Page 45 of Flash Bang
Ro looked around, confused and completely disoriented. “Umm … which way is northeast?”
Len grunted and pointed. Ro didn’t waste time heading off into the woods. She couldn’t believe her crazy ass deal had actually worked. Now she just hoped her dad would read her mind and shoot them on sight.
“We’ve got a problem,” Jamie said, crouching low and pointing to the dirt.
Graham jerked to a stop, and Zach stumbled into him.
“What do you mean, ‘We got a problem’?”
“I think they caught up to your girl.”
“What? How?” Graham asked. He bit back the automatic ‘She’s not our girl’ retort.
Jamie pointed to scuffed dirt. “Someone was dragged.” He stood and followed the marks to a stand of trees about twenty feet away.
Zach shoved Graham aside and scouted the area around Jamie. “I’ve got some wrappers over here. An MRE and a … peanut butter Power Bar?”
Graham pictured the grin on Ro’s face when she’d spotted the stash at the gun range, and he swore silently. “It was her. Or at least her backpack. I’d lay money on it.”
“Got knife marks in the tree. Like someone was using it for target practice,” Jamie said.
Graham hated to ask, but needed to know. “Blood?”
“No. Got tracks leading away from here, though.”
“Let’s move.”
Ro stumbled over a downed sapling trying to keep up with Len as he jogged through the pitch-black woods. After becoming frustrated with her slow pace, Len had taken the lead, tying Ro’s bound hands to his belt with another piece of rope. It was like being dragged by a pissed off mule. Despite his appearance as a lazy redneck piece of shit, the man could cover some ground. She’d recognized the last major highway they’d crossed, and estimated they were within fifteen miles of home.Home. Knowing she was finally going to make it there was … surreal. Even if it wasn’t exactly how she’d planned, Ro was thankful to be making it there alive.Another stumble. Another bite of pain. Another curse from Len.Ro hurried to keep up, not wanting to feel the burn of the jute digging deeper into her torn and bleeding skin. Len and Ronny each had a headlamp to guide the way, but Ro’s feet were bathed in shadow.Another yank. Another stumble.Ro fell to her knees, the rope pulling Len to a halt.
“Get up, bitch.” The light blinded her as he turned. A brown stream of tobacco juice spattered the edge of her face.
The exhaustion that had been dogging Ro all day crashed down. She tried,tried, to find a second, third, even a fourth wind. But there was just nothing left. She was tapped out. She considered her options. Keep stumbling through the dark and get home, but endure the searing pain in her wrists. Sleep for a few hours and hope like hell they don’t rape her. As choices went, they blew, but Ro’s screaming muscles wouldn’t last another hundred yards, let alone another fifteen miles.
“Look, we’re close, okay. Really, really close,” she said. “But it has to be after midnight. Is there any way we can take a break for a couple hours and get some rest? It would be better to show up at dawn rather than in the middle of the night. I’d hate to find myself on the wrong end of my dad’s shotgun by accident.”
“We stop when I say we stop. You ain’t gotta say.” Len spun, tightening the rope connecting them.
“Awww, come on. Let’s just stop for a few, and then we’ll pick it up at daybreak. We been out here for days, and I’m whipped, man. Fuck, I don’t think I can even get it up to fuck her.” Ronny leered at Rowan. “Tomorrow, sweet thang, you goin’ be the meat in a Len and Ronny sandwich.”
Len’s lip curled in disgust, but before he could speak, Ro said, “Sounds great. I’ll even make you dinner first. We’ll make a night of it.” She figured the Almighty was obligated to forgive her for that revolting lie.
Ronny reached out a perma-dirty hand to touch her face, and Ro forced herself not to flinch. “It’s a date, sweet thang.”
“Would you mind?” Ro held her fake smile and lifted her wrists up toward Ronny.
“Fuck that, bitch. You stay tied up tonight. Ain’t takin’ a chance you’ll go runnin’ off,” Len replied.
“Could you at least untie me so I can pee?” Ro asked. “Unless you want to sleep in a puddle ...” Ro could have kicked herself for letting the snark out. She blamed the exhaustion.
Len grunted, but pulled out his buck knife and twisted around to slice the rope off his belt. He yanked her wrists up and sliced between the jute tying them together. He pointed the knife at a bushy evergreen about ten feet away. “You go behind that tree. You got two minutes. Leave the backpack right fuckin’ here. You take one step in the wrong direction,” he brought the blade to rest against her throat, “and I will gut you.”
Ro swallowed, but didn’t waste time dropping her pack and hurrying toward the tree. She followed the path lit by the beam of Len’s headlamp and ducked behind the thick trunk to take care of business. Peeing in the woods as a woman was more of an art than a science, especially considering Rowan was trying not to flash her ass to her audience. She really needed tonotbe the ‘meat in a Len and Ronny sandwich’ tonight. Ro lamented her lack of toilet paper for a moment before dragging her clothes back into place. Her wrists burned as the weeping, broken skin rubbed against the cuffs of her filthy sweatshirt. Heading back toward the light, she noticed that Len and Ronny had already helped themselves to the contents of her backpack—including her sleeping bag. She was surprised to see Len toss it to Ronny. They could keep it. No way in hell would she use it after they did. She’d guess that showers had been an every-other-week thing for them, even before the grid went down.
“I’ll take the first shift. It’s probably about two o’clock. You sleep for an hour and a half, then we’ll swap. We’re out of here as soon as there’s a hint of light. You hear a sound, shoot first, ask questions later,” Len ordered. Ro shuddered when he pulled the roll of paracord from her backpack and cut off three lengths. “Get over here, bitch.”
With no choice but to comply, Ro went. He yanked her wrists behind her and tied them together, knotting the nylon cord so tightly around her abused wrists that she tasted bile.
“Sit down. I’m doing your feet, too. You ain’t goin’ nowhere once you’re hobbled.”
