65. Carter
sixty-five
carter
I barely manage to hold Penn back. I get the urge to run for Oliver—I do, truly. But I don’t see blood on him. And a minute later, their ex-teammate walks out from the opposite direction. His scary older brother, who resembles a bulldog, comes out behind him.
He’s carrying a gun, but there’s a very clear distinction: the green tip.
“He hit him with a bean bag,” I breathe in Penn’s ear. “He’s alive. Okay? Come on.”
I try to drag him back around the other way. We need to get to Sydney, wherever they’re hiding her. In the middle of the room, Oliver groans and rolls onto his side. He heaves.
“Get up,” Bear orders.
He’s limping, too. Vicious thoughts of breaking his leg fills my vision. Just as a warm-up. An appetizer, so to speak.
Penn jerks free of my hold, but he doesn’t rush out to save Oliver.
“Listen,” I say, grabbing at Penn again. “You can either go be a martyr, or we can find Sydney.”
“You find her,” he says. “I’m going to save Ollie.”
I groan, but he’s already moving away from me. Bear and his brother are almost on top of Oliver when Penn steps out.
“Let’s make it a fair fight, guys,” he calls. The knife isn’t in his hand anymore, and he spreads his arms out wide. “You don’t think Ruiz came alone, do you?”
Bear laughs. It’s fucking cold and goes straight through me. “I hoped there would be three of you. Save us some time chasing down the SJU rat.”
I bristle. I force myself away from them, circling wide and creeping along the walls. There’s only a row of lights on in the center of the warehouse, casting the rest in shadow. I’d guess Bear and his brother were going for some dramatic effect, but it works to my favor. I keep one eye on them. They’re fully focused on a conversation with a rambling Penn, while trying not to make a sound otherwise.
I am good at this. I’m good at hunting, at stalking.
Maybe that’s why I like acting it out with Sydney…
“Oliver?” her voice comes again. It seems to echo all around, the wobbling tone making my brows furrow.
There’s something off about it. Because it sounds… the same.
Bear laughs. “You didn’t fall for that, did you?”
Oliver pushes himself back to his feet, clutching his side. “What did you do?”
“Confronted her with the mask…” Bear tilts his head. “I must admit, I expected her to run immediately. Instead, she said—well, here. Listen.”
“Seriously? Get the fuck out of here,” Sydney’s voice comes again. Stronger. Angrier. “You don’t just get to follow me around, Penn. It’s fucking creepy. We haven’t moved into the phase where the mask is funny.”
My heart climbs into my throat.
“Wait. Is this you pretending to be L.? Nice. So fucking nice.” Then, “Oliver?”
They recorded her. Cut the audio…
Bear laughs. “She thought my brother was one of you two. Did you end up going through with my plan? Wear the mask and fuck her? She wasn’t too happy… well, I’m sure you could tell. I thought it was fucking amusing. She turned and ran straight into me.”
“You bastard,” Penn curses.
Bear lifts one bulky shoulder. “Yeah? What of it, Walker? I was hoping she’d give us a good scream—I thought that might get you running, you know? Scare you a bit more. But she didn’t. Not yet anyway.”
I’m going to be sick.
I reach the offices and peek in through the window of the first. The room is empty unless she’s lying directly under the window. Risking that she’s not, I go on to the next. Then the storage room.
The door is open, but moving from my spot will leave me in the open.
I glance back at Bear and his brother.
“You assholes,” Penn shouts. “So caught up in your vendetta that you’d terrorize an innocent girl?”
He steps forward, and Bear’s brother hefts the gun up. Points it at him. Bean bag or not, it would suck to get hit with it. Penn stops, his hands going up.
“You think she’s innocent?” Bear spits.
I will my steps to be silent as I sprint across the open space and practically dive into the storage room. If she’s not in here, I’ll be stuck?—
But here she is.
Fuck .
Her arms are trapped above her head, her wrists wrapped in chains that hold her up. Her weight is fully on her wrists and shoulders. Her knees are bent, her legs not supporting her.
She lifts her head. There’s a belt wrapped around her neck. She’s also soaking wet. Naked except for her underwear. And there’s a cut on her inner thigh. A steady stream of blood runs down her leg, puddling on the floor under her.
I rush to her and undo the belt first. It’s so fucking tight, I don’t know how she’s still conscious. I have to physically swallow down my rage.
As soon as I loosen it, she sucks in a huge, gasping breath. Her chest heaves, and the blood flows faster from her leg.
Shit.
I shed my jacket, dropping it to the floor, then tear my shirt off and press it to the cut. They fucking made a nick in her artery—not big enough to bleed her out immediately. But if we hadn’t come along, she’d surely be dead soon.
I wrap the belt around her thigh, cinching it to keep pressure on the wound.
Her gaze finds mine. Her expression is confused, her brows pulling down. “Real?” she mouths.
“I’m real. I’ve got you.” I shake my head and examine the chains binding her wrists. It goes up and is looped over a pipe at the ceiling, then comes down to the far wall. “I’m getting you down.”
I cross the room, gripping the chain and unwinding it from its anchor. I keep one eye on her and one on the door, conscious of the fact that any noise might alert them to my presence.
Carefully, I lower her to the floor. Her teeth chatter, and she curls onto her side in the puddle of blood and water. She brings her arms down, and I remove the chains from her wrists. I pick her up, although her hip and outer thigh are now coated in the blood that she lost.
“Hang on,” I plead. “Stay with me, okay?”
She nods. I lean her against a wall. I wrap my jacket around her, then straighten. My attention snags on a car battery. One clamp of jumper cables is attached to it, the other on the floor. I stare at them, trying to figure out why…
It’s fucking obvious why. They tortured her .
I wasn’t going to resort to violence. I thought we might be able to save her and leave—but this is too far. God knows what else they did to her before leaving her like this?
A growl burns through my throat before I can stop it. I pull the gun and check it again, then slowly step out from the storage room. The handle fits comfortably in my hand. While Penn’s uncle is apparently a private investigator, mine enjoys hunting… or just going out into the woods and shooting with a wide variety of firearms. It isn’t quite what my parents would’ve approved of… my uncle is a bit of a black sheep in our family.
That’s probably why I gravitated toward him. He taught me a lot, but mostly firearm safety and shooting accuracy. The proud smile on his face every time I shot a can off of a log was a hit of dopamine.
Fucking addicting.
Now, I keep my trigger finger straight along the barrel of the gun and creep toward the door. Sydney is silent behind me.
Bear and Penn are fighting. They both have knives. But as soon as Penn gets an upper hand, Bear’s brother lifts his gun.
Not so fucking fast.
I raise mine. Aim.
Shoot.
The crack of my handgun going off, the jerk of the recoil, is familiar. Soothing, almost.
My aim is true. My bullet finds its mark. It buries in the brother’s side, under his arm. Just like taking down a dear—well, different gun—the man staggers forward a few steps, shock coloring his expression.
And then he falls.
Bear roars. He’s got a fucking limp, so I put away the gun. He charges at me at half-speed. I pull my trusty folded knife, flicking it open one-handed. Rage makes him move recklessly—my anger is more like ice. I avoid his blade and sink mine into his stomach, dragging it sideways. It rips at my hand, the blade snagging. I hold tight, taking it with me as I dance out of his long reach.
The pain hits him a second later. One hand presses to his stomach. Blood oozes through his fingers. His other, with the hold on his knife, tightens. Lifts. His gaze flickers from surprise to outrage.
Guys like him—asshole demons on the ice, who think they’re superior and get off on causing injuries to their opponents—deserve all the shit that comes their way.
He rushes me again. He’s faster than I anticipate, getting a shallow slice across my chest. I hopped back—just not enough. Penn shouts. I kick at Bear’s knee, the one Oliver injured at the last fight. He lets out an ugly howl, going down fast.
“Grab him,” I order Penn. “Before I fucking kill him.”
It takes both of us to get Bear wrestled to the floor. Oliver appears with zip ties, and we secure his wrists and ankles. Then the two together.
Penn and I roll off him and stagger away. Bear is on his stomach, his wrists and ankles now all attached together, and he tests the strength of the zip ties immediately. It’s almost comical, watching him struggle, but they hold fast.
“Where is she?” Oliver gasps.
Leaving Bear to struggle on his own, I lead them back to the storage room. Syd’s head is leaned back against the wall, her eyes closed. There’s a thick, dark-red ring around her neck where the belt was.
Oliver drops to the floor beside her, his hands seeming to worriedly flutter over her body before landing on her shoulder.
Her eyes crack open.
“Oh, thank fuck,” he whispers.
“Oliver?” Her voice wavers. It sounds so much like that audio clip they played, my heart squeezes. “I?—”
“We’re here.” Penn creeps closer on his knees, but he doesn’t touch her. He seems wary to get too close. “You’re okay.”
“She’s not okay,” I cut in.
I show them the car battery. A discarded bucket on its side, with a shallow pool of water left in it. The pool of blood, with smears in it from how she’d lain in it and I’d picked her up, is impossible to miss. Seeing everything again makes it a hundred times more real.
Penn squeezes his eyes shut. It seems like he, too, is struggling to rein in his inner demons. His hands ball into fists and release, over and over again. Only Oliver seems to be keeping it together. He’s on his knees next to her, the worry in his expression enough to break me again.
“I’m glad you didn’t fucking kill him.” Oliver strokes Sydney’s wet hair out of her face. “He deserves to go to Hell and back.”
I nod my agreement, but… “We can’t send him to Hell at the moment. She needs to get to a hospital. She’s lost so much blood.”
Penn makes a noise of objection.
In quick sentences, I describe how I found her. Not that they really need it laid out for them, with all the evidence scattered around. Their eyes just get wider, but finally Oliver and Penn both nod. They trade another glance, having some wordless conversation, and then Penn leans forward and lifts Sydney into his arms.
She thrashes for a moment, almost tipping out of his grip. Her eyes are closed, have been closed, but her struggle seems instinctual. My stomach turns. I never want to see that much of her blood…
“It’s just me, princess,” he whispers in her ear. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
She stops fighting him. Or maybe she passes out, because the next second, she goes limp.
“You and Oliver take her to the hospital,” I say. “I’ll stay here with Bear.”
Oliver’s gaze darkens. “Save a piece of him for us.”
Penn nods his agreement. Oliver lifts Sydney’s head, tucking it into the crook of Penn’s neck. Unconscious, maybe, but she hasn’t stopped shivering. Even with my jacket around her shoulders. And yes, I’m fully fucking shirtless in the middle of winter—at this point, it barely registers. Not until Oliver strips off his zipped sweatshirt and tosses it at me.
“Thanks,” I grunt. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
I’ve got work to do.