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“Shut that fucking music off!” someone yells. “Drex! She’s here! She’s fucking here!”
Now I’m delusional. At least in my delusions Drex will rip their damn spines out and feed them their toes. The thought makes me giggle.
Toe cuisine. Yum. Oh! It could be phalange cuisine! That sounds classier. But is that fingers or toes or both? Both, I think. Back to toe cuisine. Wouldn’t want confusion about if you were eating fingers or toes.
The music shuts off, and a groan resonates. It must be a loud groan, because they left me too close to the speakers this time, and my ears aren’t working properly.
“The fuck did you do to her?!” Drex roars. Wow. It really does sound like him. My mind has gotten a lot better at these little enactments. Just the flutter of hope in my stomach lets me know this is the best hallucination ever.
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t want this! I fucking—”
The sound of crunching is beautiful. It means Drex is beating the hell out of someone. It means he’s my hero. Even if it is just one more hallucination.
Chapter 22
DREX
Mikey hits the ground hard, and I kick him in the stomach.
“Drex, knife!” Axle calls. “I need a knife now!”
I step into the stairwell that leads to the basement, but my stomach lurches when I see her… Tied to a chair… Her legs are pushed apart, but she’s still in jeans.
Her ankles are tied to each chair leg, and the blood pooling around the restraints makes me sicker. She’s struggled to get away.
Her head is hanging low, and I’m too scared she’s not breathing to get closer.
“Axle.” It’s a choked, almost silent plea.
“She’s alive, man. I need your knife though.”
Fumbling around, I grab my knife and toss it to him, then I turn around to face Mikey just as Rush walks in with blood all over his shirt. “Met Larry at the backdoor,” he tells me, smirking darkly. Then his eyes fall to Mikey. “At least we have one to question. Looks like Ben is gone.”
I’ll find him, and I’ll fucking rip his head off when I do.
But right now…
I run down the stairs just as Axle gets Eve’s hands cut free, and she falls forward. Catching her, I swallow down the bile, seeing dried blood on her mouth, and feeling her cold body despite the hot basement.
“Get her undone,” I whisper hoarsely as her head rests on my chest.
“Trying,” he growls, cutting through the bindings on her legs. “This shit has metal in the middle of the twine. It’s cut into her, and I’m trying to be careful not to hurt her.”
She doesn’t act like she’s in any pain, and that worries the fuck out of me. There’s something sticking out of her hand. It takes me a second to realize it’s a needle, but I’m too distracted to give it much thought.
“Baby, say something,” I whisper.
“Pretty,” she hoarsely says, then laughs raggedly and coughs like a long-time smoker.
“Damn it, Axle!”
“Got it,” he says immediately.
I move my arms carefully around her legs, and she folds against me lifelessly. Axle adjusts her head against my shoulder as I carry her bridal style up the stairs, quickly moving toward—Fuck!
“We need a car,” I growl.
“We need a fucking ambulance,” he argues, pulling out his phone.
“We can’t call an ambulance here,” Rush tells them. “At least not until I clean up the mess I made with Larry. Keys are in that Bronco out front. Take it. I’ll call a crew to clean this up.” His eyes cut to Mikey who is bleeding on the floor, but not moving. “And I’ll take him back with us.”
Mikey’s eyes go wide. “I didn’t have anything to do with—” His words end on a cry when Rush slams his fist into his face.
I hurry out the door, cradling Eve to me. She’s out cold, but she’s breathing, even if it is weak, shallow breaths. Axle opens the back door to the Bronco for me, and I climb in, keeping Eve against me and in my lap.
He’s in the front seat and rocketing out in reverse in the next breath. Then he drives like hell to the hospital while making some calls.
“Sledge, it’s me. We’ve got her, but we need a hospital… Yeah, definitely need to be discreet. Call everyone on our payroll and have them prepared to get her without making a scene.”
He continues talking, but I focus on Eve, shifting her so I can see her face. Her mouth is bruised pretty badly, as though they had something tied around it at one point. Her eyes are sunken in, her lips are pale and cracked, and the dried blood on her chin has me fighting off all my instincts to go put a few bullets in Mikey and Ben.
Later. There will be time for revenge later. Right now I need to focus on her.
