The Road To Deliverance

by James, Harper

  Close your mouth.

  Lips clamped tight around the barrel, wanting to cry.

  Now pull the trigger.

  No way. That wasn’t part of the deal. She opened her mouth. Withdrew the gun slowly. Carefully. No big deal. Not jerking it out like she was afraid. Spat the foul taste out of her mouth. Didn’t care what he thought about that. It was worse than cigarettes.

  Your turn.

  ‘Stop messing around, Sarah. Get it out.’

  Cole’s insistent tone jerked her back to the present. She pulled the gun out of the bag. Held it with thumb and forefinger as if it were a dead rat she had by the tail.

  ‘It’s not going to bite you.’

  No? You want to see the emotional bite marks, she wanted to scream, the scars that go a hell of a lot deeper than the burn on your brother’s stomach?

  But she didn’t. It wouldn’t help anyone, wouldn’t make her feel any better. She placed it carefully in his lap.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s the guys I’m supposed to meet.’

  ‘Why the gun?’

  ‘Something doesn’t feel right. I’ve got an address. I’m supposed to meet them there. Not out on the road in the middle of nowhere. And we’ve missed the deadline.’

  The implication was clear. Jay might not be the only one paying the price for that transgression. Her mind clutched at straws, anything to avoid acknowledging the truth in his words.

  ‘It might not be them.’

  The car was alongside, keeping pace with them. She pushed herself back into the seat, her body shielded from view—and from anything else—by Cole’s. A pang of guilt went through her at the thought.

  ‘Why doesn’t he pass us?’

  A car horn honked. Their heads snapped left. The guy in the passenger seat patted the air. Slow down. Pointed to the shoulder. He was an ordinary-looking guy, not the sort of face that had been going through her mind. Almost friendly. He might have been telling them to pull over to point out the flat tire he’d noticed, or the fact that their trunk was flapping open.

  ‘Still think it’s not them?’

  ‘How do they know it’s us?’

  ‘Who knows? They’ve got Jay’s phone. There’s a ton of photos of me on it.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything.’

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. Actions speak louder than words. He trapped the barrel of the gun under his leg. Racked the slide, the sound cutting through her like fingernails scratched down a blackboard, taking her back once more to that awful day. She wiped at her face, quick, angry swipes.

  It wasn’t my fault.

  She didn’t see how this could be worse.

  She was wrong.

  Chapter 34

  JAY CREPT BACK into the darkness of the basement, his hand feeling the way down the rough concrete wall. He left the lights off. Lucas already had the advantage over him. He knew the place like the back of his hand. Jay didn’t. All he knew was he was down there somewhere, licking his wounds with a bottle of Tequila in one hand, a gun in the other.

  His hand touched a door frame. It was the cold store they’d kept him in. The door was closed, no light visible from under it. He moved on.

  There was only one other door.

  Also closed, an outline of light framing it. He crept right up to it, pressed his ear against it. Nothing. It didn’t mean a thing. Lucas might be sitting in silence, waiting. He bent down, put his eye to the keyhole.

  Without warning the lights went on.

  ‘Looking for this?’ Lucas said from behind him.

  Jay yelped in surprise. Jumped upright, spun around towards him.

  Lucas was alone. Standing at the end of the hallway, Jay’s phone in one hand, a Glock G19 pistol in the other. And a taunting sneer plastered all over his face between them.

  ‘I thought you’d come back for it. Gabriel told you what we’ve got planned for Cole, did he? Thought you’d warn him.’

  ‘What happened to your teeth, Lucas? Little bro kick your sorry ass?’

  He shrugged. They both knew his words didn’t bother him.

  ‘Get down on the floor.’

  Jay didn’t move.

  ‘You want me to shoot you?’

  ‘Doesn’t make a lot of difference if you’re going to kill me anyway.’

  ‘How about I call the guys meeting Cole, make a few suggestions about what they should do with him? Instead of just shooting him like a dog.’

  ‘How about—’

  He stopped mid-sentence. Something caught his eye behind Lucas. He froze, pulse racing. Looked down at his feet. Not that he was scared by anything Lucas said. He didn’t want Lucas to see his face. Didn’t trust his features to not betray him as he watched Gabriel creep silently down the stairs.

  ‘What was that Jay?’

  The voice mocking, cocky.

  He forced a laugh.

  ‘Up yours, Lucas, you sorry piece of shit. You’re the big man when you’ve got the gun, aren’t you? But even your little brother can kick your ass when you haven’t. You always were a pussy.’

  He looked up, cocked his head at him.

  ‘You know, that was pretty funny what you did with your tongue. You learn that from one of your boyfriends, eh? I don’t think it’s Gabriel who’s the maricón.’

  Lucas took a step towards him, raised the gun. Gabriel was almost at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘You better watch your mouth.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘How’s your stomach? You thought that hurt, wait until you see what it feels like somewhere else. Gabriel’s other boyfriend could tell you.’

  Behind him Gabriel’s whole body stiffened.

  ‘You’re full of shit.’

  ‘Yeah? You were lucky today. If that iron didn’t get so hot, reckon you’d have got yourself a dose of AIDS off it from last time we used it.’

  Gabriel’s hand went silently to his pocket, to the straight razor. Lucas was getting into his stride, enjoying himself.

  ‘Yep. Hung him upside down from a hook. Did him right in that sweet puckered spot Gabriel loves so bad.’

  Keep going, Lucas. Keep on digging your own grave.

  ‘Man, you shoulda heard that little faggot squeal.’

  Jay read the news of Lucas’s death in Gabriel’s eyes all the way from the other side of the room.

  ‘Funny, we ain’t seen him around since then. Looks like the marriage is off.’ The scorn he put into the word marriage was like a slap. Jay couldn’t imagine what Gabriel was going through. ‘Stupid prick Gabriel thought we didn’t know—’

  There was a loud cry as Gabriel missed the bottom step, stumbled. Lucas spun around. Stared in disbelief.

  ‘What the—’

  Jay slammed into him, sent him flying. Lucas came clean off the ground, landed face-down on Gabriel, knocked him flat. Jay crashed on top of them both, the writhing mass of arms and legs and struggling bodies cushioning his fall.

  His phone went flying out of Lucas’s hand. Lucas kept hold of the gun. Gabriel struggled in vain under them, face squashed into the floor, arms splayed out like a giant piece of road kill. In one hand he clutched the straight razor, light from the buzzing fluorescents flashing on it.

  Jay caught Lucas’s wrist in one hand, clamped it to the floor. Grabbed Gabriel’s hand with the other.

  ‘Drop it.’

  Gabriel wasn’t listening, didn’t know who was talking to him through the red mist in front of his eyes. He held on tight.

  Lucas squeezed off a shot, the gun an inch from Gabriel’s ear. The noise was deafening in the tight space, Gabriel’s scream shrill, almost as loud. The blade slipped out of his fingers. He bucked and squirmed under the two of them, his fury lending him the strength to shift the four hundred pounds of dead weight on top of him.

  Jay snatched at the razor. Missed it as Gabriel jerked under them. Lucas fired again, the round pinging away uselessly up the stairs. Gabriel jerked, froz
e as if he’d been hit. Jay got his fingers around the razor’s handle. Lucas read his mind, tried to wrench his hand out of Jay’s grip. Jay pushed it harder into the floor. Lucas twisted his whole body. He was way too slow, his mouth opening in a scream even before Jay slashed the blade across the back of his squirming gun hand.

  The scream erupted out of him, dwarfing Gabriel’s wailing. He dropped the gun. Gabriel grabbed it, the weapon slick with Lucas’s blood. Jay got Lucas in a choke hold, pulled them both off Gabriel. He wriggled out from under them, scrambled out of range up the steps.

  Halfway up he stopped. The sight of Lucas helpless in Jay’s grip made something come awake in his eyes, something that had waited a long time for this day to arrive. If Jay had been Lucas, he’d have made peace with his maker at that moment.

  Lucas froze, his eyes locked on the gun in Gabriel’s unsteady hand, pointing first at his face, then his chest, jerking up and down as he took each step back down the stairs towards him.

  ‘Get out the way, Jay.’

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  ‘Get out the way.’

  Jay threw Lucas onto his face, stood up. Lucas lay perfectly still, not as stupid as he looked.

  ‘Say what you said again, Lucas.’

  The room grew colder at the sound of Gabriel’s voice, his steady footsteps like shovels in the dirt of a lonely graveyard.

  ‘What was it you called him? That little . . .?’

  Lucas buried his face in the floor, hands hidden underneath his body. Gabriel’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  ‘Tell me again how much he squealed.’

  ‘He’s not worth it,’ Jay said. ‘Let’s get the phone and get out of here.’

  Jay’s voice snapped Gabriel out of his trancelike state, brought him back from the edge of the abyss. His finger slowly relaxed, everybody’s breathing unwinding as it uncurled. Jay held out his hand. Gabriel laid the gun in it. Everybody felt a whole lot better.

  For a minute.

  ‘Where’s the phone?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They both scanned the floor. It had disappeared. Behind them Lucas pushed himself up off his face.

  ‘Looking for this?’

  Jay stared at the phone in his hand. How the hell did he get it? Held out his hand.

  ‘Throw it over here.’

  Lucas pushed himself onto his knees.

  ‘Come and get it.’

  Jay pointed the gun at his face. All it did was put a mocking sneer on it.

  ‘You’re not a killer, Jay, we both know that. You should have let him keep it.’

  He was right on both counts.

  He put a hand on the wall, stood up, the phone loose in his hand, blood dripping off his fingers.

  ‘Give me the phone or I’ll give the gun back to him.’

  Lucas’s cockiness faltered, eyes unsure momentarily. Then it was back full strength.

  ‘Do what you like.’

  He dropped the phone on the floor. Ground the heel of his boot into it like it was a giant cockroach.

  The crack of shattering glass under Lucas’s boot reverberated in Jay’s head like the crunch of a dentist’s pliers on a rotten tooth.

  Lucas’s arrogant sneer took its usual place on his lips.

  ‘Why don’t you give Cole a call now?’

  Jay took a fast step towards him. Buried his fist deep in the middle of Lucas’s stomach. The air exploded out of him, the booze he’d spent the afternoon drinking spewing out after it. Jay grabbed his ears, yanked his head up, drove his elbow into his mouth.

  Damn, that felt good.

  Lucas’s head snapped back in Jay’s hand. His legs buckled. Jay let go of his head, had the phone in his hand by the time Lucas’s face smacked into the floor.

  The screen was a mess. Cracked and crazed, the casing split.

  Did it still work?

  At his feet Lucas gasped for air, coughing and spitting blood and teeth. Still he managed to laugh at him through his broken mouth.

  ‘Time’s up, Jay. Cole’s gonna die.’

  Chapter 35

  SARAH COULDN’T THINK, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything except stare at the butt of Cole’s gun poking out from under his leg.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  He shook his head angrily, enough of the stupid questions.

  ‘I don’t know. Keep driving until we get where we’re supposed to be.’

  She inched her head forward. Looked past him at the other car. Did a double take. The passenger was holding something up. She strained her eyes. The rain wouldn’t let her see.

  ‘What’s that?’

  He turned to look, sucked in a sharp rush of air. She leaned further forward. Got a better look. The guy was smiling, holding his phone up against the glass with one hand, pointing at the shoulder with the other.

  ‘Looks like Lucas sent them the photo of Jay hanging from the meat hook. Still think—’

  ‘Alright!’

  He put his hand on her shaking thigh.

  ‘Sorry. We haven’t got a choice. I’m pulling over.’

  He eased off the gas. Nodded at the guy in the other car, gave him a thumbs-up. The guy nodded back, put the phone in his pocket. Cole adjusted his leg, made his gun more accessible. Everybody did something except her. She sat there stupidly with the backpack in her lap, hands resting primly on top of it. Like she was six years old, being driven to school by her dad.

  The trill of Cole’s phone shattered the silence, jangled every nerve in her body. It was still in her bag. She snatched it off the back seat. Dug the phone out. Stared at the name on the screen:

  Jay.

  She held it out to Cole.

  ‘You answer it. Don’t let them see you.’

  She froze, fingers refusing to work.

  ‘Answer it, for Christ’s sake.’

  Why were they calling instead of sending a text? So that Cole heard what they were doing to Jay, not only saw it? Heard what was happening because she’d made him late. The hiss as hot iron designed to scorch tough cattle hide burned its eager way through soft human skin—

  ‘Sarah!’

  She closed her eyes. Answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  ‘Cole?’

  She knew that voice. Never thought she’d hear it again.

  ‘No. It’s Sarah.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sarah. I was the one in the bar.’

  More silence. Then he found his voice. Who knows if he knew her or not? She wasn’t Cole. And that’s all that mattered.

  ‘What? Where’s Cole?’

  ‘He’s here. He’s driving.’

  ‘Turn around. Get the hell out of there. They’re going to kill him as soon as he makes the delivery.’

  They were almost at a standstill, seconds away from stopping dead. Cole turned the wheel to pull onto the shoulder. The crunch of gravel under the tires reverberated in the pit of her stomach. The car slowed. She looked past Cole, through the rain streaking down the glass, at the men in the other car. The passenger’s eyes met hers. She threw herself back in the seat. Yelled at the top of her voice.

  ‘Don’t stop! They’re going to kill us!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said they’re going to kill you as soon as you make the delivery.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘Jay! Who do you think? It’s him on the phone. He must have gotten away.’

  His whole body jerked as if she’d used the branding iron on him. Hadn’t he heard her talking to Jay a second earlier? He snatched the phone out of her hand. She wanted to scream at him.

  Why don’t you believe me? Drive! Get the hell out of here.

  He clamped the phone to his ear. The car came to a complete stop.

  ‘Jay?’

  The shout on the other end of the line sounded like Jay was sitting in the back seat.

  Cole! Get the hell out of there!

  COLE STARTED TO SAY something.
Pulled the phone away from his ear. Stared at it.

  ‘Shit.’ He dropped it in the cup holder between the seats. ‘Signal’s gone.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You heard him. Get us out of here. Now!’

  He stomped on the gas. Turned the wheel back towards the road.

  Back towards the SUV.

  She slammed into the dash as the SUV plowed into their fender, the screech of metal on metal filling the car. Cole kept his foot on the gas, wheels spinning in the loose dirt, a cloud of mud and grit spitting into the air. The SUV was bigger, heavier, the sound of its engine screaming through the window, pushing them relentlessly towards a stand of small trees.

  ‘Hold tight.’

  She braced herself against the dash. Cole jumped on the brakes. The car skidded to a halt. The SUV kept going, ripped their bumper right off. Dragging it along the rough ground. Then nose-dived to a stop ten yards further on.

  Everything happened very fast after that.

  The SUV’s doors flew open. Both guys jumped out, guns in their hands as they hit the ground. Beside her, Cole grabbed his gun, pushed the door open. Rolled down and away, out onto the cold, wet ground. Caught his leg in the door. Landed badly, gun arm trapped underneath his body. He twisted. Arm coming up and around.

  Too late.

  The guys were on him before he got to his knees. One of them kicked the gun out of his hand as his arm came up. Sent it flying down the road. The other one pushed him down to the ground, gun barrel in the back of his neck. He never stood a chance.

  Nor did she.

  Through the rain-streaked windshield, unable to move or even breathe, she watched the first guy stride around the front of the car towards her. She grabbed the door handle, pulled with all her weight. He wrenched it open as if it were a small child clinging to the other side.

  It happened so fast her hands were still clamped tight around the handle. He pulled her half out of the car. Seized the collar of her blouse, yanked. Thin fabric ripped, straining buttons popped. She tumbled out, landed hard on her butt on the rough ground. Cold, muddy water soaked straight through her clothes, chilling her flesh. He hauled her up. Pushed her roughly ahead of him towards where Cole lay with his face in the dirt.