Page 46 of No One But You
“Fuck, you’re useless,” the driver complained, looking disgusted as his companion extricated his hands from inside his pants and cupped his groin gently.
“She went for my balls,” the other guy whined.“Come on, you know how that feels.”
I glanced at the trees.If they were distracted, would I be able to make my way into the forest and hide?
“Grab her legs,” the guy standing on me ordered.“We’ll carry her to the edge.”
His friend hesitated.“Do we really want to do this?I know we’re in deeper than we ever meant to be, but murder is kind of hard to come back from.”
“She could get us locked up.”The driver ground his foot into me.“If that happens, we can’t pay back what we owe and we’re dead.We need to find the treasure, get the hell out of here, and make sure there’s no one left who can identify us.”
“Treasure?”I asked dumbly.“What treasure?”
And what on earth did that have to do with me?
A memory flitted through my mind of Grace smiling as she told the others at her table in Drunken Destiny about Pearl McIntyre’s supposed lost inheritance.The treasure her father had bequeathed to her that had never been collected.
But surely they couldn’t mean that.For one thing, it was only a story, and even if it was real, why the hell would the treasure be buried in the forest?
“That’s just a legend,” I said because, honestly, who believed in tall tales about missing treasure?“It doesn’t exist.”
The shoe pressed down on me again, hard enough to hurt.“Quiet.”He beckoned the other.“Come on.Let’s get her to the edge.”
TWENTY-SIX
MAX
“Max!”
The shout reverberated through my throbbing head, bouncing off the inside of my skull and hurting my sensitive ears.
“Wake the fuck up!”
My eyelashes fluttered, and I winced as light hit my eyeballs.It was too bright.
I was lying on a hard surface, my head turned to the side.Using one hand for support, I rolled onto my back.A wave of nausea swept over me.I squeezed my eyes shut, the overhead light searing my retinas.
“Take it easy.”That voice was softer but still masculine.
“Who….”I trailed off, unable to complete the thought.
“It’s Asher,” the man said calmly.“Maia is with me, and so is Nate, but he’s losing his shit, so I told him to keep his distance.”
Gentle hands patted me down.I hardly noticed it.I doubted I’d notice if my body had gone through a meat tenderizer because that would pale in comparison to the throbbing agony in my head.
“Bailey,” I gasped, instinctively sitting up, but someone guided me back down.“They took her, but I gave her the… the thing.So you can find her.”My words came out as a salad, so I tried again.“I couldn’t stop them, so I gave it to her so she could take it with her and you’d know where to look.”
“The GPS tracker?”Nate asked tersely.“It’s with her?”
“I think so.”I relaxed, relieved he’d understood me even though I couldn’t think of the right damn name for the thing.“I tried to… I….”
Someone poked the tender spot on the top of my head, near the back, and I hissed and flinched away.
“Max.”Asher’s face appeared above me, his features calm, only a slight furrow between his eyebrows.“Slow down.Do you remember what happened to you?”
“Bailey—”
“In a minute.”He held up his hand.“You have a significant head trauma.It’s lucky it isn’t bleeding more, considering how head wounds usually are.What did they do to you?”
