Chapter 47
Thea
Any hope I had of yelling to be heard vanishes the second I’m hauled out of the car and dropped in the dirt in front of a small cabin, surrounded by a thick forest of trees.
If there are neighbors, they are miles down the road.
How is Pierce going to find me here? Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that he will find me. Even if it’s too late.
“Get inside,” Agent Dutton orders, setting Andi down beside me.
I look at my bound feet. “How exactly do you propose I do that?”
He glowers, his left eye twitching with barely concealed rage. “Stay right there while I carry her in. If you move, your friend dies.”
“Oof, you made it too late. We are no longer friends.”
Andi gapes at me. While I’d never let her get shot, maybe if he thinks I don’t care about her, he loses leverage over me.
“Then I’ll carry you first.” He gives me no chance to try a different approach before he hauls me over his shoulder and stomps up the crumbling steps.
My head pounds and swirls with each step until he drops me onto a sofa. A spring stabs my backside, and a plume of dust flies up around me, choking me before I can tell him off for his mistreatment. If he’s going to kidnap someone, it wouldn’t hurt to be a gentleman about it.
He stomps out the door for Andi. I frantically search the room, hoping to find a cell phone or a weapon, but the cabin is empty of anything besides this couch and a rudimentary lab set up on a collapsible table in the dilapidated kitchen.
There are tattered blankets tacked over windows, and two rotted wood beams hold the roof over the kitchen area.
One giant gust of wind and this whole place would topple.
The door slams shut behind Cole, and he slides a dead bolt over it and my hopes.
He drops Andi onto the sofa beside me. “Now. Let’s get to work.”
I’m not about to ask him to clarify. I’d rather not know what he has planned for me. Cut me into pieces and feed me to the wolves? Force us to make meth and then burn down the place with us in it?
I’m better off in the dark on this one.
“What do you want with us?” Andi asks, fire lacing her words.
“I think you know.” He holds out a pocketknife with a sharp click, and Andi screams, flinching back, her two seconds of bravery gone. “I want the drug, and you’re going to make it for me.” He aims the knife at Andi who seems to shrink more.
“I-I don’t know the correct formula.” Andi stutters, “I only know the base serum, but I’m missing the last couple ingredients.”
“That’s why I brought her.” He swivels the knife toward me.
I’ve been so afraid for so long that I actually laugh at this. “Even if I knew the name of the elusive substances to begin with, that knowledge is long gone thanks to being drugged. You must have missed that part while planning this kidnapping.”
He steps closer, lowering the knife toward my throat. “It’s in your best interest to remember, and quickly.” He pulls a little black remote from his pocket and clicks a button. Something across the room beeps.
A black box connected to four red cylinder explosives lights up, and the digital display reads two hours.
My stomach plummets through the rotting floor. That sure changes things.
“Is that a bomb?” Andi squeaks.
“Do you remember now?” Cole asks me.
I don’t know much about negotiating with crazy people, but I do know I’m not ready to die. I will lie until my last breath.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then you two better get to work.” He slices the tape at Andi’s legs. Andi shrieks but stops when she realizes what’s happened. She’s halfway free, but she doesn’t move. “Go.” He yanks her up and hauls her to the table. “Get started on the base crap. Then I’ll cut your friend free.”
“Are you at least going to undo my hands?” she asks, her voice wavering.
He thinks for a long moment before deciding she’ll be more effective that way. “If you do anything, I will shoot her”—he motions to me—“and you will go down for it.”
“She doesn’t care about me.” I’m trying to tell Andi to take the risk, to do something that can get us out of here.
She looks at me as he drags her backward to the makeshift lab. Twin tears slip down her cheeks. “None of this was supposed to happen, Thea.”
“Shut up.” Cole smacks the table and glasses clatter. “No one cares about your sob story. Get to work or I'll break one of her fingers every ten minutes.”
Andi squeaks and grabs beakers and flasks, her hands shaking around them, making them clank together. My leg bounces with the need to remember the missing ingredients before Andi and I die.
Cole drags a folding metal chair across the floor five feet from me. He sinks into it with a huff and props his feet out in front of him.
“Being evil must be exhausting,” I muse.
He scoffs, but it turns into a yawn that he covers quickly.
He didn’t get enough sleep last night. Probably because he was planning this.
The small sliver of light filtering in through a hole in the blanket curtains illuminates his face at a different angle, highlighting dark blue bruising around his left eye.
“Nice shiner.”
He doesn’t say a word, and I continue my doctorate level perusal of him. Maybe I can get him to see reason. Change his mind and let us go. He’s got bruised knuckles; he’s been in a fight lately. Last night, possibly.
“Did Pierce give it to you?”
His expression sharpens, but beyond that he doesn’t let anything slip.
He’s trained to keep secrets. Is it because he had a rough upbringing and he was seeking community, a place to belong?
Or did he want to be the best at everything, and he has something to prove?
He bounces one foot, snatching my attention with his black sneakers.
All black. Even the logo on the side and bottom.
“You mugged me in Mexico.”
“Would you like a prize or something?”
“Yes. I’d like to go free.”
“Option not available.” His arrogance is grating and nasty.
“Did you kill that man in my room?”
“Sure did.” He cracks his knuckles, proud of himself.
Something shatters in the kitchen, and Andi hastily bends to pick up the pieces.
“Why?” I ask.
“Wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. You get it.”
“No, I don’t.” I’m sitting across from an actual murderer, and it makes me physically ill. “You stole my bag, doubled back to my room, and killed him?”
“I wouldn’t have had to go to your room if you’d had the drive on you like you were supposed to.”
“You knew I was meeting with Pierce.” Did everyone know except me?
“Yes. I planned to get to you before the meeting, but then that idiot drugged you on the plane.”
“Which idiot?” There have been many.
He shrugs. “The dead guy.”
Henry Carter drugged me. That solves one mystery.
“How did you know he drugged me?”
“I saw him.” He drops his feet to the floor and stands, pacing. “I had a plan, and he ruined it.”
“You saw him drug me and you didn’t do anything to stop him?” I don’t know why I’m so livid that the man who kidnapped me would also stand by and watch someone drug me. I thought overall humanity was better than that.
“I couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave you alone.
He booked the room right next to yours.” The answers, though not ideal, help fill in some of the blanks.
Henry was my seatmate. He was kind and helpful when I was anxious during takeoff.
He’s the one who insisted I order a drink to calm my nerves.
That’s where things get fuzzy. I remember Henry helping me as we made our way out of the airport.
He had insisted we share a cab to the hotel.
“What a coincidence, we’re heading to the same place.
” By the time he walked me to the room and asked if he could come in, I’d sobered enough to defend myself.
I hit him! I punched him in the nose, slammed the door, and dead bolted it. I wanted to do more to protect myself, but I fell in a heap on the bed and didn’t move until morning.
“So he got in your way? That’s it?” I ask. Maybe I can get him to experience guilt for his actions, or at least remorse.
Cole grabs something from his bag by the door. “Yes. He wanted something he couldn’t have. Simple as that.”
“Ah…” I lean back a little. “I get it. You never learned to share. I can help you fix that behavior, but it’s going to cost you.”
He rips off a piece of duct tape and stomps forward, pressing it over my mouth. “You just cost yourself the ability to speak.”
I knew psychoanalyzing people without their consent would backfire someday.