Page 233 of Malice and Surrender
I didn’t hear the other vehicle coming up until the whir and bang of a sliding door opening made me jump. I turned around just as gloved hands grabbed me.
“Ah!” I screamed as I was whipped off my feet. I pulled on my hand but still couldn’t get it free, and my other hand was weighed down by the plastic bags around my wrist. “Let go of me,” I managed to yell as I was tossed in the back of the van. The door slammed shut, leaving me in complete darkness inside the windowless box.
No, this couldn’t be happening again. How fucking unlucky can one person be? I rolled to the end of the van and banged into the back, the faucets banging into me as the van peeled out. The loud squealing of the tires and the rough bump and sharp turn told me we’d just pulled out on the main road.
I’d handcuffed myself.
This was unbelievable.
I was always so careful.
Shaking out my wrist, I got the bags off and then fought with my pocket to free my hand and the cell phone I was after in the first place.
Jumping to my feet, I stumbled from side to side but made my way to the front and banged as hard as I could.
“Frank! Let me out of here,” I screamed. Unlocking the phone, I tried Kai first, but it just beeped busy. How the hell was that possible? I tried Jace, and the same thing happened. “Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath.
Bang, bang, bang.
“The Lost Souls will hunt you down and kill you! You’re a dead man.”
Bang, bang, bang.
There was no response other than to turn a corner so fast that I fell to my knees.
“Dammit,” I growled with the sudden impact, which was more disorienting than painful. I tried the phone again, including 911, and nothing worked. Could this guy really have a cell jammer? What the fuck? I seriously wanted to know how I managed to piss this guy off so fucking much. He’d tortured me twice now and was aiming for round three.
Standing, I tried hollering again. “Snake will rip your fucking balls off your body while you’re still breathing. Let me out of here!”
It was no use. There was zero response, and I was wasting my energy. The vehicle drove on, even when I hit the walls and screamed like a banshee. My throat and fists were sore. The fear that hadn’t hit at first with the anger flowing became a crippling terror that wanted me to curl up in a corner and cry.
I tried to figure out where I was taken, but as the ride dragged on, I lost track of the turns and how much time went by. My thumb ran over the rings, and I let myself have a moment to think about Kai, Jace, and Avro. Our worlds were all so different, our traumas significant and fears just as great. Yet we managed to come together and became a unit that worked.
I wiped away the tears running down my cheeks. I wasn’t giving up. Frank had taken too much from me, and there was no way that I was letting him take anything else. Even sitting, I braced myself so I didn’t fall over as the van turned sharply and began driving over a rough road. We were going slowly now. It felt like an unmaintained service road or a really long driveway.
We had to be getting closer, and my pulse spiked, the blood pumping through my veins as I pictured the fight I would have when those doors opened.
The van made a wide sweeping turn and then started to back up. The sound of the reverse alarm was loud inside the empty cargo area. I got ready to spring the moment the sliding door opened. Thump, thump, thump was all I heard as the van shut off and doors on the other side of the dividing wall opened and closed. I listened hard, trying to track their movements, but I was startled when the back doors suddenly opened.
The setting sunlight poured into the back half of the van, but no one charged in to grab me. I didn’t know which was worse. If someone had rushed in, I was prepared to fight, but all the hair stood on the back of my neck, and a cold dread raced down my spine as everything remained quiet.
“Raine Eastman, get out of the van,” a loud mechanical voice bellowed. It sounded like he was using a PA system or something. So my hope that they just decided to take me for a joy ride and leave me was definitely not happening. I glanced at my discarded bags of faucets and wondered if I could use one as a weapon, but all those zip ties they used to hold them to the cardboard would be impossible to get off.
“Now, or die sooner,” the voice announced.
Swallowing hard, I took a tentative step toward the open doors, and as I got closer, I realized that we were in the middle of nowhere. All I could see were trees and grass. With each step closer, I shook a little more, but still, no one reached in and grabbed me. What the fuck was this guy doing? My brain raced as fast as my heart as I tried to piece this newest torture together.
Poking my head out of the back, I saw no one. It was completely silent aside from the sounds of nature. The main issue was a fence taller than the van, complete with barbed wire running in each direction away from where it was backed up. With a quick look, I could tell that the van just fit, like this entire thing had been designed to screw with someone. As strange of a time as it was to have a movie flashback, all I could picture were the raptors in Jurassic Park being dropped off in their enclosures.
“Get out of the van. This is your last warning,” the voice was really loud now, and as I stepped down and looked around, I spotted the speaker on the top of a pole, but still no sign of actual people.
I’d been expecting almost anything, but this…this I wasn’t prepared for.
“Now run. If you make it through the forest to the other side, your sins will be forgiven, and you will live. If not…then the demons chasing you will finally catch up.”
My eyes swung to the forest. Holy shit. My heart pounded so hard I thought I would pass out.
“You will have a five-minute head start. Three, two, one…go.”
