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TWENTY-SEVEN
Garrison
Fucking pathetic.
I twisted and jerked at my hands, trying to find any way to maneuver myself out of my bonds in the barn where my captors had left me, but I was getting nowhere. My arms had been extended too far above my head, and the ties were too tight to slip through them. I could lift my legs if I tried hard enough, but the only thing that stood below me was a wobbly barrel. If I knocked it over, I’d be left dangling by my arms, gagged, and unable to yell for help. That’d be even less fun than this.
I paused to take a breather—as well as I could breathe with the sour-tasting rag stuffed in my mouth. The men who’d brought me here had disappeared what felt like ages ago. As far as I knew, I was completely alone in the building.
An ache was spreading through my wrists and down my arms. It brought an awful sense of resignation over me. I had to wait for the crew to find me. I’d always been the most reluctant fighter of the bunch, and now I was the weakest link in another way.
If I’d been better able to fend off the pricks who’d grabbed me—make some kind of break for it—
But no matter how I’d thrashed and struggled, I hadn’t been able to stop them from trussing me up like a fucking pig. And now I was being used as bait in what was obviously a trap. I didn’t even know what Dess and the guys would be walking into when they came after me.
Part of me almost hoped they wouldn’t. Better that I faced the consequences for my incompetence alone than that they all suffered for it too. I was the newest member of the crew—unless you counted Dess—along with being the weakest link. They didn’t have to be as loyal to me as they were to each other.
I had the feeling they’d come anyway, though. Dess would insist on trying to rescue me. Julius would see it as a point of honor. Talon went wherever Julius led, and Blaze probably jizzed himself at the thought of solving whatever puzzle our enemies had laid out.
I tested my arms again, but I already knew that situation was hopeless. I was stuck in this position until someone cut me down. The best I could do was take stock of as much of my surroundings as I could in case something about them would prove useful later.
Only a few streaks of muted sunlight drifted through a high window somewhere behind me. I studied the walls of the barn in the dimness. Symbols I didn’t recognize but that looked arcane enough to unnerve me marked the wood all around the space.
Was this some kind of cult thing? I thought of the symbol tattooed on the back of Dess’s neck that connected her to the organization that had kidnapped her, but none of the carvings looked anything like that teardrop with its diagonal line.
The Maliks had their weird code that Blaze had been trying to decipher. Maybe these connected to their bizarre “legacy” somehow?
I had no idea which of our enemies might have kidnapped me. The men had all worn ski masks to conceal their faces. None of them had said so much as a word to me.
The smell of the musty hay that scattered the floor around me filled my nose. No sounds reached me except the creaking of the rafters. Then several car engines rumbled outside.
I stiffened. The engines cut out somewhere nearby, and it sounded like around a dozen people tramped across the ground in the near distance. But they didn’t come my way, and their urgently muttering voices were too quiet or too far away for me to make out any words. Hinges squeaked, and a door thumped shut. Then it was quiet again.
I couldn’t tell how long it was before another engine growled up. The car doors slammed, and more feet rasped across the ground. The door hinges squeaked again. A voice pealed out loud enough to reach my ears, instantly recognizable.
“Where is he?”
Dess. And if she was here, the rest of the crew was too.
I closed my eyes against the wave of relief that rushed through me. I shouldn’t be happy. It was a fucking trap, and they’d walked right into it for me. The thought of Dess getting injured, even killed, because she’d been determined to find me constricted my innards from my throat all the way down to my gut.
Specifically Dess. I didn’t want anything to happen to the guys either, but with her—with her it was a sharper pain than I could remember feeling in ages. Maybe not even since the aftermath of my family’s car accident, fifteen years ago.
It had been my fault that they’d died, and if I lost Dess because she came for me…
I couldn’t think like that. Dess could kick just about anyone’s ass, and it wasn’t as if the guys were any slouches either. But the fear kept wrenching through my body, and a startling realization dawned on me.
I cared about that woman more than I’d cared about anyone or anything since I’d lost my parents and my brother as a kid. More than I’d thought I was capable of caring for anyone with all the walls I’d put up. I’d been so sure that really connecting with anyone would be dangerous somehow—for me, for them—but it’d happened anyway…
And I was okay with it. It fucking hurt, but I’d take all the agony in the world just to see her walking past the barn door with that little smile of hers and the triumphant gleam in her eyes that’d say she’d kicked even more asses today.
A clattering sound jerked me out of my thoughts. It’d come from somewhere behind me, but when I twisted my head, I couldn’t make out the source. The barn held at least one side room. Were some of the men who’d kidnapped me still lurking around, planning a surprise attack to turn the tide?
I grunted against my gag, but I was hardly in a position to shout out a warning. It sounded like the people outside had caught on as it was. The voices rose, sounding closer than before—Dess arguing with her father, other voices I didn’t recognize tossing out ridiculous comments.
Then a gunshot reverberated through the air. I flinched, and the next second dozens more shots thundered outside, along with thumps, wordless shouts, and pained noises that set my heart thudding faster.
The crew had better know what they were doing.
