Still breathing, the thought ran through his head and he began the process of handing her off to Watcher. “She’s alive.”
A rope snaked down and he caught it with one hand, tugging another few feet of slack from it before he told Watcher, “Hold still. Let me tie this around her shoulders. You can steady her while we pull her out, brother.” Matching actions to words, he wove the rope between the bodies of father and daughter, bringing it underneath her arms and efficiently tying it off between her shoulder blades.
Without her body weighing him down, Duck quickly scrambled up the slope, trying to minimize the dirt scattered down onto Watcher and Bella. When he slid at one point, dirt disappearing from underneath his boot, his heart pounded in terror as he prayed for the thousandth time the walls would hold, wouldn’t collapse. He reached the top and his gaze followed the rope to a dozen men he didn’t know. Don’t matter, he thought, turning to shout back down, “We’re pulling now, you shout out if you need us to stop, Watcher. Got me?”
There was an assenting noise and he turned back to the men, saw the rope held loosely in several pairs of hands. In a low tone, he told them, “We pull slow and steady. I’ve got it tied snug, but not too tight. If he loses hold of her, it could slip off. Make sure he doesn’t lose her.” More men moved into place, readying themselves. Pulling the flashlight from his hip pocket, he tossed it to an older man wearing a VP patch, the other side of his vest bearing a name patch reading, ‘Pops.’ With a nod, Pops caught the light, and then wordlessly stepped over to an area of undisturbed dirt, shining the light into the hole.
Nearly ten feet deep, it was only about a yard wide and angled steeply down to where there was metal showing. The container had a hatch on the top, and Duck’s first contact had been a couple of feet away from that hatch. His first attempt at a course correction had been a misjudgment in the wrong direction, but he had found it finally. Found it in time.
Taking a wrap around his bleeding and blistered hands with the rope, he grunted when the pain hit and then took a step backwards. One step and then another, leaning with all his strength against the pull as they dragged Isabella free from what could have been her grave. Still breathing.
Hands reaching far
Duck waved off the bottle of water someone tried to pass to him, only to have it shoved in his face again by the Soldiers’ veep. Accepting it, he immediately dropped it to his lap, hissing at the pain in his hand. The Soldiers’ medic was here, but Duck had refused treatment until the man could assure him Isabella was going to be okay.
Glancing across the room to where she lay on the couch, he watched as she stirred, her hands jerking in uncoordinated movements. Bad way, he thought. She’s in a bad fucking way. His imagination superimposed Brenda’s face on the girl, then Essa’s, and then in rapid succession Lisa, Molly, Mica… Shaking his head hard, he forced those thoughts away, focusing on the single goodness. “I got her.”
“Yeah, you did. Every man here thanks you, Duck. Big fucking marker. Anything. Anything you need, brother. Rest of your life.” This came from Pops, his ass seated on the floor next to Duck, the false wall propping them both up. “How’d you see this place?”
“Things that didn’t belong. Took me a while to see it, too fucking long. Too fucking long to scope it out, too long to figure it out, too fucking long to dig her out. Every step along the way, nearly too fucking long.” He shifted, pulling his feet in, propping wrists on top of his bent knees so his ruined hands didn’t touch anything.
“We were in Mexico.” Pops offered this with a bleak fear threading through his voice like the sour smell from an abandoned freezer. Bitter and nasty and ruined. “Nothing here. Not her apartment. Not the compound. Not the ranch. Nothing. Not a damn thing, so we figured cartel. It’s been a hard road cleaning them up these past years. Prez figured slippery as they are the cartel had grown another head, like a demon snake. Find it, chop it off, save Bella.” He stopped to suck in a hard breath. “We weren’t even here. Not even here, Duck. Nowhere close when Myron called. We’d committed every damn asset to Mexico.”
One of the other men pointed to the ruins of a chair across the room. “What was that?”
“A tool.” Duck shook his head, remembering his pounding terror as he worked with shaking hands to unthread nuts and screws, fingertips slick with blood. Black boots stomping and kicking, vicious and wild. “No fucking tools in the place. I didn’t have time to look far, had nothing except a two-inch by four-inch piece of flat, thin metal in my hand. Every step a puzzle. From the outside, where the cop car was the first tell, to this room, where I found the dimensions didn’t fit. The door, the bag, the prison. Everything a puzzle. Had to get it right, because ‘You coming in shut down her air. She’s got three hours.’ Had to get it right.” His voice trailed off, and then he began again, needing to purge this, needing someone to know he had tried his hardest.
“I ran the numbers in my head, ran them again, and again. Fast as I could calculate, I tried to plot where the door would be. Then digging, I had to figure the degree of angle in my head, too, make sure I cleared the walls so they wouldn’t collapse because I didn’t have time to dig anything twice.” He gestured with his hands, showing how he had moved the earth covering her prison. “Dirt loose enough so scooping it with my hands and arms was easier, then I realized it had some kind of shit mixed in. That’s why it was wet. Fucking burned, but it didn’t matter because she only had three hours.”
He sucked a breath, blowing it out in a shaky wheeze. “Then two. Then one.” He looked at the knees of his jeans, eaten through by whatever had been mixed with the dirt, the skin behind them eaten away, too, blood, dirt, and fabric mixing to a broken, crusted horror. He glanced over at Pops. “Make sure your man cleans her off, Pops. Watcher, too. This shit burns.”
The steady pat-pat-pat of dripping blood caught his attention and he turned his hands over, frowning as he examined his knuckles, blood running across them freely, streaming from places where they were split to the bone. Purple and swollen, the fingers of his left hand were twisted in unnatural ways and he figured at least two of them were broken. Everywhere that didn’t hurt or wasn’t burning was soaked through with sweat. He shivered, a chill moving down his spine “Note said, ‘You coming in shut down her air.’ I had to keep going, keep digging. Had to get it right.” Fuck.
“Found the hatch. Couldn’t be so easy as to just walk in. No. But, I’ve seen this shit before, it’s fucking Deacon’s influence, man. A fucking slidey puzzle locked it. Like a puzzle box, only deadly instead of pretty. Once in the room, my phone wasn’t any good, no signal at all and I didn’t have time to truck up and down the hole to get in and out to call Myron. Nothing spare, not a moment, not even a movement. Just me. ‘You coming in shut down her air. She’s got three hours.’ Just me.”
He realized the room was silent and looked up to see nearly every face turned in his direction, Watcher’s eyes fixed on him, medic still working on Isabella, one hand reaching upwards holding a saline bag, waiting on a willing hand to take it. “Help him,” Duck demanded, motioning to the man and his words seemed to startle the Soldiers, two sets of quick hands colliding as they reached to take the IV bag from the medic. Duck nodded, satisfied, for now.
“Got that. One lock at a time, got it, opened the hatch and it fucking popped.” He made a noise like pulling a cork out of a bottle. “Like I’d broken a vacuum seal. Two hours and forty-two minutes. Eighteen minutes left. The final door looked to be just that, a door, but it wasn’t. The edges had been welded into place, the glass wall firmly built into the sides of the container. More of Deacon’s influence, stretching far. Man’s hands spanning so far to touch shit he should never have sight of.”
He gestured towards the broken chair, remembering the question that had started his mouth working, the words spilling out like an unstoppable tide. He needed them to know he’d tried. Tried so fucking hard. “Heard the pump kick on at three hours, and I realized what he had done. Needed a
tool, so I made one. Busted a leg off, busted the glass. Air rushed in. Five minutes over. Five goddamned, fucking minutes over the deadline.”
He scoffed, the grating sound painful to his own ears. “Deadline. Fuck. The air pump had shut off when I opened the door up here.” He pointed towards the crawl through. “At three hours, the pump kicked back on but in reverse, sucking out the remaining air in her cell. Needed a tool.” He shrugged and every man looked at his hands when he held them out. “Made one.”
He looked at Watcher. “I got her. Deacon didn’t win, brother. I got her.” Watcher nodded, staring at him, eyes haunted by the alternatives.
***
“I don’t fucking care if you want to do this or not, Tater. Watch is a long-time friend of the Rebels, and if he needs us, we’ll help out where we can.” Mason was annoyed and he knew it showed. He wasn’t accustomed to having his members or officers second-guess him on things like this, and while this was one of the reasons he liked Tater so much, he didn’t need it today. The man wasn’t afraid to call him on things, even little shit if it needed closer inspection. He was just wrong this time was all.
“Yeah, boss. You know I will. But babysitting a club’s princess isn’t something most of the members will understand.” He stopped talking at Mason’s ringing laughter, bitter with memories, and then asked, “What?”
They stood in the kitchen of the Chicago clubhouse, empty mugs in hand, waiting for the coffee maker to finish spitting into the pot. Mason would be headed back to the Fort in a couple hours, his trip to Lamesa canceled, his only desire to be with Willa and Garrett. My woman, he thought, my boy. “You weren’t around back in the day, but if you ask any of the Chicago guys from even a couple of years ago, they will know exactly what is involved with babysitting a fucking princess, believe me.” He shook his head, leaning close.
“Mica wasn’t the easiest chick to sit on, but the situation was very different. She was older, for one, and had time to develop her own brand of stubborn. Ask Slate sometime what kind of shit she caused on a regular basis. I suspect Isabella will be easier to control.”
At Tater’s look of confusion, he continued. “Soldiers’ princess. You know Watcher is the president of the Southern Soldiers. Well, Isabella is his daughter. She’s the gal Duck pulled out of that trap in the desert.” Dawning comprehension showed on Tater’s face now, and Mason nodded. “Yeah, she got fucked over by Lalo. Fucked right the hell over. Damn near dead by the time Duck dug her up.”
“Dug her up? I thought he found her in a closed compartment?” Tater leaned one hip on the countertop behind him, twisting to set his still-empty mug down.
“Dug her up,” Mason nodded, reaching to grab the handle of the pot and pouring coffee into their mugs. “Container was buried. Ventilated, but air don’t count for much when you got nothing to drink or eat. She’d stopped pissin’ the day before he found her. Three days alone in a hell hole, locked up in a glassed-in cage. Damn near dead.”
“Fuuucck,” Tater drew the word out softly, and Mason nodded again.
“Yeah. So when Watcher calls to say he’s sending her up here so we can keep her safe, my only response is ‘yes.’ And we will keep her safe. Our lives on it, brother.”
Sipping his coffee, Mason pulled out his phone to check the time. “Fury’ll have her here sometime tomorrow. I expect him to roll in before lunchtime. I got to get in the wind soon. Need to get back to the Fort.”
“Fury’s bringing her back? I thought he was helping Duck with the Diamante shit there in West Texas. Why’s he coming back so soon?” A pause, then the man’s brain kicked in. “Do we need to send anyone else down there to have Duck’s back?”
More questions from Tater, but like always, these were good ones. “Gal’s got a thing about being closed in now, as you can imagine, so flying her up here was out of the question unless Watch was willing to sedate her. He was not. Her state of mind wasn’t conducive to alteration, so we compromised. Quickest way to get her here, since Fury was already there, was to drop her on the back of his bike.”
Back to you
Duck pulled up beside the ranch house, hands reaching automatically to shut off the engine. He winced as the pain hit him. Even normal, easy things are difficult with broken fingers, burns, and blisters, he thought. The porch light was on, and before he could step out of the truck, the front door had slammed open and Brenda was running towards him, arms pumping, head up to look at him. He stood up quickly, seeing fear on her face just before she hit his chest, driving him back against the bed of the truck.
“Jesus.” He gave a pained grunt, arms coming up to wrap around her. “Bee, baby. Little Bee, what’s wrong?”
“The man on the phone said you found her.” She was gasping, sounding near tears and he cradled her to him, wrapping her up, reassuring her with the strength of his hold that he was here, with her. “He said your phone wasn’t working, so he called. Said you were okay.”
“Yeah, I am. Baby, hush now. I’m here.” Nuzzling the side of her head, he breathed her scent, filling his lungs with the freshness that was Brenda, soothed in ways he didn’t even understand just by holding her. “I’m okay. Myron called you, he told you the truth, baby. My phone got fried, so I had to get someone to ask him. I didn’t want to take the time and stop to replace it on the way because I wanted to be here, not listening to you on the phone. I wanted to be here, with you.”
“You’re okay?” The question was a whisper, her lips moving against his neck, her arms tightening around him, holding him close.
“Couple broke fingers, some surface damage, but nothing big. Nothing bad.” When she would have pulled back, he tightened his grip, keeping her in place, molded against him. “Be still, baby. Let me just…I wanted this. Let me have this for a minute.”
At his words, she subsided, melting back into him, her head resting on his shoulder. “You’re okay.” Said now with more confidence, he still reassured her.
“Yeah, baby. I’m okay. Gal’s okay, too. She’s on her way to my friends in Chicago. They’ll keep her safe.”
***
Twenty minutes later, Brenda walked beside him into the kitchen and when she saw him underneath the bright light, it felt like the room tilted, her stomach pitching in dismay. He had what looked like burns across his chin, cheeks, and forehead, blisters in the shape of fingerprints on his throat. And his hands…she sucked in a shocked breath.
His poor hands. Three fingers of one hand were taped together, probably the broken ones he had referred to. Scabs crisscrossed the knuckles on both hands, black lines of stitches drawn across the hills and valleys in between. The burns, though, they were the worst, the skin of his palms looking like it had been peeled back. Raw and seeping flesh showed through the cracked and broken surface.
It looked like he had put them through a meat grinder, and she winced at the thought of him driving himself home, not wanting to take time for proper treatment so he could return to her. The man on the phone was clearly upset by his insistence on leaving right away and made her promise to take him to the clinic if she thought it was needed.
She pointed to a chair beside the table and said, “Sit.” With a grunt, he started to drag the chair out with the toe of his boot and she helped, adjusting it to give him room to seat himself. Frowning, she realized he wasn’t wearing his own pants. These were too big, held up by a belt, but bagging around his hips and thighs. “Where are your pants, Reu—Duck?” Barely catching herself, she changed her words at the last moment.
“Trashed,” he said, sitting with a huffed sigh. “Fuck me, I’m tired.” He paused, the corners of his mouth curling the slightest amount. “Home, though. Home feels good.” Tipping his head backwards, he rolled his neck with a groan, blowing out a heavy breath. “Feels like I could sleep a week.”
“Let me get your hands cleaned up,” she said and frowned when he shook his head.
“Doc got me before I left. Shot me up with antibiotics. Had to guess, but he smeared all kind
s of shit on me to neutralize the compounds. Covered all the burns. I’m good, baby.” Eyes closed, he didn’t see her shock at his confirmation of what his wounds looked like. Chemical burns. He continued, “I’m just fucking tired, Bee. Made it home, my goal. Hadn’t thought past that, just wanted you. Wanted to be with you.” He lifted his head with a weary effort, eyelids opening halfway, gaze locked on her face. A crooked half-smile preceded his next words. “Wanted you.”
“Then let's get you to bed,” she said, reaching out to tug at his elbow. When he winced, she frowned. “Where are you hurt, Duck?”
“All over, baby,” he muttered, struggling to stand, swaying on his feet once he made it there. “Fucking everything hurts. My whole fucking body feels like one crispy, strained muscle. But, it’s worth everything to get Isabella back for her daddy, her family. Worth everything to get that girl out of the hole she was in. Worth anything.”
Her arm around his waist, they walked up the stairs. Once in the bedroom, he toed off his boots while she worked the buckle of his belt. She unfastened the unfamiliar pants, letting them sag to the floor, gasping again as it revealed even more damage to his body. He had what looked like the worst case of road rash she had ever seen. Skin raw and oozing from mid-thigh to mid-shin, front and sides. His flanks hadn’t avoided damage, with scrapes and burns on his hips and ass. “Jesus,” she whispered, squatting to pull his socks off, thankful his feet appeared to have escaped unscathed.
Rebel Wayfarers MC Boxset 3 Page 56