“What was that?” he asked.
His body language told everyone something was not right. Before he could say another word, the Knights had attacked, and the world had turned on its head. Everything after had been chaos. There was confusion for a split second before the reality sank in. It took me only seconds before I realized who they were and what they had come for.
My initial instinct was to search for Walter, but he was nowhere in sight. He had sent henchmen for me. I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad one. My second instinct was to look for Zack, and I searched even though I knew he hadn’t come back from his ride yet. The fight broke out almost immediately, and I remembered shouting something… it was a warning, but I couldn’t remember what. Was it possible to suffer a concussion from a punch to the face? I wasn’t sure if I was concussed or just disoriented.
Stay calm, I kept repeating to myself. I had to maintain some level of control over myself. That was the only way I was going to be able to survive. A part of me registered that as frightened as I was, I still wasn’t as scared as I would have been months ago before my training with Zack.
A part of me felt as though I still had a shot at getting myself out of this situation. I had to rely on circumstance though, too. It wasn’t enough to just be skilled. I knew I would need a little luck as well. I stayed still and listened closely as the men continued to talk around me. It was obvious that the Angels had put up a better fight than they had been prepared for. None of them were happy about having left a man behind. I wondered if it was genuine brotherly concern, or if they were just worried about the secrets their man would share under duress.
“She’s got that whole sexy good girl thing going for her,” one of the men said, and I froze in response. “Maybe we could have our way with her before handing her over to Ghost.”
“Are you fucking nuts? He’ll kill you with his bare hands.”
“It’s not like he wants her back for keeps… He’s trying to prove a point, right?”
“That doesn’t fucking matter; you touch his woman before he does, and there’ll be hell to pay. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“Geez… it was a simple fucking question.”
“And you got your fucking answer. Now tell your cock to back down or risk losing it for good.”
“Fine… I?
?m going to have to visit Crystal again tonight.”
“That woman’s going to bleed you dry… try Bethany. She’s good too.”
“She’s too heavy for me… I like a skinny blond.”
“It’s like fucking a twig.”
“I like twigs.”
“Figures.”
“Both of you… shut the fuck up,” an authoritative voice from the front of the vehicle said commandingly.
I felt the van speed up a little and then make a sharp left turn. I had lost all sense of time. There were moments when it felt like we had been driving for hours. I knew that in reality, it was probably like fifteen, twenty minutes or so. I kept going over all the things I had learned in training over the past couple of months. I repeated them in my head until I felt some small measure of hope.
I knew that Zack would do everything in his power to make sure he found me. I knew he would have the Angels scouring the town to get me back in one piece. But that was not the point. He had taught me how to defend myself because he wanted to change my narrative. He had turned me from the victim to a fighter, and I’d be damned if I let Walter Black or Ghost or whatever his name was change me back into the victim.
I owed it to Zack to fight back, and I owed it to myself, too. I needed to prove to myself that I was capable of holding my own and protecting myself. Relying on other people to take care of you was never a long-term solution. You had to be able to handle your own shit.
“The Angels are going to hit back with all they’ve got.”
“That’s what Ghost is counting on.”
“We’ll be ready. We can take them on… no fucking problem.”
I would have loved to see who was talking just so that I could memorize their faces for later. I wanted to know who to track down. I wanted to know who to punish. My mind reeled back to that moment when the gunshot had splintered through the air like a screech that pierced the soul. I kept going back to the moment when Devon hit the ground, and my heart burned with pain.
He had to be all right, I told myself. He just had to. Life wouldn’t be that cruel to allow me to reconnect with my brother only to lose him for good. That couldn’t be how our stories ended. Devon was young; he had his whole life ahead of him, and I would never forgive myself if…
No, I wouldn’t let myself go there. There was no point concentrating on Devon’s fate now. I couldn’t change it and thinking about it would only impede my ability to get out of this mess. I needed to stay focused and alert. I needed to use my head and my instincts, and most of all I needed to remember all that training that had been drilled into me for months now.
I was going to do myself proud. I was going to do Zack and Devon proud. I was not going to be the victim anymore. I wasn’t going to wait around for anyone else to save me. I was going to fight like hell to get myself free… or die trying.
Chapter Twenty-Nine