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Chapter Two
LaughingwithLanewas my new favorite pastime, and hanging out on a beach with her was even better. The sun was bright, but her smile was brighter.
Something about her always made me feel like I was back in middle school, but the way I wish it had been. I had a good friend, and I had time to spend with her, gossiping about boys and dreaming about the future. It wasn’t that she was immature—it was that I could be myself with her and relax. I didn’t feel that way about many people. It was a gift she had, and I doubted she realized it.
And she’d just agreed to be friends with me once we went home.
She claimed she’d been trying to think of a way to ask me to stay friends, too, but I wasn’t sure if she was only trying to make me feel better about being such a dork. Either way, things had turned out in my favor.
Riding that high, I was imagining going to her place for movie night, or her coming to my place to read books together. We seemed to have a good time, no matter what we were doing, and suddenly my future was looking a lot less lonely.
I wasn’t alone often, but there was a difference between having people around versus having an actual friend.
We were grinning at each other, and I felt bright and hopeful for the first time in a long while. Maybe she could even help me figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
I opened my mouth to tell her where I lived, but sudden clouds obscured the sun, and the breeze picked up.
Lane looked at the sky. “Umm—do you think this is one of those storms they warned us about?”
We were alone on the beach, and then we weren’t. Men seemed to appear miraculously out of the ether, moving fast, surrounding us. I opened my mouth to scream as they tugged a black cloth bag over Lane’s head. No matter what I’d told her about this place being every woman for herself, I lunged, trying to get them off her.
Then my world went dark, too.
I fought like hell, afraid for her even more than I was afraid for myself. I wasn’t anything special, but Lanie?
I sucked the fabric of the loose bag into my mouth and bit the next piece of person that came near my face. A man howled and jerked away, hurting my teeth. He said something sharp, swore, and a blow connected with the side of my head, sending me sprawling into the sand.
There was so much shouting—some of it was me.
A man howled in rage, and I could feel the chaos around us growing. Rough hands hauled me away and my feet dragged along the sand. I dug in, trying to slow their progress, but what kind of rescue would come? Even if security saw something strange happening on the cameras, they couldn’t get someone here fast enough to put a stop to this.
It felt like a hunt, but no one had told us, and there was nothing scheduled for today. Usually, they gave us a bit of warning. This felt completely unsanctioned.
“Leave her alone!” I was screaming, but the wind and crash of waves were so loud in my ears I wasn’t sure anyone could hear me. Men were shouting, but none of the voices were making sense, except for a few that were fading.
They hefted me up and passed me from one man to the next until someone put me down. The ground felt man-made and lurched underfoot.
A boat?
“Who are you people?” I demanded, as though their identities would somehow help me make sense of this. Was it even possible to be kidnapped from an island like this? It made no sense. Who even knew this place existed? Why wouldn’t kidnappers choose someone off the street in any convenient town rather than take us from a place with so much security?
There was the roar of a motor and then the feeling of traveling on water. It felt like we were going fast.
“Lanie! Lane, can you hear me?”
I strained my ears, listening for her. There was no answer. No one objected to me calling out, either. No one would hear me except for my kidnappers and Lane, I supposed. But where was she?
I struggled but managed to sit on what was probably the deck of the boat. When I tried to pull the bag off my head, someone slapped my hand away and muttered in a language I didn’t know. Hands took my arms again, twisting them behind my back and lacing them together with rope. I tried to get to my feet, and someone cuffed my head.
“Be good and we won’t hurt you.” His accent made him difficult for me to understand.
“Who are you people?”
“Hired men.”
The boat skipped along the water, jarring me, the thrum of it buzzing my teeth together.
“Where’s Lanie?” I hadn’t heard her since they had transferred me into the vessel, and I was wondering if they’d left her behind.
“Your friend was rescued. You were not.”
Rescued? Those angry voices must have been Ajax and Calder. Why wasn’t I surprised they’d been spying on us?
It was a relief knowing she was safe—at least comparably safe. Ajax and Calder weren’t Boy Scouts by any stretch of the imagination, but at least they were the devil we knew instead of whoever these people were.
Eventually, the boat slowed and then idled. The cries of gulls were far off, almost muted by the wind and the slosh of water against the hull.
Someone jerked the bag off my head, along with several strands of my hair. My eyes struggled to adjust to the comparative brightness. The sky seemed ominous now, along with the endless expanse of sea. I focused on the dour, bearded face of one of my two nemeses on this tour.
“Bron,” I growled. “Why the fuck would you kidnap me off the beach?”
He shrugged. “I suppose we could have kidnapped you from anywhere, but we were trying to take your friend Lane as well.”
“What do you want with us?”
He sucked his teeth. “We’d only planned on taking her to improve your likelihood of cooperation.”
