Chapter 21
Silas
Leaving them wasn’t high on my priority list of things to do today. I wanted to stay with Angel. The thought of leaving them there with no one to protect them doesn’t sit well with me. Something is eating away at my insides and making me antsy.
“What’s your problem?” Ry asks as we head toward town.
“I don’t know, Ry. I just feel like we shouldn’t have left them there,” I tell him.
“Why?”
“I don’t fucking know. It’s just not sitting right with me.”
“You want to go back?” he asks. I shake my head. There’s no turning back now. Levi keeps driving when suddenly we hear tires squealing on the pavement. I turn to look over my shoulder when I see a dark SUV coming at us.
“What the fuck?” I growl as the SUV slams into us. Levi curses under his breath but pushes the gas, going faster. As fast as we’re going, they’re keeping up. The car hits us again, and we swerve all over the fucking road, but Levi pulls it back.
“Who the hell is that?” Rylan yells as I try to see, but I can’t get a good look.
“I can’t see. The windows are fucking tinted,” I yell this time. I pull my gun, but Rylan shakes his head.
“There are kids out here.” He nods toward the streets. He’s right. We can’t risk that, so I stuff it back into the back of my jeans and try to focus. The SUV hits the back of our car once more when Levi pulls out on the highway quickly.
“They are still coming,” I let him know.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Levi snaps now.
“I don’t know, but they know who the fuck we are,” Rylan adds.
“How, though?” I ask more to myself than them. Levi continues speeding, swerving in and out of traffic like a fucking professional driver. He pulls onto the shoulder and hauls ass around a few cars, but the assholes behind us do the same.
“How the fuck are we going to shake them?” Levi yells.
“What about getting off and hitting the old dirt road?” I say. There’s a small dirt road we used to use to hide from the cops when we were younger, and it’s not far from here.
“On it,” Levi says. He pulls into the far left lane trying to throw those assholes off our trail. Levi whips it across three lanes and off at the exit. I see the car trying to make it, but he doesn’t.
“He didn’t make it!”
“Good fucking driving, Levi!” Rylan slaps a hand on his shoulder. We’re back on track, taking a few backroads when out of no fucking where the SUV slams into the side of us.
“Fuck!” I roar as the metal bends and glass shatters. I’m shoved from the left side of the car to the right, my head slamming into the window. Tires squeal on the pavement again when I realize they’re backing up to hit us again.
“They’re coming back!” I scream for the other two as I try to pull the fucking door handle. It won’t open. I can’t get the motherfucker open. I glance back over just in time to see the SUV flying at us once again. I close my eyes, not sure what the fuck to do when it collides with us again. It shoves our car across the road, metal creaking in the background.
My head is spinning. I’m not sure which way is up or how the hell I’m going to get out of here.
“Ry?” I call his name, but it doesn’t even sound like me talking.
“I’m … fuck,” he grumbles under his breath.
“Levi?” I see Ry turn his head before he really begins to curse.
“You motherfuckers! I will fucking murder every one of you!” He screams so loud it hurts my ears. They’re ringing, and my head is thumping as I shake my head. No. There’s no fucking way Levi is gone.
“Levi!” I scream his name, hoping that any God out there hears me and lets him be okay. “Levi!”
I can vaguely hear people talking as the doors are being torn open and we’re being ripped out. My legs don’t want to work, so I fall to my knees only to be pulled back up.
“Levi!” I fucking keep screaming because he has to hear me. He has to wake up. My chest feels tight as a hood is pulled over my head and pulled tight. I hear Rylan yelling and carrying on, but I can’t see shit. I don’t know if we’re okay. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. It’s all so chaotic.
I feel myself being thrust into what I assume is a van. My body hits the goddamn floor with a thud, and I groan in pain. Everything hurts. Everything.
Rylan is tossed in next to me, and he groans when he hits the floor.
“Ry?”
“Fuck, Silas. I’m fucked,” he responds, sounding as if he’s in pain, and why wouldn’t he be?
“What the fuck is happening?”
“I don’t know, Silas, but I’m going to kill them all,” he tells me. I agree. Whoever did this is going to pay. They’re going to pay with their lives. There’s no fucking way we’re letting this go.
The van bumps us around as they drive us to wherever the fuck we’re going. I gag on the vomit, threatening to come up in my throat. I’m not feeling well at all. My head is spinning, and I reach up and grab it, begging it all to stop. The ringing in my ears is so fucking loud I can hardly hear anything else.
“We’re going to get out of this, Silas.” I hear Rylan but fuck, I don’t know if we can. “Do you hear me? Don’t fucking leave me, Silas.”
“I-fuck, Ry. I’m fucked up,” I mumble.
“Me too, but we’re going to get out of this,” he says once more. I’m glad one of us is looking at the bright side of things because the way I feel right now, I’m not so sure I’m going to make it anywhere.
“Fuck, Rylan.”
“Just stay with me, Silas,” he groans in pain. That’s when it hits me. Levi’s dead. Our best fucking friend is dead. The anger sweeps over me so quickly I barely feel it until the roar rips from my throat. I scream, and I scream. I’m hurt, I’m in pain, I’m fucking devastated.
“I’ll fucking kill them!” I yell louder this time, even though it feels like I’m breaking in half. I never thought about losing one of the guys. When we did shit, we did it as a team. We did it together. We’ve always had each other’s backs, and now that’s over. He’s gone. Our best friend is gone.
I can’t process it. Or maybe I don’t want to. Maybe this is all a fucking bad dream I’m going to wake up from, and Levi will be there. Nausea rolls through me, my stomach ready to release everything I’ve had today. Darkness pulls at my conscious, begging me to just close my eyes for a second and let it take over.
“Silas?” Fuck. I could let it. I could let myself go into the fucking dark where nothing can hurt me. “Silas!” Ry gets louder this time.
“I’m fucking barely holding on here, Ry.”
“I know, man. I know you are, but stay with me, Silas. I can’t do this without you.” I try. Fuck, do I try. I blink my eyes rapidly, trying to keep them from closing. I feel them drooping and I jolt myself back to reality, back to now. He’s right. Rylan fucking needs me now. He needs me to stay awake no matter how hard this shit is trying to pull me under.
“Ry?”
“Yeah?”
“We don’t say this kind of shit to each other,” I tell him, gasping for air as my ribs scream in pain. “You’re my brother, Ry. I love you, man.” I need to say it just in case I don’t make it.
“Fuck you, Silas.” He breathes heavily. “You don’t get to do that shit now, man.”
“It needs to be said.” I wait a long minute before I finally hear him speak.
“I love you too, brother.” A sense of peace washes over me. It’s like everything is going to be okay now.
But I know that’s not right. What if whoever this is gets their hands on Angel and Tamsyn? What if they know where they are? Now, too much is running through my head, making the pain worse.
We bump along a little more when the van finally stops. I’m thankful the movement is done, or I might not have been able to hold back the vomit much longer.
I hear the doors open, then the grunts and groans as Ry is pulled out before I feel hands on me. It hurts. It hurts so fucking bad, but I don’t show I’m in pain. Fuck them.
I’m dragged out of the van and then taken somewhere else. I can’t see shit with this hood on, and they know that.
Wherever we are, it’s air-conditioned. The cool air is welcome as sweat drips down my temples.
“I thought you were going to get them? Not fucking killing them?” Is that? No. It can’t be. That can’t be him.
“I never said they’d be in one piece.” My dad. It’s my fucking dad. The other voice?
It’s Hunter.