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“I got three down, two up over here,” Dean said. “No movement.” He hunkered down and tried to get as comfortable as possible; they were going to be here a while.
“How the hell you get here so quick?”
Dean heard the bone-chilling sound of a pump action on a shotgun.
“Leviathan ain’t even got back yet.”
He froze for a fraction of a second to decide on a course of action and went for charm. Keeping his hands where they could be seen, he pivoted on the balls of his feet, still crouched, to face the man Kimberly had dubbed “Grungy.” He tried a winning smile as his brain worked to come up with a plausible excuse for his presence. A little voyeurism seemed like the safest bet here.
Only, he hadn’t even gotten his mouth open, when that evil, dead-eyed son of a bitch raised the barrel and said, “I ain’t never shot no one before. You weaseled outta it last night, but now here you come a weaselin’ in again, when all I’m tryinna do is have a little fun. You know what that makes you, asshole?” He placed a smoldering cigarette between his rotted teeth and braced the butt of the twelve gauge to his shoulder. “That makes you a cockblocker. I fucking hate cockblockers. Now, where’s yer buddy, huh?”
“Right behind you, asshole.” Sam pressed his nine mil to the back of Grungy’s head. “FBI. Drop it.”
The little fucker didn’t drop the shotgun. He spat the cigarette at Dean and lunged into Sam like a feral raccoon. He ducked under the gun, knocked Sam’s arm away with the barrel of his weapon, then clocked him under the chin with the butt of it.
Dean was up in a flash, but the man took off like a spider monkey, clamoring over the uneven terrain, cackling all the while. Dean took off after him, with Sam close on his heels. Last night, he’d ran these woods, desperate to get to Kimberly before one of these men got to her first, and a raging fire of terror had driven him. Today, it was ice.
Dean dodged boulders and cleared logs like an Olympian as Grungy stretched the distance between them, then pivoted behind a huge cedar. Dean dove to the left, Sam to the right a millisecond before the ground where’d they’d just been exploded in a spray of dirt and rocks.
“Woowee!” Grungy shouted, apparently having the time of his life. “Almost got you there, fuckers.”
He heard another round go into the shotgun, and Dean had enough.
“This has gone as far as you’re gonna take it, man,” he yelled from behind the cover of his own tree. “We’re FBI. Lay down your weapon, keep your hands where we can see them, and get your ass on the ground!”
He only cackled louder. “‘Hell, officers. How’s I supposed to know them fellers was FBI?’” Grunge taunted like a schoolyard bully. “‘I just saw two trespassers on my land.’” Dean rolled his eyes at the utter stupidity.
“We’re wired, you idiot.” Exasperation dripped off Sam’s tone. “Everything that’s happened so far is on record.”
There was a ten-second silence as he processed that, then he cursed. “Whaddo I got to lose then?” And fired another round.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Kimberly cameto in the trunk of a car. Her head throbbed like a sore tooth, and the side of her face felt swollen and puffy; one of her eyes barely opened. The first thing she did as thoughts began to connect was press her finger to activate the collar. Her hand shook so bad it took her three tries before she felt it click on.
She hadn’t gotten past the pain and onto fear when the car came to a jolting stop. Now, there was fear. It grew monstrous at the cut of the engine, the slam of a car door, and the menacing thud of heavy footsteps.
Boom, boom, boom!“Wake up.” Someone pounded on the trunk with a heavy fist. “Now, I was nice and didn’t tie you up. Don’t give me no shit when I open this thing. You hear this?”Tink, tink, tink.“That there’s my hunting knife. Just like Stallone carried in the movies. You don’t behave when I open this, I’mma go all Rambo on your ass.”
Not just Kimberly’s blood but her entire body froze in fear. The lid popped up, and Leviathan grinned down at her with his blade gleaming in the sunlight. She didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound.
He punched her anyway.
Dean and Sam moved in unison. If they could get the bastard to waste his shot, they’d be on him before he could reload. The tree in front of Dean splintered into fragments an inch from his face, spraying him with splinters and chunks of wood, but he didn’t have time to stop for the pain.
They had the son of a bitch now.
Sam reached him first. He must’ve lost his firearm in the scuffle, because he sailed in with a haymaker and clocked Grungy in the jaw like a heavyweight. Dean, with shit in his eyes and blood from the many gashes carved by the tree shrapnel, charged in with fists too, not wanting to risk shooting his partner because of fucked-up vision.
The hit to her jaw hadn’t knocked Kimberly unconscious, but it had made her eyes roll back in her head as blood sprayed from where her teeth shredded the inside of her cheek. When he yanked her dizzy ass up by the front of her shirt, she spat a glob of blood in his hateful face. She wasn’t sure it was worth the backhand she got in return. The already bruised side of her face went up in a blaze of searing pain so sharp it stole the breath from her lungs.
“That’s yer last warning, sub,” the evil man in front of her snarled. “You screw around with me some more, and just see what that gets you, slut.”
How stupid did he think she was? He’d kidnapped her, beaten her, and now she’d seen his face and knew who he was. Did he honestly believe she was going to buy that he’d let her go if she cooperated? Did he actually think she was going to go meekly and trust he wasn’t going to keep hurting her? Kill her even?
Kimberly tried to force her mind past the pain and come up with a way out of this. Or at least a way to hold on until the FBI figured out she was missing and came to save her. Her men were at the cabin all day though, she remembered with a rock of dread thudding into her stomach. How long would it take before they found out?
Leviathan grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her from the car. She fell to her knees, and he just tightened his grip and barked for her to get up. His unrelenting fist kept her folded double at the waist, so she couldn’t be sure, but Kimberly felt a tiny spark of hope as she thought she recognized where they were. If she was right and he’d brought her back to the cabin, then the guys were already here or soon would be. She just had to stay alive until someone saw.
