He swung out of the car and slammed the door, cutting off his rant. A giant red wagon followed him, large enough for him to lie in. I watched him through the windshield until he lifted the hood. Sighing, I got out and shuffled to stand beside him.
“Know anything about engines?” Hudson asked.
I shook my head. Only how to break them.
“I know enough to know there’s nothing wrong. Just like Mike said. Everything’s fine. The fuses are fine; the hoses are fine. The oil and gas and fluids are fine. It must be me and this voodoo curse I’ve picked up. First the truck, then the Suburban, then my bike, and now my car? That elephant is a walking, breathing hunk of bad luck.”
I hunched my shoulders. Hudson was a good man. He’d been supportive. He’d set his life aside to help me. He was a true gentleman. He didn’t deserve to have his life dismantled by my curse. And taking me home would only feed his growing paranoia and aggravation.
“I’m sorry, Hudson. This is—”
A dark, windowless van barreled down the empty road and whipped in front of the car. The back doors snapped open, and two dark figures leapt out. They were slender and moved like gravity didn’t exist beneath their feet. Both wore black—solid, unrelieved black—with ski masks covering everything but their eyes. The one on the left sprouted a hissing cobra head shimmering over his masked face. The one on the right protruded spikes like a puffer fish.
I was running before I told my feet to move. I made it two steps, then something slammed into my back and I crashed to the sidewalk. I pushed up immediately, but a sharp kick knocked my right arm askew, and I face-planted again. The weight of a small pony pounded into my kidney, and all the air burst from my lungs. Black spots danced in my vision, and when I could breathe again, my arms were pinned behind my back. The weight lifted and I sagged against the bonds. Zip ties—handcuffs by another name.
“Up.”
The command came with a sharp toe to my ribs. I groaned and rolled, pulling my knees toward my chest. Two pairs of hands grabbed my arms and yanked me to my feet.
“Who are you?” I wheezed. “What do you want?”
“No talking.”
The voice identified my assailant as a woman. She pushed me, and I stumbled a step forward.
“I’m not going anywh—”
I didn’t see the punch that caved in my solar plexus. I doubled over, gasping for air around a knot of fiery pain. My eyes watered, and I blinked away the tears.
A barrage of cussing pinpointed Hudson. With my next prodded step, I saw him. He was sprawled facedown above an enormous abyss, hands secured in zip ties. A black-clad, snake-headed figure stood with one foot on his neck. Blood ran down his forehead.
“Let him go!”
Heavy cloth covered my face, then a drawstring cut into my neck. My head was in a bag. I screamed and tried to run. A thick bar slammed into my midriff, knocking me back a step. Hands shoved me from behind, pushing me into the bar. I folded forward on a waist-high surface. The van. I was being shoved into the van. I flopped like a fish and kicked out. Pain chopped into my calf, and my right leg went numb from knee to toe. Rough hands slid me forward. I flailed with my left leg, but all I hit was air and the van.
Hudson’s cussing and yelling abruptly cut off to a wheeze. The van rocked. Something clubbed my thigh, and I cried out.
“Eva! Eva, are you there?”
“Hudson, don’t—”
Pain pounded into my stomach and cut off my air supply. I gasped and curled into a ball. The back doors slammed shut. The van rocked again, the engine revved, and the van gunned into motion.
I’d been kidnapped. For real.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was suffocating. The bag clung to my mouth and nostrils, sucking flat against them with every gasp. The world diminished to my burning lungs and thundering heartbeat. Even those receded, distant. I disconnected from my body, drifting from the pain.
I was losing consciousness.
Panic flared. The bag sucked into my mouth, choking me. Unconscious, I would be helpless. I had to keep it together. In slow degrees, I calmed my breathing, forcing myself to hold each inhale a count of two, then four before releasing it. Air pulled more easily through the weave of the bag with steadier breaths.
I could hear the road beneath me now, the engine above my head. Hudson groaned. In the cab, three female voices conversed in short, terse phrases in a language I didn’t know.
In the midst of congratulating myself on using my years of practice to overpower my emotions, it occurred to me I’d neutralized my one advantage: my curse.
We needed out of this van. Now. Reaching our destination would be bad. My thoughts skittered away from defining bad. If I could kill the van, it would buy us time. Maybe the police would investigate the broken-down vehicle.
Maybe the women would move up their plans.
Hyperventilation tightened the bag around my face. I wheezed, fighting to relax. Panic might kill the van, but it wouldn’t help me. If only Hudson hadn’t insisted on leaving my loft—
My loft.
Were these women responsible? I could picture them going through my place, destroying my belongings. Anger sparked. I could use anger. I had mountains of anger, volcanoes of anger, all thanks to Jenny.
I focused on my rage at being blackmailed into this horrid, terrifying situation. I pictured Jenny and fanned my fury, then pushed it out from my body. In my mind, I wrapped it around the van’s engine and suffocated it.
My limbs twitched with jittery energy. My head pounded.
The van coughed and sputtered. Rapid-fire dialogue pelted between the women, the van coasted in silence, then rocked to a stop. The cab’s doors opened and closed. I listened hard, but I couldn’t tell if we were alone.
“Hudson,” I hissed.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I have a bag over my head. Can you see anything?”
“Nothing. Can you move?”
“A little.”
After a few muted thumps, Hudson said, “Roll over here.” New distance muffled his words. “Try to get your hood near my hands. Maybe I can take it off.”
I scrabbled on the cold metal floorboard, scrunching my knees to my chest to shrink my body in half. I knocked my head on a hard rod.
“Almost there. That’s my forearm. A little lower.”
I wriggled tighter in a ball. My calf spasmed in a charley horse and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. Any second now, the back doors would burst open and the women would pull us apart. I didn’t have time to baby my throbbing leg.
Voices rose outside the van. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but they were male voices, not female. My heart lurched with hope. Let it be cops. Hudson must have had the same thought, because we both started yelling and kicking at the same time.
The van rocked with our movements and our shouts echoed in the interior. A gunshot report, loud and distinct, cut through our racket. In unison, we froze. A second shot shattered the silence.
“That doesn’t sound like the police,” I said.
“Shh.”
It was a bit late for that.
I strained to listen past the ringing in my ears. The yelling had stopped. “Quick, get this off me,” I said. I wriggled back toward Hudson and stretched to align my neck and the bag’s drawstring with his bound hands.
The back door of the van clicked open.
“Shit, man.”
“Eva?” a second male voice asked.
I stilled, trying to place the voice. “Atlas?”
“Hang on.”
The van sagged under someone’s weight; then the drawstring tugged against my neck before loosening. Atlas yanked the bag off my head, taking a hunk of hair with it. I sucked in clean, crisp air and stared up into the eyes of my first kidnapper. Fanned out behind him were enormous gold-plated wings stretching beyond the van’s walls.
“Are you okay?” Edmond asked. He stood at the back door, his bulk filling the opening.
Floating against the palm of the hand holding the van door open hung an enormous wire whisk with a green duck for a handle. Circling his girth like a bizarre construction worker’s tool belt were rolling pins and spatulas and pizza cutters and zesters.
“Get this off me,” Hudson demanded. Atlas eased around me and removed Hudson’s sack.
“Was that the retrievalist?” I asked.
“Nope. Those were ninjas,” Edmond said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before someone calls the cops.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Not until my hands are free.”
“I don’t know,” Edmond said to Atlas. “She might still be holding a grudge.”
“Ed, Jenny said—”
“You guys know Jenny?” Hudson demanded. He sat up in the same awkward listing, bent-knee position I huddled in. “You’re the scum who kidnapped Eva yesterday? What the fu—”
“Scum?” Atlas’s wings swelled and grew spikes. “You better watch your mouth, scrawny. We just rescued your ass. We can leave your ass here, too.”
“Out. I want out. Now!” I wormed toward Edmond and kicked out. He jumped back with surprising nimbleness. I launched to my feet, then fell straight into Edmond’s colossal chest when my legs collapsed.
“Easy, there,” he murmured. He didn’t seem to know where to hold me since my arms were pinned behind me. He settled on my shoulders, arms bent so he didn’t make accidental contact with my breasts. I dropped my head forward and fought off tears. My legs hurt, my stomach hurt, my arms and shoulders and hands and wrists hurt. I’d gotten a good look around, and there was no one else nearby. No police in sight, no Good Samaritan. Just two kidnappers rescuing me from three ninjas.
“Where did they go?” I asked. I got my feet working and stepped to the side so Hudson could get out of the van.
“They ran. That way.” Edmond pointed. We were close to a freeway, and the blocks were long and vacant.
“Which of you has the gun?” Hudson asked.
“That’d be me. Gangsta Boy Scout,” Atlas said. “And for the lady . . .” He hopped from the van and brandished a hand. With a click, a blade protruded past his fingers.
“Whoa, hang on,” I said.
“Turn around,” Atlas said.
“No.”
He blinked at me, then turned to Edmond and punched him hard in the arm. “I told you we scared her yesterday. We were only supposed to deliver a message, and you terrified her with the grab and go. The handcuffs were too much. Look, she doesn’t trust us at all.” He turned back to me. “Do we look like the kind of men who would hurt a woman?”
“Yes.”
A black vortex materialized behind Edmond’s linebacker shoulders, sucking his chef’s tool belt and whisk into its depths, warping reality around its edges. I took a step back.
“I’m sorry, Eva,” Edmond said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Hudson gave me a level look, then turned his back to Atlas. “Cut these off me,” he said. Hudson’s shiny metal top hat half swallowed his head, supported in the front by empty black-rimmed glasses. Lobsters swarmed over his feet, disappeared, and returned in Day-Glo colors. The hint of a woman’s face floated behind him, and the red wagon appeared with locomotive wheels. I looked away. After sucking up the electricity of two vehicles, the apparitions threatened to overwhelm me.
Atlas sawed through the zip tie with his knife. I felt foolish when I realized that had been his intent with me. When he’d freed Hudson, I turned to give Atlas my back. I held rigid, visions of the sharp blade slipping and slicing me open. When the zip tie fell to the ground, I rubbed my wrists. At this rate, the handcuff bruises were never going to heal.
I stepped away from Atlas and turned to put the cousins in my line of sight again. “Where are we?”
“That’s the Four-oh-Five. We’re near West Olympic.”
“Shit,” Hudson said for both of us.
I didn’t know the bus routes here, and I guessed we were too far from Hudson’s place to walk. I glanced up and down the street. Somewhere out there were three crazed ninja women. I didn’t relish the idea of walking these deserted streets looking for a taxi with them lurking about.
“How did you find us?” I asked. “How do we know you aren’t working with the ninjas?”
“Like I told you, we’re following you. Jenny’s orders. To keep you safe.”
“Safe? Where were you when they stuffed us in there?”
“There was traffic,” Edmond mumbled.
“You’re a really hard person to track,” Atlas said. “We lost you completely today. Had to wait around at your place for you to return. Man, I don’t know who you are,” Atlas said to Hudson, “but you drive like Jason Bourne. I had you this morning until you took that left on South Robertson. Then you disappeared, like, poof.”
“I don’t like this,” Edmond said. “We shouldn’t hang out here.”
“Give me a cell phone,” Hudson said, holding out his hand. “I’m calling the cops.”
“No can do. That’s not a good— Damn it, Ed, what’d you do that for?”
Hudson snatched Edmond’s phone from his hand and pressed a button. The screen lit up, then dimmed to black. Hudson jabbed the phone a few more times. The stone cherub appeared, looming large enough to give Atlas’s wings some competition. Hudson slapped the phone back into Edmond’s hand.
“Hey! What’d you do to it?” Edmond prodded the flat surface. Atlas watched, then pulled out his own phone. He pressed buttons, but nothing happened. At least, not to the phone. Emotionally, his gold-plated wings turned to paper clips and cascaded to the pavement in what I decided equated to Atlas losing his savior superiority and plummeting back on level with us mere mortals.
“Of course,” Hudson said. “Of course. Just my fucking luck. Stupid fucking elephant curse.” He ran his hand through his hair, wincing when he hit the cut on his forehead, and paced in a tight circle.
“Seriously, we should go,” Edmond said, eyeing the shadows—and Hudson—warily. “I don’t want to be here when those ninjas come back.”
For once, I agreed with him. Which was how I ended up climbing willingly into the back of my former abductors’ vehicle. “I’ve got to be mental,” I muttered.
“What was that?” Atlas asked. He scooted his seat forward a few clicks, but Hudson’s knees were still squeezed to either side of the seat to fit. I squished behind Edmond, my knees propped against his canted seat, my feet dangling.
“Edmond, you better not have had any bacon today,” I growled.
Edmond’s eyes skittered away from mine in the rearview mirror.
“Are you okay?” Hudson asked. The marble cherub disappeared and sharks circled him, swimming through the tiny Tercel. A giant creepy fish with long, thin teeth and flat, disgusting eyes attached itself to his abdomen. I flinched and forced my gaze to Hudson’s face.
“You’re bleeding,” I said.
Hudson dabbed at his forehead and then looked at his wet finger. “Barely.” He touched the air above my nose. “Do you need a doctor?”
I assessed my body. My stomach felt bruised, the bridge of my nose raw. My hands had a rash from the sidewalk, and every muscle in my legs, arms, and back radiated abuse like I’d run a marathon without any training. But it’d take a lot more damage than this for me to consider endangering a hospital with my presence.
“No. Do you?”
Hudson shook his head.
“Where is Jenny?” I asked Atlas. “I’ve more than kept my end of this ‘bargain.’ I want out. Now—” The phantom cord of the bag tightened around my throat, cutting off my air supply. I clamped a lid on the emotions and shoved them into a padded box in my mind. I’d strand us again if I didn’t get control. “I’m done, okay? She needs to take her elephant back and leave me and my family and friends alone. You tell her that for me, okay?”
“No need. You can tell her yourself.”
“You know where she is?” The car’s locks snapped shut in unison a
nd the dash’s lights died.
“Sure,” Atlas said. “We’re taking you to her now.”
“We go by my car first,” Hudson said.
“But—” I protested
“My car has my keys in it and your purse. We left it with the doors wide open. Jenny can wait two minutes.”
“So your car broke down, and they grabbed you, and then their car broke down? What are the odds?” Atlas said.
“Not odds. It’s a curse. But at least it’s not just me.” Hudson sounded moderately cheered by the realization.
Hudson’s car and all our belongings were untouched. The same deserted street that had made it so easy to kidnap us had also hidden the car from casual theft. I grabbed my bag from the trunk and my satchel from the backseat while Hudson tinkered under the hood and tried turning the car on. Even though it felt like hours since the ninjas attacked, it hadn’t even been a half hour—far too soon to expect the car to have recovered.
I trudged to the Tercel’s trunk. Fatigue, thick and cottony, cocooned me. It wasn’t a physical exhaustion—aside from the panicked flailing in the ninjas’ van, today had been a low-activity day for me. This had to be the emotional drain of having the contents of my home destroyed and then being kidnapped by professionals. Or it was shock. The world had receded a step, sliding a cozy blanket between me and reality.
“Open up,” I said, knocking on the trunk.
Atlas whirled toward me. Golden sand dunes unfurled, sweeping over the two cars and burying Hudson and me. Atlas’s skin melted, grotesquely disfiguring him. “No! Ah, no. The trunk doesn’t work.”
What the hell? What was in there? No, don’t think about it. Except I couldn’t not think about it, not with Atlas’s terrified reaction. Was it a bomb? A body? I leaned close and sniffed. Oil. Exhaust. Dust. I rested my ear to the dirty surface and listened.
“What are you doing?” Edmond asked.
“Seeing if someone’s in there.” The words popped out uncensored, and I had to stifle the urge to giggle. Yep, shock. I’d run out of give-a-damn rope.
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