Chapter Two
Two
Lyric was a damn good actress, under the circumstances, and a far better partner than Keys could have conceived.
The lid of the coffin was torn off, and hands reached down to drag him out of the box.
He kept his body limp. The cuffs appeared to be locked around his wrists, and he was thrown some distance from the truck, landing in leaves and dirt like a rag doll.
It was pouring, the rain nearly obscuring his vision, but he still saw the way the biggest asshole reached into the coffin and dragged Lyric out by the front of her shirt. The material ripped, exposing a pale, frost-blue, lacy bra and breasts even more perfect than he’d thought.
She didn’t try to cover up. She didn’t react at all, looking for all the world as if she were dead.
“Shit, Chester, you hit her too hard. Is she dead? I was lookin’ forward to a little fun.”
“Naw, Hank, she’s breathin’, just still out.” Chester swung her into his arms and carried her, sliding a little in the mud and slick leaves and pine needles.
“Maybe we oughta figure out what to do about the truck,” Hank ventured.
Hank and Chester were in front of Keys, slipping and sliding in the mud, bringing Lyric’s limp body closer to him. That left the other three somewhere behind him.
“Once we take care of business here, we can hike to the main trail and find a spot that gives us cell phone service,” a third voice chimed in.
That gave Keys his location, only about three feet away and to his left.
“Truck’s toast, Albert,” Chester said. “I thought you said Bruin had skills. He crashed into a tree and nearly rolled us. I wouldn’t say lover boy has mad driving skills.”
Chester clearly didn’t like Bruin. Keys kept still, waiting.
It didn’t take long. Bruin wasn’t going to allow the taunt to go unanswered.
His answer was predictable. “Fuck you, Chester.” The response was overly loud and belligerent.
Keys pegged the little weasel to be the kicker.
He was a vicious little fucker trying to earn the others’ respect.
And he was to the right of Keys, lined up with his ribs.
He had a knife in his belt. A nice big hunting knife.
“We gotta film this shit to show proof.” The fifth voice came from the direction of the truck.
That was bad luck. He was clearly in charge, and he was a distance from Keys.
That could present a problem. His body was in shit shape from lying for so many hours in that coffin.
He had no idea how long he’d been out, but he knew it had been long enough to tell him he most likely had a concussion.
He was certain Lyric had a concussion as well.
“We’ll film it, Merrit,” Chester assured him. “I’ve had hours to think what I want to do to that bitch, and I’m going for every single one.”
“Yeah,” Hank agreed. “We’re going to fuck her up for that video. I’ll want copies to share with my boys.”
Rage swept through Keys, but it wasn’t hot or volcanic, it was glacier cold and deadly.
He kept his gaze on Lyric. She hadn’t even flinched.
Maybe she was unconscious. Hell, he hoped so.
He didn’t want her to see anything he did.
He was a fuckin’ killer. Plain and simple, trained from the time he was four years old to kill in just about every method possible.
He was exceptionally good at it. Quiet about it, but that was what made him so good. He was always under the radar.
He began the slow process of checking every muscle in his body, ensuring he could move his arms and legs.
He did so carefully, under cover of the vicious rain.
It was coming down in silver sheets. He was partially under the protection of a tree with wide, thick branches, but Lyric was right out in the rain.
“Lights, camera, action,” Chester snapped to Hank and made his move, suddenly straddling Lyric’s body. “Wake up, bitch. You’re the main event. Your boyfriend gets to watch as we all fuck your brains out.” He slapped her hard across the face.
Keys rolled to his right just as Bruin reared back to kick his ribs.
Bruin was so intent on caving in Keys’ ribs that he didn’t even see his prisoner explode into action.
Keys caught the boot in midair, twisted hard, bringing Bruin down.
In one motion, he snapped his neck. His fist swept down, extracted the knife from the dead man’s belt and was on Albert before anyone had the least idea Bruin was down or Keys was out of his cuffs and on the attack.
Keys swept the knife across each of Albert’s inner thighs, up the body in a figure-eight pattern, cutting every artery, and then he rolled across the short distance to come up behind Hank, who was filming Chester as he ripped at Lyric’s clothing, alternating between slapping her face and her exposed breasts, playing to the camera.
Keys slammed the blade into the back of Hank’s neck, severing the spinal cord, shoved the body aside as it began to crumple toward the ground and kicked Chester in the head, driving him off Lyric. He’d killed three men in under eight seconds. He knew because he kept track of that shit in his head.
Straight up killers had to know how long it took them to get the job done.
He’d been fast and accurate and taken out three of the five men.
Chester let out a roar and rolled, coming to his feet, pulling a knife.
Keys didn’t hesitate. He’d never worried about how big or small a target was, just getting the job done.
He slapped Chester’s arm away and slammed his knife into the man’s throat, diving away from Lyric toward the protection of the large tree he’d first been close to.
Shots spat into the leaves all around him.
Slight miscalculation. Merrit had a gun.
He fired several rounds as he ran around the large truck to put it between himself and Keys.
Keys rolled closer to the tree, hoping for cover, but there wasn’t much.
It was only a matter of time before the asshole would nail him.
Movement caught his eye. Chester had removed Lyric’s cuffs, but he hadn’t massaged her arms. She had to be in hell right now.
More than once, as a child, he’d dealt with the very thing she was having to do, rub some sensation back into her numb arms and hands while keeping the movement so slow and careful that she wouldn’t be noticed.
To keep Merrit’s attention on him, he rolled again and did a lizard crawl, deliberately zigzagging in the leaves to cause as much noise as possible.
When the bullets hit too close for comfort, he made his move back to the tree.
Sadly, he’d left the knife in Chester’s throat.
It wasn’t like he had a gun or other weapons for long-range fighting.
He would have to come up with a plan to get to Merrit.
He wasn’t about to leave him alive, even if that meant his own death.
The man wasn’t getting to Lyric. No fuckin’ way.
Keys gave Lyric another quick look. Her hand was inside the pocket of her jacket. Chester had managed to shove the garment off her shoulders, where it still clung to her arms.
Knowledge dawned. He swore under his breath.
He should have known. Should have expected her to do the exact opposite of what he’d told her to do.
Earlier, in the casket, he’d told her not to move.
She had obeyed even in the face of rape and a vicious beating.
That had lulled him into a false sense of security.
He should have been remembering that Lyric had charged into the fray when he’d had five men attacking him with baseball bats outside her shop.
That was the Lyric he should have remembered, not the scared, panicked, docile one in the coffin.
He didn’t believe in a god, but he found himself praying, Please don’t take her. Not her. Please don’t let her do this.
She did it. Her eyes met his and she leapt to her feet, a distraction to Merrit so the gun swung to aim at her.
“Keys,” she called as the pair of very sharp scissors came hurtling end over end toward him like a silver missile cutting through the driving rain.
He was on his feet, catching, reversing and throwing with deadly accuracy at Merrit despite the fact that he didn’t have time to calculate the drop or spin. He willed the scissors to hit his intended target and sprinted behind them.
Merrit squeezed off four rapid rounds at Lyric.
Key counted every single one. The scissors penetrated Merrit’s left eye.
Due to the added adrenaline of pure fear that Lyric was going to take a bullet for him, he’d sent the weapon with enormous strength, and the scissors buried themselves all the way to the round handles.
Merrit screamed, the sound one of an agonized animal.
There was no sound from Lyric, and Keys didn’t look.
He couldn’t afford the distraction. He was on Merrit, jerking the gun from his hand, putting it to the man’s head and pulling the trigger rapidly.
He hoped, if Lyric was still alive, that she didn’t see the head blown apart and that Keys had shot the bastard several more times than necessary.
Close-up, he took the hit, blood splattering everywhere, but he didn’t give a flying fuck.
He shoved the gun into the back of his waistband as he whirled around to see Lyric alive.
Sitting on the ground. There was blood on the back of her head from when she’d been struck with the baseball bat.
There was more on her left arm, up high toward her biceps, and another splash of blood on her left leg.