Page 86 of Deserving Lara
“Wait, you’re coming back for him, right?” Ricky yelled as he nodded toward Owl’s body.
“No.”
Ricky continued yelling threats, but the man in the suit didn’t seem to care. He simply continued dragging Stone. Now that Lara’s eyes had adjusted a bit to the dim light, she could see what looked like a black sedan on the other side of the helicopter.
“Shit, fuck, damn!” Ricky swore.
Lara squirmed harder against him. She had to get free. Had to help Owl and Stone. Couldnotlet herself be taken to wherever Carter was waiting for her. She wouldn’t survive being his prisoner again. No way. Remembering what he’d done to her before was too much to contemplate right now.
“Calm down!” Ricky shouted.
Larawasn’tgoing to calm down. No way in hell. She knew what was at stake.
Just when she thought she might manage to get away, she felt the prick of a needle in her upper arm.
Ricky shoved her suddenly, and she fell to the unforgiving floor on her hands and knees—hard. But she didn’t hesitate to scramble away from Ricky, toward Owl. She shook him frantically. “Owl, wake up!”
He didn’t even twitch.
Ricky laughed behind her, and Lara felt sick to her stomach. She slowly turned and stood, putting herself between Owl and the evil man who had no problem delivering her to the hands of a serial killer. As far as she was concerned, he was as bad as Carter.
“Hate to tell you, sweetheart, but he’s not going to wake up anytime soon,” Ricky said with a sneer.
Lara hated hearing Owl’s endearment for her on this man’s lips. “You won’t get away with any of this.”
He simply laughed harder. “I already have. Look around, you see anyone coming to your rescue? No. Because they aren’t here. They won’t be for at least another hour. And by then, we’ll be long gone.”
The bay door on the other side of the hangar lifted, and the black car slowly drove out.
Panic welled inside Lara and she felt her heart beating frantically in her chest. Stone! He was being kidnapped, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it! “If you think I’m going with you quietly, you’re dead wrong,” Lara seethed.
He stood just feet away with his arms crossed over his chest and that damn smirk on his face. “You’re the one who’s wrong. That sedative I gave you should be taking effect any moment now.”
Lara’s insides froze. She’d felt the slight pain in her arm but had dismissed it, too relieved to be out of Ricky’s grasp and closer to Owl. But even as she had that thought, she realized her body felt…weird. As if she was looking down on the scene from above. She swayed on her feet.
“Why don’t you sit before you fall down?” Ricky said helpfully.
Lara glared at him. Information. She needed information! Somehow, she’d find a way to share it with someone from The Refuge. Brick. Pipe. Maybe even that tech guy everyone was friends with.Someone.
Her thoughts were sluggish now, but she remembered her phone. She needed to get it out of her pocket, try to call someone without Ricky noticing. Cora! No, not her best friend…maybe Tiny?
She thought she was being sneaky, but Ricky laughed again as he came toward her even as she reached into her pocket. Lara tried to back away, but she tripped over Owl. She fell on her ass and moaned in pain, and Ricky easily manhandled her onto her side, groping her ass as he pulled her cell out of her back pocket.
“Too bad I can’t keep a nice piece of ass like you for myself,” Ricky mumbled as he dropped her phone to the floor and stomped on it.
Lara stared at the pieces as if she was in a trance. The room was spinning, and she knew it was only a matter of time before she passed out. But thinking about where she’d wake up, and with who, had her fighting the effects of whatever Ricky had given her.
“Where are you taking us?”
“Well, it was only supposed to be you, but there’s no way I can leave your boyfriend here to be found. That’ll ruin everything. So I guess he gets to come too.”
Hope clawed its way upward from Lara’s belly. Her odds were better with Owl by her side. She refused to think about what might happen to him at the hands of Carter Grant, but she was selfish enough to be relieved that she wouldn’t be alone. At least for a little longer.
“Someone is going to know we’re gone,” Lara said as confidently as possible, although she had a feeling her words were slurring and she wasn’t quite getting her threat across as well as she wanted to.
“Of course they are. But not anytime soon. The chopper your friends bought will be gone, and everyone will assume you three left as planned. It’ll be hours before anyone realizes something’s amiss, when you don’t arrive at your stopping point for the evening. And yes, I have no doubt your plans were discussed and passed on to the others at the stupid retreat you were holed up in for so long.”
“Refuge,” Lara corrected. “Not retreat.”
