by Amie Gibbons
I kept expecting him to be right back, bringing in water at the very least, at any minute.
He wasn’t.
I was going insane. I had nothing to do, nothing new to look at, just a big fat freaking nothing.
And that was how I was feeling after the first ten minutes.
This was his plan.
I threw him with that whole seduction thing.
Which meant I had the power.
And now he was takin’ it back.
I coughed, my throat so dry I thought it’d light on fire.
My face hurt again, too much movin’ my jaw, and my nose itched like no other.
I felt lightheaded, near sleepy from lack of energy and my stomach roared.
I. Needed. Food.
No, I needed to get out.
I closed my eyes. “Where are you?”
Flash.
“It’s not him!” someone yelled.
“What?”
Who was that? Both voices sounded male, and I thought maybe I recognized the first.
“It’s the wife.”
“Or for the love of…”
The picture clicked on like a TV and I stood in the middle of a hotel room.
Daddy stared down the muzzle of a pistol and right into the eyes of the agent who’d taken him and Mama away with Woods.
“Ma’am, please.” Oh, that was the first voice, and judging by the New York harshness, it was Woods. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not magic. You could hurt yourself.”
“Oh, bless your ever-lovin’ heart, dear,” Mama said from the room off to the side.
As I thought it, I was suddenly in there.
Mama sat on the bed, a complex symbol spray-painted on the previously pristine white sheet.
“I appreciate the concern,” Mama said, “but I did this the last time she was kidnapped.”
“And did it help?” Woods asked. “No, Grant told me it just messed with their tracking spell.”
“The FBI’s tracking spells aren’t working. Mine will this time. I didn’t know what I was doing then, but I’ve learned a lot in two years. I don’t need magic myself. I just needed to buy it.”
I blinked. Daddy had lied back then. He wasn’t the one messin’ with magic, Mama was.
That fit a lot better into my world view.
Why did I see that? Did it mean they were about to find me?
Flash.
“Dammit!” Mama sent the wooden bowl in her hands sailing across the room.
“I tried to tell you,” Woods said. “There’s something shielding her magically.”
Daddy walked over and hugged Mama back against his chest.
When had the agent taken his gun off Daddy?
Why did he have it on him in the first place?
Daddy let Mama go and pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing now?” Woods asked, sounding more tired than anything else.
Daddy stared at him without answering.
“Senator,” Daddy said a moment later. “You heard?”
The person, a senator apparently, said something.
Daddy nodded. “Whoever you have. We need the best. The FBI is being useless.”
Woods tossed his hands up and headed for the door, turning on his heel and walking back, then doing it again.
Pacing like a wolf in a cage.
“I don’t care what it costs. You get me the most powerful witch on this side of the world and get them on this. I want my daughter back.”
Daddy listened for another moment, said, “Good,” and hung up.
The phone showed Monday just past four.
This was soon after I’d been taken.
So what the blazes happened since this?
“Charleston’s on it,” Daddy said. “He’ll find us someone.”
“You can’t just-” Woods said.
“I can just.” Daddy stared him down.
Woods sighed. “If there’s a witch out there, I guarantee you Grant’s already on it.”
“Not these ones,” Mama said, smiling a smile I knew all too well.
She got that look when she came up with a new way to kill off someone to kick off a murder mystery.
Woods looked between them. “Black market?”
My parents said nothing.
“Holy shit,” Woods said, walking out. “I didn’t hear any of this.”
“Damn right,” Daddy said, shutting the bedroom door.
“I can’t just sit here, Bill,” Mama said. “Not when my baby’s out there.”
“We’re not. Charleston said he could tell it was borrowed power. Truck bought it off someone and someone helped him. A professional. Someone that good will be known in his circles.”
“And if Truck can pay her, so can we,” Mama said like she’d been repeating it all day and still didn’t believe it. “I still need to do something. I’m going to the FBI. I’ll help with… whatever.”
“Darling, they won’t let-”
She looked back, staring at him. “I’m going. You are free to come with me. Or stay here.”
She walked out and Daddy muttered something under his breath, following.
Flash.
“You did not threaten a United States Senator!” the director screamed at Grant in the little break room.
He stared at her.
“He knew Truck had borrowed power,” Mama said. “That’s why he came to check on him when he was first transferred, to test it. And he didn’t tell any of us that until after Ariana was taken.”
Daddy stood behind her, face locked up and terrifying.
I could almost hear him thinking he’d shoot the bastard himself.
He thought Charleston was his friend. But he kept this information because he was hoping once the FBI softened Truck up a bit that he could come in and flip Truck for his magic connection.
He let Daddy think he could find out who this woman was through his contacts, when he had no clue.
Charleston stood half behind the director, face passive but eyes dancing between Daddy and Grant.
“You don’t realize what’s going on here,” Director Foster said.
“He put my daughter at risk,” Mama said. “I don’t care.”
“Truck was our only connection to an entire magical black market,” Charleston finally spoke up. “We suspected he’d bought the power after he didn’t try to break out of prison in New York, that he only had a tiny bit in reserve. I confirmed it when I met him. He had practically nothing left and it was clear it didn’t come from him.”
“Was,” Grant said so quietly I was surprised they heard him.
He turned that glare on the Senator. “He was your only connection. Now, he is a serial killer with an upgrade and my agent.”
I swear Charleston shrank under the weight of that glare.
“This, is not something I will forget, Senator,” Grant said.
“Me either,” Daddy said.
The room fell silent.
“What now?” Mama asked finally.
“Nothing’s changed,” Grant said. “We are still working with witches and vampires to find her by magic. We are following all physical leads.”
“There has to be a trail,” Mama said. “There is always a trail.”
I opened my eyes and lay back.
Truck’s power was bought?
But with what?
He didn’t have his own magic, so he bought it, but that still didn’t explain where the money came from.
And if he didn’t get the money through powers, then what the hell did that leave?
Maybe he did experiments on camera to sell them to some super-secret group who ran experiments on people to collect information for who knew what purpose? Or maybe he sold some of the corpses on the black market? Human body parts were worth a lot.
Or maybe I watched too much TV.
First things first.
I had to get outta here.
The FBI had magical beings looking for me. There was some magic h
iding me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t call out, right?
I closed my eyes.
Calling on all frequencies. Trapped psychic! Contact Agent Grant at the FBI and tell him I’m at a cabin in the Smokies in a line of ones down for renovation. Can anyone hear me?
I kept thinking as loud as I could at the world.
I don’t know when I fell asleep.
I was focusing and then I was blinking my eyes open.
How much time had passed?
I got up, and nearly fell over with the head rush. My stomach panged. It wanted something in it. Something with meat, and a side of some bread made of goo and sugar (so much for my moratorium on carbs), and a huge soy latte.
If Truck didn’t feed me soon, I was gonna take a chunk outta him when he came back in, gun or no gun.
Like he heard me, there was that scraping again.
Wait a second. What if Truck thought I was in a present time vision? Maybe he’d let his guard down.
I perched on the edge of the bed and made my face slack and my eyes go blank. My hands were loose and resting in my lap and I slumped over like a Raggedy Ann.
Truck entered, closing the door behind him like always, and I didn’t twitch so much as a pupil.
He froze, staring at me as he came closer. The gun was out but he let his arm drop down.
He stared me straight in the eyes and yelled, “Hey!”
I didn’t blink.
I was beyond scared, beyond hungry.
I was runnin’ on fumes, tired, achy, and bored. So if this didn’t work and he shot me, oh freaking well!
“Huh.” Truck nodded, closing that last foot.
I jumped up, swinging a knee into his groin and crossing my arms to push his hand and my gun up.
I twisted his arm just as I’d been taught, pressing on the nerve bundles in the thick part under the thumb. His knee hit the ground with a satisfying thud as I pulled the gun from him.
I danced back, aimed at his chest, and fired.
Click.
What?
No bullets.
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed as Truck lurched up, hands clamped on his groin.
I punch him in the nose, turned and ran.
I sprinted down the short hall, and skidded around the corner into the living room.
I barreled through it and hit the door, bursting out without looking back.
I slammed it behind me and ran as fast as my little legs could take me.
Chapter sixteen
Freedom!
I ran. I zipped down the stairs and down the steep driveway as the door crashed open behind me. I hit the first trees dotting the property and hopped up to get onto the hard-packed dirt.
The little bits of plants and rock littering the forest floor bruised and scraped my feet and I didn’t care.
I was free. I was flying. I was unstoppable!
Blam!
I was being freaking shot at!
Debris blew outta the tree a few feet away and I took a sharp turn, zigging through the trees and zooming off to the right.
First rule of running from a gunman?
Zigzag.
Hittin’ a moving target is another thing that’s so much harder to do in real life than in the movies.
Tree, tree, bush, thick underbrush, tree.
I zigzagged as I ran full out, trying to get enough distance to get lost in the vegetation. The woods so close to the nice cabins were well kept, and little actual littered the forest floor and obstructed paths through the trees. But still, my feet were probably gettin’ pretty scraped up.
I couldn’t even feel my feet or exhaustion through the adrenaline.
I was free.
Now I just had to find a road or occupied cabins.
I ran towards the right, where my vision showed the next set of cabins over a ridge.
My legs burned and my breath caught in my throat, comin’ out in hisses.
I always was a crappy runner. I could actually jog when I was a cheerleader and working out every day, but even then I needed my inhaler after a mile or two.
I can sprint really fast for a short girl when I need to, but a minute of a full out run is my limit on a good day.
And this was not a good day.
The adrenaline surge wound down, leavin’ me shaking and nauseous, and I slowed to a walk, listening for anyone coming after me.
It’s not like I was exactly being quiet crashing through the woods like that.
The buzz of the cicadas was near deafening and birds called overhead, but no big man crashing through the underbrush.
I turned again and again, sharp pain shooting through my bare feet. Here was much more wild, real woods instead of the trimmed and sterilized version right next to the line of cabins.
People don’t realize how much decorates the floor of the woods. There’s mulch, twigs, flowers, pollen, crawlin’ bugs, dead bugs, animal droppings, and a bunch of other stuff.
I looked down and my feet looked scraped and bruised.
There was a tick making its way up my bare arm.
I bit down a scream and flicked it off.
I sucked in air, holding my sides. My head swam and it was either sit down or fall down, either way, I was going to the ground.
I sat and listened.
At least it wasn’t cold. That’d make this so much worse.
I took another minute to catch my breath.
Maybe running out wasn’t the best idea, but it was all I could think of in the moment.
I kept my ears open as I forced myself up.
Had to keep going. Had to find the cabins.
I was goin’ the right way, right?
Crack!
A gunshot rang through the woods, far enough away to not hurt my ears.
I slammed a hand over my mouth to keep my scream in and ran for it again.
“You can’t have her!” Truck yelled.
Another shot rang out.
Who was he talking to?
And who was he shooting at?
“She’s mine!” Truck was closer now.
My burning lungs, cramped calves, and bruised and cut feet be damned, I ran.
Crashes came from my right and I turned, veering left.
He was trying to herd me away from the cabins.
They weren’t that far. Someone had to have heard the shots and yelling.
How did Truck find me?
Maybe he was tracking my trail.
Wait. Tracking?
No way.
There was no way in hell he found me in the woods by mistake once I lost him, unless he had help. I leaned against a big tree and focused.
Where was it?
Flash.
The week, fuzzy world zoomed down to the pajama bottoms folded in the bathroom, and a lump in the right cuff.
“Son of a...” I whispered as I looked around the forest floor. I tucked the gun into the pants waistband, tying the scrubs tighter and hoping it was enough to keep my gun in there, kneeled and grabbed a sharp lookin’ rock and pressed the bottom of the pant leg to the ground, using the rock to tear into the soft fabric.
And there it was.
An electronic no bigger than a toenail. It was similar to the tracking device I sewed onto Pyro so I’d be able to find him if he got lost and hooked it into the ap on my phone.
It didn’t surprise me he was trackin’ me like a pet.
And all that mattered was I had it and I could use it.
He thought he knew where I was so I could put it somewhere and ambush him. But where? And how?
My gun could be used to brain him, but jumping and smashing him in the head and hoping it was heavy enough wasn’t the best plan.
I looked around for a good place. There!
I ran to a small, thin tree and put the tracking device on one of the lower branches. It was perfect cuz it was small and right next to a gigantic tree with a thick trunk and a ton of high undergrowth and bushes.
I searched the ground an
d found a good, sturdy branch, then crouched behind the big tree. Truck would most likely come up the same way I did cuz it was the most obvious path through the trees.
I strained my ears and watched the forest, staying crouched in the brush.
Oh God! Something made the bushes next to me rustle and I bit down on the eep, pullin’ my gun.
It wouldn’t be good for getting the drop on Truck since I needed something longer, but it could knock out a creature.
The head popped up out of the bushes and I pinched myself just in case.
I wouldn’t put it past me to have passed out during the run. But the nerves on my arm said I was wide awake.
The giant rattlesnake was definitely real.
And he looked real familiar.
“Hi, Collins,” I whispered.
Crashing came from the right and I turned just in time to see Truck flashin’ through the trees right at me.
Bad! Bad! Very bad!
I hopped outta the bushes and ran to the side as he closed the distance way too fast, raised the gun, but kept it tilted to the side and swung instead of shot.
I ducked under it and choked up on my branch and swung at his head for all I was worth.
He moved and the branch barely grazed him, scraping his ear.
He roared and lunged at me.
I jumped to the side, the adrenaline back, making me shake. I swung again, smackin’ him right on the forearm.
The gun flew outta his hand and he cursed.
I swung again and he caught the branch with his left hand and pulled it outta my grasp.
Crap!
I stumbled back.
A rattle rang next to me, too loud to be normal.
The snake flew through the air, too fast for the human eye to track. His mouth opened impossibly wide and dug into Truck’s leg through his jeans.
“Ahhhhh! Fucking rattler!” Truck reared back and brought the branch down on poor Collins’s back.
A hiss escaped him as his shining scales split, spilling guts out onto the forest floor.
I dove past Truck, looking desperately for the gun.
Where is it?
I tried to focus as I backed away from Truck.
Flash.
“No,” Truck said, the world awash in white.
“It. Is. Deal.”
The voice echoed in the whiteness, the world melting around the edges, puffing up brown and crispy like cooked marshmallows with each word.
“She’s mine,” Truck said. “Melissa is mine.”