Galt turns and finds the hatch for the other pipe. The one I hid in when the rat bit me. He opens the hatch and stares in.
“She ain’t in there,” he announces. He leaves the door open and looks in again. “What the fuck is that?”
“Old coal supply pipe,” Frenchie says. “Now it’s used for ventilation for the cooler system or something. Now we use it to smuggle the smaller batches through.”
“Batches?”
“The merchandise.” I assume merchandise means the women they abduct and sell into the sex slave trade.
“The merchandise fits in there?” Galt asks, skeptical.
Frenchie laughs through his nose. “I crawled in there. Once. It feeds into the Facilities plant over at the university. Great way to smuggle the drugs out on through from the chemistry labs. Then we discovered a little woman could fit pretty easily in there. It’s a pain in the ass because it goes to a main line that then connects over to the college. Gets hot in there.” Frenchie looks over at the mousetrap where the rat is now dead. “Fucking rats, too.”
“That how you get the women in an out?”
“Naw. Not now. The town is doing some big water line renovation and the conduit’s cut off. Nobody’s getting in or outta there for a while. That’s why we’re moving van loads the old fashioned way.” Frenchie looks around the room. “But this is still a good place to hide merchandise so we can move at night.”
“Gotta be small to fit in there,” Galt remarks, patting his substantial belly.
“That a crack on how short I am?” Frenchie retorts.
“You ain’t short. Only your dick is.”
“Fuck you, Galt.”
He just salutes in answer. With his middle finger.
The new man whispers in Frenchie’s ear. Frenchie grunts, then taps his hand. They both are giving me the once over.
I start to vomit, the gagging obvious. They both step back from me quickly.
“New boots,” the other man mutters. “Fuck all if I’m getting puke all over them.”
Frenchie’s cackle is so devoid of humor it feels like the devil’s hiss.
My throat stops spasming. Galt is in the shadow of the boxes. My attention splits between him and the other three men.
El Brujo bends down and picks up the saw he discarded earlier. He hands it to the new man.
Oh, no.
Is this new man the butcher?
My heart thuds in my chest, the beat becoming erratic. It speeds up and slows down without any pattern. Maybe I’ll drop dead of a heart attack. Perhaps my heart will just give out, too taxed by the stress.
That would be so nice.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The man drops the saw and gives El Brujo an enraged look.
“What the fuck is on that saw?” the new guy snarls. His arms are grey. Weird.
Then I realize he is covered with tattoos. So many tattoos.
“It is of no matter,” El Brujo says, waving his hand. “Just get me what I need. Find the missing one and grab her.”
Her is clearly me.
In that exact instant, Galt rummages around the box I put in front of Allie.
Rough hands clamp down on my elbows. I go limp, but Frenchie’s stronger.
“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” he hisses in my ear. His breath smells like rotten tonsils and sour beer.
He licks my earlobe.
“Bet you taste good everywhere. Can’t wait until you get to taste me,” he adds.
I start retching again, my body freezing. I begin to kick and flail, twist and growl, doing anything to distract Galt. This isn’t about escaping Frenchie. That’s impossible. I know that. All I have control over right now, in this moment, is getting Chase and Mark’s dad away from finding Allie. Galt is here. He wants to kill Chase. He’ll use Allie to accomplish that.
Where in the hell is Mark?
Frenchie tightens his grip on me and then hold my elbow in a vice that—
POP!
I’ve heard the term “blinding pain” before, but never felt it. This is it. My entire shoulder goes down a half foot, then over. It’s like Frenchie has taken my torso and turned it into jigsaw puzzle pieces. My body becomes a white-hot sack of pure pain.
Spots fill my vision and I can’t move. I try to shuffle one foot and I slump against him. His chest hair is in my open mouth.
He tastes like poison.
“I wanted both your arms for what I’m gonna do with you, Girlie Girl, but I guess you made that impossible. Then again,” he says, his nasty breath filling my face, “you ain’t gonna need no arms soon.”
He drops me to the ground. I fall like a beaded necklace being poured into a jewelry box.
Something spears my chest. I feel like I’m sucking in air through a straw with a pinhole in it.
This is what it feels like when you’re dying.
And then his hands start undoing the button on my pants.
Oh, God. Please let me die first.
“The fuck, Frenchie?” Galt bellows. The swollen side of my face is pressed into a splatter spot of blood on the concrete floor. I’m not sure if it’s my blood or someone else’s.
Galt’s boot flashes before my eyes. He drop kicks Frenchie’s arm, sending the man flying backwards off me. He slams into the base of the spiral staircase and howls with indignation.
“What the fuck you doin’, Galt?” Frenchie shrieks. He’s on his ass and twists wildly to get on his feet.
“You wanna dip your wick in the merchandise, do it where I don’t got to see your diseased ass,” Galt mutters, giving the new man a look. They both shake their heads in tandem. Disgust is a universal language.
I close my eyes and focus on trying to breathe through the tiny pinhole left in my throat. My best guess is that Frenchie dislocated my shoulder. Maybe my elbow, too. I can’t move anything except for my legs. The rest of me is a swollen pile of damage.
“What is over there?” El Brujo says in a guarded, tight voice. I can’t open my eyes, so I don’t know where there is, but if he means Allie, then I’ve failed.
Failed.
Failure equals death right now.
“Over where?” Frenchie snaps. His voice is so close. Galt’s kick saved me from whatever immediate plans Frenchie has for me. Plus, I diverted attention away from Allie. Maybe, just maybe…
“Nothing,” Galt replies. So maybe he didn’t see her? I’m sure he did. And if he did, Allie would shoot him. Right? Right?
But Chase’s text said not to shoot him. Why?
“Hmph,” El Brujo says. “For something that is nothing, you seemed unusually interested. I don’t pay you to lie to me,” he snaps.
I force my eyes open. Maybe I can scream again, or trip him, or—
His fine leather shoes pass inches from my face. He’s walking right toward Allie.
No one stops him.
No one can.
He’s about to discover her and I can’t do anything.
We’re both going to die and Mark and Chase will never know how hard we tried not to.
Frenchie reaches into his back pocket and the glow of a phone catches my attention.
“Shit. Gotta go upstairs. Some kind of fight outside in the parking lot.” He glares at the new guy. “You fucking Mephists were supposed to distract the damn cops, Loogie. Not screw up this operation.”
Loogie. Now I know a name. Not that it’ll help. I feel like a battery losing its charge.
“We’re cool,” Loogie says, patting Galt on the shoulder. “That fight was just for show. Got the cops off the trail of all this and kept that crazy DEA agent from making waves.”
“He’s a fucking nutcase,” Galt mutters. “Took my kid away. Destroyed all we had at the Atlas compound last year.”
“No shit. Drugged up my old lady and stuck her on a bike and—”
“Are you three done playing the nostalgia game?” El Brujo snaps. “I don’t need any reminders of my losses last year.”
“Losses?” Ga
lt snorts. “You didn’t lose. You got all that cash and meth that Wakefield was storing in his garage and house.”
Allie’s story about what happened to her last year runs faintly through my mind. Her stepfather owed El Brujo money. Sold her and her mother to him for a drug debt. After Allie escaped from the motorcycle club compound with Mark’s help, she was told by Mark she didn’t need to worry about El Brujo any more.
“I lost what was mine,” El Brujo says. The words ring out so loud, like the peal of a bell.
No one says a word.
“And I never,” El Brujo says softly, “give up getting what is mine.”
ALLIE!
I scream her name in my head, hoping she is somehow backing up in the pipe, crawling backwards to the safety of Chase. Is she hearing this? I try to stand, but my body is broken. Frenchie may have snapped a bone. I can’t move. I have no defenses. My mind shakes like someone is trying to snap my head off.
She can’t be caught.
Frenchie stomps up the stairs, but stops halfway. Galt and Loogie walk closer to me, staring hard at El Brujo.
He’s staring right back.
My one good eye gives me a distorted view of the men. If the lights were off, I couldn’t see anything. My head pounds and I’m pretty sure I’m a few seconds away from passing out.
El Brujo stomps over to the boxes on the shelving. He looks down at the smears and pools of blood on the ground, his nose wrinkling in distaste. His cologne tickles my nose and I sneeze.
My vision goes white with agony.
“You’re wasting your time. Ain’t nothin’ over there but a bunch of dead rats,” Galt grumbles at El Brujo. He looks at Loogie and rolls his eyes.
I try to breathe. My nose is swollen. My mouth is so dry I start coughing. In my struggle to sit up I feel something like granite slide against granite in my shoulder. Like broken glass against broken glass. I give up.
I give up forever.
El Brujo gives Galt a look of pure hatred and storms over to where Allie is. By now, I hope she’s at least made her way far enough in the pipe to not be seen.
Please be gone. Please be gone. Please be gone.
A strangled cry comes out of the back of my throat, making me cough and hiss. I sound like someone who is dying. My breaths are agonal in my ears.
El Brujo pushes the box aside. I can’t see Allie from here, nor can I see his face.
But I can hear him clearly.
“Oh, my,” he says, his voice like a Cheshire cat’s purr. “Hello, my sweet Allie. It is so good to finally meet. It seems I always do get what I deserve. This will be so much fun.”
He reaches for her.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
POW!
The gunshot cracks the room in half. Galt and Loogie go flat on the floor, fat bellies slammed to the concrete.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” squeals Frenchie, running toward the gunshot. He stops, then drops to the ground, too.
El Brujo’s body flies backwards, head first, away from the wall. The back of his head slams like an apple being thrown full force against brick.
The rest of him follows. He then slides like a rag doll to the ground, his head slumping toward me.
I look at his face.
He has a perfect hole in the center of his forehead.
He’s breathing, though. His body pants in little breathy sounds. It’s erratic and fleeting.
Just like the rat a few minutes ago.
Just like me.
Chaos erupts. Galt and Loogie leap to their feet and pull out guns. Allie slithers out of the hole and falls to the ground, her breathing labored and loud. She stands, quickly, and holds the gun, waving it wildly in the general direction of me and the men.
Frenchie rolls across the ground and steamrolls right over me. He’s on top of me, pressing me down, his weight making it impossible to breathe.
He smells like rotten pee.
I’m lifted to my feet, my body a bag of bones and loose rope, as he pulls me to him, standing. One arm is around my waist. I can’t even hold up my body weight. His arm is slick against me. He’s groping the flesh at my hip over and over, and missing his grip.
I’m bloody and broken and he’s doing something I don’t understand.
“Get your hands off her!” Allie shrieks, pointing the gun at Frenchie, who now has his own gun drawn and pointed at her.
His aim is steadier than Allie’s.
“You fucking killed him, Girlie Girl,” Frenchie says to her in a voice so calm, so smooth, it’s like a snake is speaking directly to my brain. “You did it. You killed the biggest mastermind in the world. Little old you.” He licks his lips. “The one that got away.”
“Put her the fuck down, Frenchie,” Galt orders.
I feel Frenchie’s grip loosen for a second. Then he redoubles. When he squeezes, I can’t breathe at all. My nerves go crazy, firing at will, my skin like molten lava and dirty electricity in a hothouse.
“You ain’t my boss no more, Galt,” Frenchie growls. “Maybe I’m yours now.”
Loogie and Galt burst into hearty laughter.
“You think you’re taking over for El Fucking Brujo? That’s fucking sweet, Frenchie. You and what army? I needed a good laugh today. One more fucking joke outta you and I can go do my daily crap with a smile on my face,” Loogie says. He has a strong accent—New York?—and sounds like a mobster.
“I got an army, all right. You listen to me.” He bites my neck so hard I feel the skin tear. “I get whatever I want now. I been dealing with El Brujo’s shit for so long I dream in Spanish now. You two are just some clowns who came along after. You can have my sloppy seconds, but I’m the new El Brujo.”
The laughter dies down.
Loogie’s bald forehead wrinkles in rolls of fat as his eyebrows shoot up. “He’s serious!” he says to Galt.
Galt shakes his head and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his vest pocket, lighting one. “He thinks he is.”
The casual tone of their conversation is almost as unnerving as the press of Frenchie’s obvious erection against my butt. How can they have Allie pointing a gun at them, me in Frenchie’s arms as a human shield, and light up a ciggy like it’s break time at the check processing center?
Galt steps toward Frenchie, who backs away, dragging me with him. Frenchie wrenches my neck. I catch the now-dead eyes of El Brujo. He’s a few feet away from me, his feet tangled with the mousetrap holding the dead rat.
And Frenchie has moved right in front of the open hatch as Galt bears down on him. Galt holds his gun loosely in his hand. He clearly views Frenchie as no threat.
But then Frenchie points his own gun right at my temple.
“You stay back, Galt, or I’ll kill her.”
“Why do I give a fuck about this little chickie?” Galt snorts. He evaluates me like he’s examining a side of beef.
Allie’s eyes meet mine. She doesn’t know where to point the gun. Why isn’t she shooting someone? Anyone? Chase told her not to shoot Galt.
Why?
“You give a shit about her, Galt,” Frenchie says in a triumphant voice, “’cause she’s your son’s piece of ass.”
“Chase? She’s fucking Chase?” Galt grunts. “You and I know Chase is fucking her.” He points to Allie. “The one with the gun.”
Allie waves the gun. “Hello? Yes. I have a gun. You all seem to be ignoring me.” She looks over at Loogie and her eyes go really wide.
He shakes his head so imperceptibly I wouldn’t notice it, except I’m noticing everything now. I can see the tiny hairs on Galt’s ears. Smell the garlic in the lunchmeat Loogie ate for breakfast. Detect the scent of Chase’s deodorant on Allie.
I can see, smell, taste, feel and intuit everything.
All the men continue to ignore Allie.
“No,” Frenchie says. He’s gloating. He pulls me to him, his arm like a cinch string on a sack, and then adds:
“Your other son.”
Chapter Seventy
&n
bsp; Galt’s response is just a half-second too late. But a half-second is all it takes.
“What other son?” he scoffs. Loogie’s face goes slack.
Oh, no.
I feel more danger right now than I did while El Brujo was alive.
“The DEA agent. Don’t jack with me like that, Galt. I’m no sucker. I kept that little secret in my back pocket.” He kicks El Brujo’s dead body. The tip of Frenchie’s boot catches El Brujo’s shoulder and he rolls slightly. A piece of greyish-peach tissue falls out of the back of his head.
I retch. Allie makes a curdled sound in her throat and her hand holding the gun begins to shake.
“What the fuck you talking about, Frenchie? You been taking some of that meth El Brujo’s got you moving?” Loogie is dismissive and taunting at the same time. His hand tightens around the gun he’s holding.
Frenchie presses the gun so hard into my jaw I feel my joint pop.
Loogie and Galt don’t budge.
Allie points the gun right at Frenchie’s head, though, and takes a step forward.
“I’ll pop your little friend here just like you took care of El Brujo, Girlie Girl,” he warns. But he takes a step back, pulling me with him. The grip on the gun lessens slightly. My hip pushes into the metal rim of the open pipe behind us.
And then Frenchie’s entire body tightens like he’s inhaling sharply and holding his breath.
Something grabs my bad arm and yanks down, hard. It doesn’t take much for me to lose my balance and fall like a sack of potatoes.
I fall to the floor on my back and look up to find Mark’s face poking out from the open pipe, his hand holding the hilt of a knife he’s twisting into Frenchie’s kidney. Mark’s face is shockingly devoid of emotion. He is an automaton on a mission.
A mission to gut Frenchie alive.
Frenchie’s fingers thread through the cloth of my shirt and rip it with a sickening pull, the sound and the feel of the weave biting into whatever skin I have that isn’t hurt. A piece threads between my ribs and it’s like a rope burn, one that slides through my neck, shoulder, ribs and hip, until the rope just lets go.
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