Chapter 23 #2
“Isn’t that what our faith teaches?” she called out again, struggling to be heard over the din of murmurs from the people around her.
“That our earthly father—who knows our hearts better than we ourselves—that his mercy forgives?” Her words were pure desperation as she spoke to the crowd, but her eyes were locked on the leader.
She was begging him not to hurt the girl.
“It’s a fuckin’ cult,” Hush muttered.
“What are they doing all the way out here?” Toxic asked.
“These types like to be as far away from civilization as possible,” Butcher said in a low voice. “They’re fucked up in the head, but the guys in charge need to keep them away from anyone who might talk sense into them.”
My brows shot up as I listened. “Sounds like you have experience, Butcher.”
“Ran across a few with my task force. Never called themselves cults, of course. But it’s what they are.” He motioned around at the buildings and the half built fence we were hiding behind. “Looks the part. Explains why they’re out here.”
“Think they’re the reason those hikers went missing?” Ricochet asked.
Butcher grunted and nodded. “Most likely. They probably stumbled across the place by accident. Don’t see any other reason for it.”
“There’s Chet,” Riptide said, pointing off to the corner where the man was standing at the back of the circle. Riptide and Butcher had managed to get a look at him as he’d passed the bathroom in the apartment. They’d gotten a very good look—and smell—of his buddy, who was standing next to him.
“Maybe a punishment will help her understand the error of her ways!” That had come from Chet.
The leader had a manic look in his eyes. The woman had tripped him up, messed up his ‘righteous indignation’. Chet had just given him an out, a path back to hurting the girl.
My disdain for Caitlyn’s father tripled in that moment.
He was standing close enough to our hiding spot that I could see the wild glee in his eyes as he tried to casually suggest punishment for a young child.
Something told me it wasn’t going to be a time-out.
No wonder Sherry had taken Caitlyn and left him.
It was too bad he’d followed her out to Arizona.
How he’d gotten mixed up in something like this was what we were going to have to find out.
My chest rose and fell quickly as my temper flared. I wasn’t going to be able to sit by and watch them hurt a kid. It wasn’t within my abilities to do so.
“Hank,” the leader called out and a thin, wiry man stepped forward. The guy in charge didn’t bother to look at him. His attention was on the crowd. “Chet has proposed a solution. Who here agrees?”
The roars of ‘aye’ made the blood pound in my ears.
My muscles were bunching, preparing to take me into the middle of that fucked up trial so I could help the little girl.
She was standing there, eyes blank and glassy.
I couldn’t tell if she was drugged, or had distanced her mind from what was happening.
The idea that this had happened before made my gut twist and bile rise to the back of my throat.
These people needed a fucking wake-up call in the form of bullets.
I’d seen all I needed to in order to know they weren’t good people.
The fact that we suspected them of either killing or kidnapping hikers out here was honestly just the cherry on top for me.
Their main crime was what was happening right now.
“Easy,” Butcher uttered near my ear. He and Toxic both put their hands on my arms, trying to restrain me.
“No!” the woman who’d stood up for the girl—the only one—cried out as Hank pulled his hand back.
Ricochet had to all but tackle Riptide as the loud crack of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the still, hot air.
Toxic had left me to hold back Hush. They were doing their jobs and thinking with clearer heads than we were right now.
We were severely outnumbered and not prepared to take on this community of people.
It was possible innocents would end up getting hurt in the fight and we couldn’t have that.
Not to mention that my whole crew would likely get wiped out.
It didn’t mean watching what was happening was easy for any of us.
The woman had stepped in front of the little girl and taken the backhanded slap for her.
“If you want to take Abigail’s punishment for her, Sloane, then so be it. For I am a merciful God, and I see that punishment is distributed fairly.”
Our brothers were doing their best to drag the three of us away from the scene before we blew our cover. I managed to catch sight of the woman—Sloane—curled up on the ground, trying to protect her head while Hank kicked the shit out of her.
I struggled against Butcher, surprised that the smaller man managed to muscle me back out into the desert, away from the fence.
This was why we all lifted weights and sparred with each other on a regular basis.
You never knew what you’d end up coming up against in our line of work.
You never knew when you’d have to bodily drag your own brothers away from something that would get us all killed.
“Fuck,” Riptide hissed, running a hand through his long, tousled hair.
“We’d better go,” Butcher said. He was eyeing our VP like he expected him to go running back in there at any moment.
“How are we supposed to leave them?” Hush growled at Butcher.
“Look, it’s not like I necessarily want to leave all those women and kids in the hands of a bunch of abusive assholes, alright?
” Butcher snarled at us. “But we have orders. This is a recon mission. We’re fucking outnumbered and outgunned.
I counted twenty men with rifles. And that's just what I could see, who knows how many more are back there. We have half a dozen pistols and a couple rifles between us. If we go bursting in there, trying to play the fucking heroes, they’re going to be burying our bodies out here in the desert next.
You want to help these people, or just have a glorious death? ”
We were all glaring at each other and panting with rage, but Butcher’s hissed argument managed to calm us down…mostly. That was what brought me back down to something resembling calm. When Butcher was the voice of reason it was time to re-evaluate.
“They’re not going to kill her.” Butcher said with confidence. “I know these types. Smack, kick…other things, but killing is the last step. He needs obedience. He won’t get that by indiscriminate killing.” He saw my look and continued before I could ask. “Sherry must have done something extreme.”
“Or Chet killed her without permission,” Hush said, finally calm enough to think clearly.
“Let’s go.” The words came out hoarse and Riptide looked like it’d taken all his willpower to say them. “We’ll sort this out at the clubhouse.” Without another word, he turned and started back toward the truck.
Hush grabbed a fallen mesquite tree branch and I watched as he ducked down and ran back toward the fence. No one stopped him this time. We watched as he swept it over the dirt, brushing out our tracks.
I grabbed another branch and helped him. We brushed out all sign we’d been there for up to a mile before we dropped our branches. “What the hell is the plan, Rip?”
“We get back, update Lock, and figure out everything we need to know to take these fuckers down,” he said with a grim look on his face.