The Red Ledger: 5

by Meredith Wild

  “Mariana.”

  She smiles too. “Traje esto para ti.” She threads a tiny pair of scissors through the opening.

  I take her gift, flooded with relief and gratitude that she came back…to help. “Gracias.” I take a deep breath, measuring my next words. I don’t want to scare her again. “Does your mother have a telephone?” I ask in Spanish.

  “Sí.”

  “Can she call a friend for me?”

  Her eyes brighten, and she nods. Thank God.

  I sit up, the scissors in hand, and look around for anything to write on. There’s rotten wood in abundance, so I grab a small piece and scratch letters into it with the tip of the scissors.

  NOAM NAMIR

  Will it be enough? I wish I had a phone number, but all I can do is hope Mariana’s mom will take up the search and somehow get through to Noam. I scratch one last word into the wood, hoping to convey my despair.

  HELP

  I pass it through the opening. Mariana takes it and stares down at it with a little frown.

  “Mariana,” I whisper.

  She lifts her gaze.

  “Be careful. The bad man will hurt me if he hears you.”

  “Okay,” she says in a hushed voice.

  I look over my shoulder. Not trusting Townsend and Bones to stay away long, I turn and wave a silent goodbye to her through the opening before rising and putting the boards back.

  I crawl back to Tristan and rest my hand on his arm. He’s burning hot. I contemplate the little scissors I’ve tucked into my front pocket. I could cut through the rope, but as soon as they found out, I don’t know what they’d do. Especially Bones. Such an infraction could be an instant death sentence.

  I investigate Tristan’s ties as he sleeps. He’s bound heavily with thick knots around his hands and ankles. If I can free him, I can get us closer to breaking out when we need to.

  I spend the next several minutes partially severing the sides of the rope hidden against his skin. With a little force, he could probably snap them free.

  I’m ready to start doing the same on my own when the doorknob jiggles. I stuff the scissors into my pocket and wait for the door to swing open.

  Townsend walks through. I glare at him, holding my place beside Tristan. Townsend’s face breaks into a crooked grin.

  “You his little guard dog now?”

  Hell yeah, I am. It takes everything in me not to lunge at him and scratch his evil eyes out of his skull.

  “What do you want?”

  “Not you.” He nods to Tristan. “A few people have their sights on him, though. You’re important enough to him that it’s made this an interesting game.” He pauses a moment, his grin fading. “Game’s over now, though.”

  My blood runs cold. “What?”

  “The people calling the shots aren’t the patient type. They want their man back.”

  He reaches for me, and I dig my nails into Tristan’s arm. He groans and flinches but doesn’t wake up as Townsend rips me away. Bones is waiting in the empty room.

  “Bring him out.” Townsend jerks his thumb behind him toward the porch.

  Bones snaps into action, passing us on our way into the large empty room.

  “Bad news is your little red-haired friend doesn’t know where Martine took Jay either. So I’m done fuckin’ around with you.”

  Skye.

  “No,” I sob.

  “Afraid so.” He releases me and shoves me toward a chair. “Sit.”

  No. I’m not going to sit here politely so he can kill me. I hold my ground.

  “All right, then. Don’t sit. Doesn’t matter.”

  Bones drags Tristan in. He’s awake now but not putting up much of a fight. By choice or circumstance, I’m not sure. Our gazes lock. I hope he can read the terror that’s ripping through me, because I don’t think we have a lot of time.

  Townsend nods to Bones. “Hold her. Go easy, though. I don’t want her too banged up.”

  Tristan’s expression becomes rigid. “Townsend, what’s your plan?”

  Townsend crouches and unrolls a black bag. “Taking care of some unfinished business.”

  Bones comes toward me. My adrenaline flies. There’s no time. Do I fight if I know I can’t win?

  “Isabel, don’t.”

  Tristan’s voice distracts me long enough to foil any efforts I may have made. Evading Bones is pointless. He wrestles me into a bind in a matter of seconds. He holds me by the arms in a viselike grip so he’s behind me and I’m facing Townsend.

  My chest heaves with panicked breaths.

  Tristan pushes himself to sit upright. “Killing her isn’t going to magically bring Jay out of the woodwork. I already told you what I know.”

  Townsend keeps poking around his bag. “Unfortunately that’s true. Totally separate matter. Boss wants her dead, and the issue’s a bit overdue. Don’t worry. We’ll make it pretty.” He takes out a clear, thin vial and a syringe. “Isabel Foster disappeared in Rio after getting mixed up with the wrong people. That dead body you planted was a mistake. Wrong girl. See, Isabel made it back to the States after all.” He starts filling the vial. “Sad story when another one of America’s youth loses the battle with drugs.”

  New fire heats Tristan’s eyes. “Are you working for the Company, or do you want Jay for yourself? You can’t have it both ways.”

  Bones strengthens his hold on me, as if I have any chance of breaking free. Townsend doesn’t answer right away. He’s still messing around with his bag. Pulling out a couple more vials, like he’s getting ready to mix up something special.

  “I can, actually. It stands to reason that if I could find Jay, I could find you, which was a circumstance they took into consideration once she went missing. So we struck a deal.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Jay’s immunity for you,” he says simply.

  Tristan snarls. “That’s a bullshit trade, and you know it.”

  Townsend cocks his head. “I’m the only one who can bring you in with a clean slate.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Townsend chuckles softly and starts drawing liquid into a syringe from the different bottles. “Never tried this twice.” He looks over at Tristan, lifts his eyebrow. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

  TRISTAN

  Maybe the drugs are suddenly making me feel ill. But when Townsend fixes his stare on me, something about his patronizing smirk and the knowing in his eyes threatens to turn me inside out. The vision I had of him at my bedside shooting me up comes back to me full force. Then I know it was real. It’s all real.

  He chuckles again. “Don’t look so surprised, mate. Getting shot up in a war zone doesn’t wipe your memory unless you get it in the head. Jay sold it to you pretty well, though. I’ll give her that.”

  The pendulum of my heart swings heavily in my chest. Dissociative fugue. That’s what Jay had called it. I’d read up on it plenty since. It made sense with everything I’d been through. “It was from the trauma. That’s why I can’t remember.”

  He nods a little. “The trauma helps. Makes a clear marker in your brain so you know what you want to block out. Then this little cocktail does the rest. Clean slate.” He pauses a beat. “And we’re going to help you in the trauma department soon. Watching your precious Isabel take her last breath ought to do it, I think.”

  He glances over to me, as if asking my opinion on the matter.

  I grimace. “Over my dead body.”

  He grins before returning to his medley of bottles. “That shouldn’t be necessary. The Company wants you alive. As soon as we take care of those pesky memories of yours, they can do what they want with you.”

  I’m seething. Yes. Of all the things I’m feeling in this moment, anger rises to the top. Pure, red rage.

  I clench my teeth. “And Jay?”

  Townsend stands and walks toward Isabel casually. Every cell in my body lurches toward her, but I’m about as helpless as she is.

&nb
sp; “I have a feeling Jay will show up,” he says. “I’ll be ready when she does. But I can’t wait around here, or the Company will change the game again. Besides, Bones here wants to get paid. Don’t you, mate?”

  Bones smiles and looks at me—the bounty.

  “Little higher,” Townsend mutters, tapping on Bones’s hand so he’ll move it higher up her arm.

  She rears back against his massive chest and kicks her legs. Townsend jumps back, holding the syringe away.

  “Now, now, no point fighting it.”

  Her eyes are wild. “Fuck you.” She keeps fighting. Kicking and screaming when Bones repositions her. He shoves her against the wall, ramming her face against it with her bound arms awkwardly crammed to her side. Tears cascade down her cheeks as she fights to no avail.

  Townsend comes close again and carefully unties the rope around her wrists, allowing Bones to take up the task of restraining them. Everything is happening quickly. They don’t have a gun to her head, but they may as well.

  Townsend hums softly and runs his thumb along the crook of her arm. “No coming back from this, love. Going to be the best high of your life.”

  “Townsend!” I shout his name and yank against the rope that’s holding me hostage. Time is running out. To negotiate. To survive. And even though my head is still swimming, I’m certain this isn’t a vision. This is real life playing out. My worst nightmare unfolding in front of me. “I could have killed Jay, but I didn’t. I showed her mercy. If you care about her, that has to count for something. Do whatever you want with me, but Isabel’s already dead on paper. You don’t need to do this.”

  “Mercy’s not a word in my vocabulary. You should have done your job, Red.” He presses the needle against her skin.

  “Break free, Tristan,” Isabel cries. “Break free!”

  Townsend pauses to chuckle. “The eternal optimist, this one.”

  I look down. The frayed ends of partially severed rope scrape against my wrists when I move. Jesus Christ, she cut the rope. She must have done it when I was passed out.

  I twist my arms violently with every ounce of strength I possess. Once, twice. On the third wrenching try, it gives with a silent snap. I glance up. His thumb is on the plunger. No, no, no. I need more time. Anything. Begging will just inspire him to do it faster so he can watch me suffer.

  “Did Jay tell you I fucked her?”

  Townsend freezes. The muscles in his jaw tighten. It gives me a second more to tear the ropes free from around my ankles. I barely catch a breath before I get to my feet and lunge for him. Before he can make a full turn toward me, I take him by the back of his shirt and swing him hard against the other wall. His head hits with a thud before he falls to the floor.

  Bones leaves Isabel to barrel toward me. But before he can reach me, Isabel’s face appears over his shoulder. She lassos her arms around him. Something glimmers in her hand. She raises it and slices it down into the root of his neck. His shocked grunts melt into the puncturing sound.

  The feral noise that comes from her matches the violent strikes she makes. Fast and hard. Despite the way she’s coming at him, he manages to grab her by the hair and tear her off his back.

  She lands with a crash. He stands there, wide-eyed and panting, heavy streams of blood pumping from his wounds, seeping into his clothes and onto the dirty floor. He looks between Isabel and me, as if he’s deciding who he wants to kill first. I don’t give him a chance to think it over. I motion him toward me and back up at once, creating as much distance between us as possible. And delaying the inevitable. If Isabel didn’t hit his jugular vein, he’ll be as lucky as I once was. Either way, he’s bleeding out fast.

  He stumbles toward me and reaches around his waist for his gun. I pitch forward then and slug him hard in the nose. Again and again until I’m sure I’ve broken knuckles and stunned him to the point of retreat. He drops to his knees. Then to his hands. Slowly they slide on the blood and grime until he’s flat on the floor.

  I grab for his gun moments before Isabel’s scream ricochets through the room. I look up.

  Townsend’s got his arm around her neck. The syringe is in his hand. His teeth are bared, and his eyes are wild. Isabel kicks and flails until he brings the needle closer, as if he’s going to stab her with it.

  “Enough!” The word leaves his throat like gravel.

  I lift the gun and aim it at him, waiting to get a clear shot. This isn’t the showdown he planned. I’ve never been so relieved in my life to see the tables turn. But he’s blocking himself too well with her body. Hurting her would be a death sentence for him. Then again, maybe he believed my taunt—that I’ve been sleeping with Jay, the woman he’s come to save. I don’t know if they’re lovers, but God knows what’s going on in his head right now. Or what he’s threatening to shoot into the girl I love.

  “What’s in the syringe, Townsend?”

  He’s breathing hard. Worried. “Pure white heroin, mate. More than enough to get the job done.”

  I’m not relieved, but it could be worse.

  “It could take hours,” I say evenly.

  “Or minutes. She’s got no tolerance for it.”

  I curl my finger over the trigger. “Do it, Townsend. I fucking dare you. I can walk out the front door and get Narcan in her as soon as I put a bullet in your brain.”

  Isabel makes a frightened sound that dies in her throat when I take a step closer.

  The shrill sound of a phone rings through the air and stops me. Again and again it rings.

  “Reach into my pocket, love, and answer that for me, will you? Put it on speaker,” he says.

  With shaky hands, she does as he asks.

  “What is it, Dunny?”

  “I think I found Jay.” The voice on the other end has to belong to the dark-haired one. The one I haven’t seen since they took me here.

  The silence is broken only by the sounds of our breathing.

  “Where is she?” Townsend asks.

  “She might be holed up at a local church. The red-haired bitch finally talked. I don’t know what we’re going to be walking in on, though.”

  Townsend locks his gaze to mine. “What do you think, Red?”

  “I think you should let her go right now before I shoot you.”

  He smirks a little. “You want your girl. I want mine.”

  I cock my head. “Is mercy a word in your vocabulary now?”

  I should shoot him and go find Jay myself. But with the needle positioned right at Isabel’s neck, I’m questioning my threat. I can’t let her overdose, even if I can react and find help to reverse it before it slows down her breathing to nothing.

  Something else holds me back too. If what he said was true… If he’s the reason I can’t remember anything before the mission that went so horribly wrong, then I need to know why and how. If I ever have a chance of getting my memories back, he may be the only one who can help.

  “Towns, what’s going on? Do I need to come out there?” Dunny’s voice crackles through the phone.

  “I’m on my way. Watch the clock. If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes, shoot the girl.”

  “Got it.”

  Dunny ends the call before anything more can be said. The phone hangs loosely from Isabel’s bloody hand, fresh fear in her eyes. Townsend pushes her forward, away from him. He tosses the syringe to the floor and walks toward the black bag like a free man. I track him with the gun.

  “No,” I say firmly. “The bag stays with me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Isabel

  I’m vibrating. Adrenaline and fear race over my nerve endings. The old me might have collapsed under the intensity of it all. But somehow I’m holding on to it. Managing it. Wearing it like a second skin. Like the blood drying on my hands, it’s become a kind of armor.

  Noam used to tell me to act first, think later. The liquid rage pumping through me now sharpens my focus and makes me realize what I’m capable of when I’m running on instincts alone. Everything’
s been reduced to one simple thing. Stay alive. At all costs.

  Townsend and Tristan are in a staring match over the black bag. Bones is a silent, motionless mass on the floor.

  He’s gone.

  I killed him.

  I killed a man.

  I killed a man who would have killed us.

  I should be in shock or attaching a mountain of regret to the violent act. I can’t really process it right now. When I lunged after his massive frame, all I could think about was how much I hated him. How badly I wanted to stay alive and protect Tristan. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t take a second to consider the potentially fatal consequences for Bones or let it stop me from doing what I had to do.

  The front door swings open with a rush of daylight and fresh air. Noam’s figure appears. His slick tan scalp and muscled frame are a welcome sight. Zeda’s beside him. They look around, taking in the mess we’ve made. No one moves.

  “I got your message.” Noam meets my eyes.

  The full force of his worried look creates a fine crack in my new armor. Mariana’s message got to him…by some miracle.

  “Clock is ticking, mate. Time for me to go,” Townsend says, interrupting the moment.

  I look back to him, sealing up the crack with the new hatred I’ve adopted for him. He stole Tristan’s memories… Memories he’ll never get back. If Townsend’s buddy didn’t have Skye, I’d shoot Townsend myself. The supercharged energy skittering through me convinces me I could do it, the same way I went after Bones.

  I walk toward Townsend, stopping an arm’s length away. My breathing is hard. I hate him. More than I did moments ago. But the dynamic’s changed.

  I hand him his phone wordlessly. “Where is she?”

  He takes it and puts it in his pocket. “Back at the house. She came looking for you a couple hours ago.”

  “Shit,” Zeda mutters from behind me.

  He glances between Tristan and me. “I’ll call Dunny on my way. He’ll leave her at the house when I give him the go ahead. Then she’s all yours.”