Page 2 of Then and Now (The Edge of Retaliation 3)
I believe them.
I really do.
“Yeah,” I whisper into the darkness. “Are you okay?”
“Feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” he winces, “but I’ll live. Got a few things broken, by the feels, but I’m still alive so that has to count for something.”
I exhale with a shaky breath. “What about Chase?”
“Tried to rouse him when you were sleepin’ before, but he didn’t move. Don’t even fuckin’ know if he’s alive.”
“I am,” Chase croaks from the darkness, his voice so low and so weak that my heart sinks. He doesn’t sound good.
He needs medical attention, urgently.
“What’re you feelin’?” Tatum asks, his voice as concerned as I’m feeling.
“Like I’d rather fucking die than feel this pain for a second longer,” Chase rasps.
“We’re goin’ to get out of here, brother. Just keep breathin’. If you can focus on anythin’, keep focusin’ on that.”
Chase doesn’t answer.
I’m scared.
So damned afraid.
I think about Pat, and I wonder if he’s even noticed I’m gone.
Does he even care?
Probably not.
I wonder if Callie and Tanner have found any leads, I wonder what their plans are, I wonder if they’ve even noticed yet.
I don’t want to die here.
Not here.
Anywhere else but here.
“You good, Jo?” Tatum asks me, his voice tired and ragged.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Sorry we put you in this mess.”
I press my legs together, swallowing to try and remove the hard, dry lump that seems to be lodged in my throat. “It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “I wanted to do this, too.”
“It was a stupid fuckin’ plan. Should have known we couldn’t outsmart someone that fuckin’ powerful.”
I don’t say anything, because he’s right, it was a stupid plan. A really dumb one. But at the time we thought it would work. We truly thought it would work.
I think about Callie and the moment that bullet connected with her. The terrifying moment I thought I’d lost my best friend. She’s strong, so damned incredibly strong, I know that she would have found a way through it, I just know it. Ethan would have never let anything happen to her. Yet our last words were heated, and that kills me, it kills me because we never fight, we never disagree to the point it bothers us, and the moment she was shot, that’s exactly what we were doing.
“Do you think they’ll find us?”
“I think Tanner will find a way, yeah,” Tatum mutters.
“Do you think Callie is okay?”
“She’s strong, she’ll be okay.”
“Even if they do find us,” I whisper, more to myself than Tatum, “are we ever going to truly be free of this nightmare? People like that don’t just go away. They will haunt us forever.”
Tatum is silent for a few beats, and then he says into the darkness, his voice low, “Don’t you worry about them, you just worry about gettin’ through this. We’ll make sure they never touch you, Jo. I promise you that.”
I don’t even want to know how he’ll do that.
I’d rather live in ignorant bliss.
For the moment, anyway.
THE DOOR SWINGS OPEN and a bright light shines into our faces, nearly blinding me for a few seconds. When you’ve been sitting in the dark for a few days, seeing light is like staring straight into the sun, and it hurts like hell. I blink, unable to rub my eyes, until the light becomes a little less painful.
Two men are standing at the entrance, holding huge assault rifles and two flashlights. One of them is the man that beat Tatum. The other I don’t recognize. I’m fairly certain the first guy is running the show, and we just so happened to let him get away. Anyone else and we might not be in this mess. If you don’t take the leader down, then he’ll just keep building his pack.
“A little bright, is it?” he murmurs, his voice thick, laced with an evil edge that makes my skin prickle.
“What the fuck do you want with us?” Tatum growls. “Whatever it is, just get it over with.”
The man smiles, baring white, straight teeth. His teeth are a lie; they are perfect, yet the rest of him is so ragged and terrifying. They’re a trick, a nasty little surprise to confuse you and throw you off your game. Because beneath the messy brown hair, the stale blue eyes, and the rubbery skin, he’s nothing but evil. Perfect teeth or not.
“It’s not you I want, it’s your pal Tanner, but I took what I could get at the time. One way or another, he’ll make his way here, and I’ll end you all.”
Tatum’s face tightens, and now he’s in the light, I can see the bruising is getting deeper, a purple color, black in places. His lip is busted, one of his eyes is swollen shut, and he looks … well … horrible. My eyes swing to Chase, who is shackled to the wall, his eyes closed, his head dropped forward. There is dried blood all over his skin, up his arms, on his face, soaking his shirt. They did a good job of him.
