie—had been more than enough to tell him she’d gone looking for Maya and run straight into trouble.
So he pushed further out—or in, depending how you looked at it. Into places nobody talked about unless you forced them to. Onto back roads that narrowed to dirt and then to nothing. Into all the places people went to disappear around here.
It took time. It took pressure. It took knocking on doors that didn’t open until you made them—and shaking shit up that didn’t especially like being stirred.
And even then, Maya didn’t turn up.
Not Maya.
Not Cassie.
What they got instead was a piss-poor lead—the name Kim—a girl who apparently ran with Maya.
Nash split the search again, sending men to every hole in the hills, every half-rotted, burned-out hovel, every dealer hangout and trap house anyone had ever whispered about. Anywhere someone like Kim might have ended up if she was looking to score—or sleep off a bender.
It took the better part of the morning, but they finally found her in a trailer park two towns over. Not even a park anymore—just a scatter of sagging units in varied stages of disrepair.
Kim had been sprawled across a stained mattress in the back room of one of them, half-naked, barely conscious, the place reeking of sweat and shit and fuck-only-knew-what else.
Getting anything useful out of her had been worse.
Hell, half the fight had been keeping her conscious—one of the guys with a hand fisted in her hair, shouting at her to stay awake, promising worse when she wouldn’t, when her eyes kept drifting shut and her words kept running together.
But eventually she gave them another name this time—Jimmy—with a location attached. Back to Clifton they went. To a house buried off a long-dead logging road, the kind of place you only found if you already knew it was there.
Which was how Nash ended up standing in the middle of a cook shack, old floorboards rotten beneath his boots. The windows had been covered from the inside—no light, just heat—the air thick with ammonia and burned plastic.
Burn marks climbed one corner of the ceiling above a hot plate, a mountain of cold medicine boxes and stripped lithium casings piled nearby. Every surface looked sticky. The whole place felt one spark away from going up.
Nash stepped in close.
“Where’s Maya, Jimmy?”
“I don’t—”
Nash hit him. Jimmy’s head snapped sideways, a wet grunt spilling out of him as his knees buckled against Boone and Snake’s hold.
“Don’t do that,” Nash ground out. “Don’t waste my fuckin’ time.”
“I swear, man, I don’t—”
Nash hit him again. Harder this time, bone thudding under his knuckles. Jimmy sagged, choking, blood stringing from his lip as his head lolled.
“You know Maya,” Nash said, fisting a hand in his shirt and jerking him upright. “You know who she runs with. Who she buys from.”
“Yeah, I know her—but I ain’t seen her—”
Nash drove his fist into Jimmy’s jaw, cutting him off.
“Wait—” Jimmy choked out, sucking in ragged breaths, eyes darting, searching for something—anything—to give him a way out. “Rail yard—she’s always at the rail yard—”
“She ain’t there. Where else? Gimme a fuckin’ name, a place, somethin’. Who the fuck is bankrollin’ this pigsty—’cause it sure as shit ain’t you!”
Jimmy shook his head. “That’s all I got. I swear it!”
“You’re really tryin’ to tell me you ain’t usin’ more than you’re movin’?”
Jimmy started to protest, but Nash didn’t give him the chance. He shifted his aim—driving his fist into Jimmy’s ribs. Once. Twice—
There was a sharp give under his fist as bone snapped, and Jimmy folded with a broken sound, gasping for air as Boone and Snake lost their grip and he dropped hard to the floor. He curled in on himself, coughing and gagging.
The woman let out another shriek, crying harder now. “Jimmy—oh god—Jimmy—”
Rook stepped up beside Nash, already pulling a blade from his pocket. He flicked it open, spinning it once between his fingers.
“Want me to have a go?”
Nash shook out his hand, knuckles throbbing, split and slick with blood. He flexed his fingers, then dropped his hand to his side.
“Be my fuckin’ guest. Just don’t kill him—yet.”
Rook’s mouth tipped—not quite a smile. He jerked his chin at Snake. “Hold him down.”
"My fuckin' pleasure."
Outside, the screaming started almost immediately.
Nash lit a cigarette and dragged in deep, letting it burn low before exhaling, smoke seeping through his teeth as his gaze tracked the tree line.
Already charting the roads branching out from here—the ones that didn’t show up on any map. All the places someone could hide a house. A body—two—and no one would ever stumble across it unless they were looking.
Because he was going to find Cassie. There wasn’t another option.
He wasn’t about to lose both Berrys on his watch—especially not this one. Not when he’d just gotten her back. Just enough to see what could’ve been—
Boone burst through the doorway, already talking. “You’re gonna wanna hear this.”
Nash flicked his cigarette away and followed him inside.
Back in the living room, Rook stood off to the side, wiping his blade clean with a rag while Jimmy lay on his back, shirt cut open, chest exposed. A thin, deliberate pattern of short, crisscrossing cuts marked his skin.
The woman was crouched over him, one hand pressed uselessly to his stomach, the other shaking as she tried to push Snake back.
Snake nudged Jimmy’s face with the toe of his boot. “Tell him what you just told us, sweetheart.”
Jimmy sucked in a broken breath, his swollen eyes finding Nash. “No—she don’t know what she’s sayin’—”
Snake’s boot pressed harder into his face, grinding him into the floor as Jimmy gagged and cried beneath the weight of it.
“It’s a cop!” the woman cried. “Jimmy’s workin’ for a cop!”
Nash stilled, his eyes cutting to Boone.
Connor had been found with drugs on him. Cash, too.
It hadn’t sat right then.
It sure as hell didn’t now.
“Get her outta here.”
Snake hauled the woman up and over his shoulder. She screamed, kicking, reaching for Jimmy on the floor. “Jimmy—Jimmy—!”
Nash stepped forward, grabbing Jimmy by his greasy ponytail, hauling him up just enough to force his eyes up.
“Who?”
Jimmy shook his head hard. “You don’t understand—”
Nash tightened his grip. “Who.”
“I can’t—” His voice broke. “He’ll kill me—you don’t—”
Nash wrenched him the rest of the way up and slammed him into the nearest wall hard enough to rattle it. His hand slid from Jimmy’s hair to his throat, squeezing.
“I’ll kill you,” Nash said quietly. “And Rook’ll make sure nobody ever finds what’s left. Now say the goddamn name.”
Jimmy’s eyes bulged, heels scraping uselessly against the floor as his hands clawed at Nash’s wrist.
“…Mc—”
Nash squeezed harder.
“—Coy,” Jimmy gasped.
Nash let Jimmy drop hard to the floor. He turned for the door, already pulling his phone from his pocket.
Sarge answered on the second ring. “Yeah.”
“McCoy’s still got them places up the mountain?”
“Yeah,” Sarge said. “Couple old places—why?”
Nash yanked his truck door open, already climbing in. “Because that’s where we’re goin’.”