by J. L. Drake
“Peggy!” I shouted, and a guard glared at me. “Cooper.”
“Fine!” she huffed and screamed for Cooper, who must have been in the bar, as he yelled back at her. “Trigger is on the phone.”
There was bickering before he tore the phone away from her.
“Hey, man, you okay in there?”
“Where is Morgan?” I didn’t have much more time.
“I don’t know. He left the day before yesterday, said he’d be back tomorrow. Maybe his dad is back?”
Morgan wouldn’t leave unless something came up, but why not tell Cooper or Cray?
“You heard from Links yet?” he asked. The bar must have picked up, because he started yelling over the noise.
“No. You?”
“He was here poking around yesterday, but he wouldn’t share anything.”
Really?
“Find Morgan.”
“Yeah, boss.”
I hung up and went to find Brick. Something didn’t sit right.
***
“Stop!” the guard shouted, clearly new and nervous. Sweat rode across his lip and down along his sideburns. His day didn’t seem to be going very well. The pits of his shirt were damp, and he smelled like a jock strap.
His hands shook as he removed my handcuffs. I stepped too close as I passed him and heard the air get sucked from his lungs. He was the guard I would target when I needed something.
Three chairs over, I located Sam and went to sit across from him. He was as white as a ghost.
Tess.
I brought the receiver to my ear and watched as he mirrored me through the glass.
“What?”
His lips parted, and he let out a small sigh. “Links won’t talk to me, only Morgan.”
“And?”
“And Morgan is gone, won’t answer his phone.”
Now Morgan wasn’t answering Sam’s calls? What the fuck?
“And?”
“And I can’t find him. Cooper is a mess trying to run everything. Cray is coming to help. That stupid blonde behind the bar can’t count to ten, and Links wouldn’t even give me a moment of his time when he was at the club yesterday.” Sam tugged at his red tie. “Fuck forbid he answers his phone today. He won’t even text me.”
My thumb rubbed over my ring finger as I thought about what the fuck was going down at my club. A bright red head caught my attention. I glanced over and saw Brick ease in two seats down from me. He gave me a questioning look when he caught my grim expression.
The guard smacked his shoulder so he’d focus on Minnie. He picked up the receiver, and his jaw locked in place when Minnie slowly shook her head.
No sign of Tess yet.
“Sam,” I grunted, darkness escaping from my tongue, “find Links, or I will find another lawyer.”
I heard him call out my name as I slammed the receiver down and yelled for a guard.
We were done here.
I saw the stress that hung heavily in Minnie’s eyes when her gaze moved up to mine. She looked drained. She forced a weak smile, and I waited a beat before Brick and I stepped through the door.
None of this was supposed to happen. I always had a plan, and this wasn’t it.
“Inmate number 909576, Vineyard.” The young guard tried to sound scary, but his voice cracked when he met my gaze. “You have, um, yard duty.”
I stared blankly and waited for him to lead the way. Fuck, I needed to kill someone.
The yard was mainly hard-packed dirt. The few little sprigs of grass that tried desperately to survive were slowly being choked to death under the boots of hundreds of inmates. It seemed like random groups at first glance, but each cluster was in a specific spot divided by race.
I glanced at Rail as he rolled a cigarette like it was the fifties, and Brick eyed the Koreans, who felt we didn’t belong here.
A guard with shiny black boots stepped into the yard and walked the inside perimeter. He didn’t carry a gun or a baton, and his unmarked hands were a dead giveaway that he wasn’t a fighter. Once he completed his rounds, he eased down onto a bucket and started to drum a song. It was Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” I noticed the leaders of each gang tuned in to him and stopped what they were doing.
A dark chill filled the yard, and the scruffy hair on the backs of the wild beasts inside me stood to attention as they started to hiss.
A big Hispanic man cast a shadow over my face and cracked his knuckles like he was about to fight. “Heard you take out some of my men.” His English was broken, but I understood enough.
I nodded and blew a puff of smoke toward him.
He snapped his fingers, and the rest of his gang joined him.
“You die now.”
Flip.
***
Tess
I woke to a tightness in my lungs. My body was nearly frozen, but what caught my attention were the little drops of rain that tapped my face. A storm was coming; the clouds were low and heavy. When I moved, I felt it, a thick, heavy chain wrapped snugly around my neck. I was attached to the trunk of a tree.
Seriously? I fought to keep back the panic. What the fuck was this, Black Snake Moan? Oh, my God, it was terrifying!
“Are you enjoying the show?”
I screamed inside my head. The house was black, and I wondered what time it was.
Suddenly, the air was trapped in my lungs as something dark raced by. I was limited in my head movement, so I strained to move my eyes.
Shit, shit, shit. The little hairs on my neck stood to attention, like a wolf aware of immediate danger.
“Tess,” Jace hissed from behind me.
Oh, fuck, no!
I tried to pull away, but I didn’t have much wiggle room.
“Stop!” His lips touched my ear, and I wanted to claw his eyes out. “I get it you hate me. Whatever. But you will listen to me if you want to get the hell out of here.” I felt him jiggle the chain.
“Don’t want your help,” I hissed.
He let out a dark chuckle. “Yeah, you seem to be in good shape.”
I bit my tongue as he fiddled some more with the chains. I hated that I felt a heavy sadness inside over him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I made a bad decision, but he promised to help find my sister.” Jace had mentioned his sister to me once before, that they were separated when she was sixteen, and he’d always wanted to know where she was. I knew he just wanted family, but that was the club, and he’d pissed all over it.
Although a part of me wanted to hug him, the other part wanted to stab him in the gut, just once, to make my point.
“What was the information for?”
I felt the chain give way. Its tension went lax, and I sucked in a deep breath of relief.
“You.”
“So, you led them right to me. The night Trigger took me home, we got ambushed in the mountains. That was you?”
My stomach twisted into knots. So much could have gone wrong, and it all would have been his doing.
He carefully moved us to stay in the shadows.
“I’m sorry, Tess. I know it doesn’t count for much to you, but it does to me. Now…” His voice turned sharper, and I knew the talk was over. We were out of time. “There is a river four miles from here, which leads to a lake. You have to reach it, or the drone will find you.”
“How? I can’t seem to outrun it.”
“You won’t, unless you hit the river. It reads body heat. Get in the water and hold your damn breath. Gimme your hand.”
I pulled away, annoyed.
“Give it to me,” he nearly shouted. I did, and he sliced my palm and squeezed the blood over the grass. “You never go down easy, so we need to play that up.”
My head swarmed with a million questions, but most of all, my heart broke. Jace was young, like a child in a grown-up’s body. He just wanted to get to his family.
I started to panic, and I wasn’t sure if I was more scared to be alone out there or of the beati
ng Gus would get once they realized I was gone.
“Jace,” I grabbed his shoulders, “come with me! We can tell Trigger the truth. That it was a mistake.”
“They’re going to kill Gus.” I froze in place as the rain pelted all around us. “I’m the only one who can stop that from happening.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Gus was too important to me.
“Here.” He handed me a flip phone. “I don’t know if it will work, but it’s from Fox’s room.”
“Fox?” I tried to gain as much information as I could. The look on Jace’s face made me more curious.
“Does the name Green Bend mean anything to you?”
“Ahh…” I searched my spinning head. “No, I don’t know.”
I could tell he knew more than what he was offering.
“Spit it out, Jace,” I glanced at the house and wondered how long it would be before they realized I was missing.
“When you get home, alone, check the USB drive for a file called Skeleton Key.”
“What does all that mean?”
“Tess, you need to leave now. Two miles to the river, one more to the road. Stay off the road, follow the tree line. Once in town, call a cab.” He handed me a roll of money, and I quickly tucked it into my soaking wet jean shorts.
“Jace!” I started to panic again with the thought of leaving Gus here on his own. Lightning flashed across the sky, and Jace seemed to match my internal fear.
“Run, Tess!”
I turned and disappeared into the corn maze.
“Fuck.” I stopped to lean forward against my thighs and clear the memory from my head. I had been walking for hours, the sun was starting to set, and I couldn’t for the life of me find the damn river. What screwed with my head even more was the fact the drone hadn’t been around. Why?
My stomach grumbled to remind me that I hadn’t eaten. I had been drinking the water that ran off the leaves in the field. That wouldn’t last much longer, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take of being surrounded by nothing but corn. I was becoming claustrophobic.
Thud.
I once again tripped over a dead body with a missing stomach. My own stomach took a turn as I put two and two together. I remembered I’d been fed corn for a week at the house. Human bodies fertilized the corn field. Sweet Jesus, I was Hannibal Lecter.
As I peeled myself up, I spotted a little flashlight tucked into a case on the corpse’s belt. I wiggled it free, and the light flickered on. It must have been waterproof. I would like to say I’d never stolen off a dead person before, but that would be lying. I had, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time. It wasn’t like they were going to need it.
I held my sore foot up to his shoes and saw they were about a size too big, but I didn’t care. With a pull, I freed the boat-looking shoes and jammed both feet in. The backs folded inward, which created a slip-on shoe, but anything was better than bare feet.
I wanted his shirt too, as the temperature had dropped again. The sun was quickly fading from between the leaves, and I didn’t want to take the time to get it off him. I should keep moving.
The drum of my heartbeat sped up as I saw a light a few yards away. My arms pumped, and I picked up my knees.
So close.
At the edge of the field, I froze. There was Zay with a flashlight, running it along the perimeter of the corn, and beyond him was the river. I quickly stepped back into the corn and waited for the light to pass.
Dammit!
This can’t be it.
Not now, not when I’ve come this far.
They’ll kill me or Gus.
Crouching, I grabbed a few rocks and tossed them over into the water behind him. The light whirled around, and he came close to the water’s edge.
I tossed another small one a few feet away.
“You see something?” Fox the meathead Stripe Back grunted from his four-wheeler. It was a suitable ride for him.
“Fish jumping,” Zay muttered, annoyed.
“She can’t escape.”
Zay shook his head. “Allen will lose his shit.”
“We could just say we found her dead.”
“We have to find her first.” Zay pulled out his cell phone and answered it. “Any luck?”
As soon as he turned his back and Fox took a seat on the back of Zay’s truck, I slid my body into the water. I was careful not to cause many ripples, and I took in a deep breath then fully submerged into the black water.
It was murky and hard to see, but I felt around the edge of the river and tried to pull myself along. It was a slow pace, and my air was running out, but I held it longer than I thought I could. Finally, I allowed myself up to breathe through my nose. I ducked back down when the light skimmed above me. Once it moved, I slowly rose and took another deep breath.
“What’s that?” Fox hopped up and strained to see.
“I’m looking! For fuck’s sake, shut up.” Zay turned and tossed the flashlight in the pickup and lit a cigarette. “She’ll show up. No one ever makes it past the river.”
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride that I was beating them at their own game.
“Hey!” Allen yelled from somewhere. “What the fuck?”
I didn’t wait around. I sucked in a deep breath and slid back under and swam hard toward the opposite bank.
I felt something sharp wrap around my leg. The pain was terrible, and a silent cry ripped through me. I tasted copper in my mouth and realized I had bitten my tongue. I wondered how bad it was, and fear flooded me as I wondered if I would still be able to walk.
With a hard tug, I freed myself and carefully continued to suck air and swim underwater until I reached the edge of the river on the opposite side.
Oh, my God, I could barely think straight. The pain throbbed from mid-thigh down to my ankle.
A quick glance with the flashlight, and I saw a deep, angry scratch, but it hurt a lot worse than it really was.
The flashlight suddenly gave me an idea. As much as I didn’t want to give it up, I thought this would benefit me more.
I dropped the flashlight into the water and ripped a part of my shirt, balled it up, and tossed it on top. My hope was they would think I drowned, or at the very least would spend some more time here looking for me.
Getting back into that water wasn’t an option. I was terrified to think of what I could catch from that death-infected water. I wouldn’t have put it past Allen to sink some of his dead bodies in the river too.
I was exhausted, and my leg throbbed, but I had to crouch and head away from the water’s edge to put as much distance as I could between them and me.
“Ouch.” I clung to a tree trunk to catch my breath. My skin felt sticky from the mist. It made it so hard to see, and every direction looked the same. The early morning light made it just bright enough that I could see a few feet in front of me.
A flash of color made my stomach drop. I ducked down and waited. Snap! I drew my legs up to my chest to make myself smaller and tried not to move. I searched for a possible weapon. There were a few big rocks and some weak-looking sticks, but that was about it. Or…
I balanced my foot on the stump and hauled myself up with all my might, my leg burning with the effort. It was just high enough that I could reach the next branch and hike myself up. The bark chafed my legs, but I ignored the pain and shimmied upward.
I froze when I caught sight of the orange t-shirt. I flattened my body and held my breath while he came into view. Shit. I recognized one of Allen’s men. He had picked up my trail and followed me from the water’s edge. A slow prickle of fear traveled across my skin, and I knew it was a fight or die situation if he spotted me. He had about thirty-five pounds on me, so I needed to be smart about my next move.
“Did you lose her?” His radio crackled.
“Nah, the bitch is nearby. I can feel her. She’ll show herself soon.”
My fingers started to sweat as he stood directly under me. I was about six feet above him,
and all he had to do was look up.
I felt the blood drop before it fell. I tried to roll my leg against the bark so it could absorb it, but I wasn’t fast enough.
Drip.
Drip.
Shit.
He reached up and swiped the back of his neck then held his hand up to his face and looked at the blood. Just as he did, I dropped from the branch, twisted in the air, and fell directly on top of his head. We both landed hard, but he was quicker to his feet than I was. He scrambled to catch my foot. He yanked me toward him, and I flipped over and clawed at the ground.
“You stupid bitch!” he screamed, and I managed to kick hard and catch him right in the windpipe. That shut him up momentarily.
I started to run, but I only got about two yards before he pushed me from behind and sent me flying down a slope. I hit a tree trunk and knocked the wind out of me. He came into view above me with a rock high over his head, and his crazy eyes and heaving chest told me he was going to do it.
I rolled to my side with a scream just as the rock slammed down. I hopped to my feet, using pure adrenaline to channel my next move. I kicked his ankle and shoved him back with all my strength, and he fell back against a tree. His feet made a funny twitch, and his body jerked. I looked at his face with disbelief as blood trickled from his mouth. He looked as surprised as I felt. We both looked down at the dead branch that stuck out of his stomach.
“Bitch,” he sputtered.
“Says the guy with wood stuck through him.” I couldn’t help but smile as the life slowly drained out of him. The skin around his eyes went lax, and his locked jaw slipped out of its hold. He was gone.
It was gross, but shit. “Ooo-rah, baby!”
It was daylight by the time I got to the road. I wanted to cry with excitement at finding it at all. I stopped and looked down at my leg. Blood seeped out of my knee and from several places down my leg, my calf was red and swollen, and my ankle was sore, but nothing mattered right now except finding my way out of this hellhole.
Later, I sat on a rock and took a breather. I was frozen, tired, and hungry, but none of that mattered when I thought about Trigger behind bars wondering where the hell I was.
An engine in the distance brought me to my feet but also made me nervous that it could be them. I waited to let it get a little closer, and I could read the letters on the side.