by Natasha Deen
And suddenly I was sick of playing Bond girl when my friend was missing, tired of pretending I belonged with these rich kids when my home was a box beside a garbage dump, and I was done with Jace and the effect he had on me.
I pushed my mouth close to his ear, not caring about the spark or the excited kick in my stomach. Told myself to forget about it. Feelings were nothing but chemicals anyway, and I’d spent a lifetime drug-free. I wasn’t going to be addicted to this guy.
Ever.
And if I couldn’t wow him, then I’d scare him. “Help me.”
Nothing.
“Here’s the thing. Your buddy? ATM Guy? He has a nasty habit of hacking the ATM machine at Tron’s grocery store and helping himself to the cash.”
Jace’s muscles twitched.
Finally. I had his attention.
“I’ve got it on video,” I said, hating myself for threatening but not caring if it meant finding Amanda. “You help me, or I turn my video over to the cops.” I paused to let my words sink in. “How long do you think your friend will last in juvie?”
Another pause.
“If my friend falls,” I hissed, “she won’t fall alone.” I leaned closer, until I knew he could feel every move of my mouth against his skin. “Help me, or I will burn your friend.”
THIRTEEN
Jace had been furious, but he’d agreed to help and hold some stuff for me. I knew I’d pay—the look in his eyes had said as much. His retribution for my blackmail would be hard and swift. But I didn’t care—couldn’t care. Not with Amanda on the line and the chance to bring Meena to justice finally, finally within my grasp.
Another hour, and it would all be over.
ATM Guy’s name turned out to be Bentley, and we—Jace, Bentley, Raven and I—agreed to meet at one of her favorite parkades on Robson Street. The concrete would block the signal from the laptop, and the busy nightlife of downtown would give us protection and decoys if anything went wrong. From here, Bentley would hack the laptop and upload the files to the Internet. Meena’s life would be over.
That’s what they thought.
I had a different plan. Just because I needed their help didn’t mean I was willing to put them in danger.
On the corner of Burrard and West Georgia, I stopped and waited for the light to give me the go-ahead to cross the street. A gust of wind blew past. My skin tingled, and my sixth sense kicked into gear.
On cue, a black SUV, its metal shining under the streetlights, screeched to a stop. The back door flew open, and Eagle Man from a few nights earlier exploded from his seat. I shoved my arm into the other strap of my bag, twisted and ran. No way was I going to dash into traffic and risk damaging the computer. I pounded down the sidewalk, headed for Thurlow Street.
No point in yelling for help.
People dodged out of my way and almost broke bones as they dived out of his. I tried for a hard right on the corner, but Eagle Man had a long reach. He snatched me by the back of my neck.
“Didn’t think you’d get away, did you, little man?”
He dragged me to the corner where the SUV waited. Wrenching the book bag off my back, he twisted my hands behind me and zip-tied them together. Then he shoved me inside. I edged to the door, tried to get out, but the child safety lock was on. He and his partner didn’t talk to me as we drove through the streets and entered a parkade. We went down a couple of levels, and then the driver pulled to a stop next to a dark sedan.
Through the tinted windows of my prison, I saw Meena step from the car.
Eagle Man opened my door, dragged me out and handed her the laptop.
“Ditch the SUV,” she said, her voice echoing through the empty lot. She shoved the bag onto the passenger seat of her car. “The owners have already reported the theft.” Her gaze flicked to the vehicle. “Older model, no GPS or tracking…still, dump it.”
Eagle Man nodded at his driver, who gunned the engine and disappeared up the ramp.
Meena turned my way, then dismissed me with a glance. “Get him inside,” she said as she climbed into the sedan.
Eagle Man did as ordered, and I upped her evil cred. Whatever she did, she must be Big Bad if a Vëllazëri soldier took orders from her.
“You’re stupid,” she said as she started the engine and put the car in gear.
I shifted to the spot behind her seat. “Whaddya figure, Tiny?” I directed my comment to Eagle Man. “She talking to you or me?”
He didn’t say anything.
“So, both deaf and dumb,” I said.
“Don’t be smart.” Meena was smug. “You can’t comprehend the kind of trouble you’re in.”
I laughed. “You don’t know the kind of trouble you’re in.” Arrogance had made her stupid. Two years since she’d seen me. I’d lost weight, grown out my hair, but she should have been able to recognize me. She didn’t, and it pissed me off. Rocking back, I set my feet on the back of her seat, pulled back and kicked. Hard.
Bad move.
The action lit the match on the dry tinder of my rage. Fury burned through me, lit me up. The scene in front of me became a red blur in my vision as I kicked and kicked, trying to push her seat through the windshield.
If she yelled, if the car stopped or sped up, I didn’t know. The jolt of a Taser wrenched me back to the present. It set fire to my nerves, made my teeth vibrate and spiked pain so intense I felt it in my gums. I collapsed back, panting.
Meena was by the open door, the weapon in her hand, glaring at me.
Eagle Man remained in the front passenger seat.
“Don’t mess with me, kid,” she sneered. “I know everything, and you’re an idiot. You never should have gone back to Vincent’s apartment. Been tracking you ever since. I know everything.” She bent forward and grabbed me by the hair to yank me upright.
My wig came off.
She yelped, dropped it and stared at me.
“Guess you don’t know everything, do you?” I spun and rocked back, then, using my feet, drove all my weight and rage into her stomach. As she grunted in pain and fell away, I pulled my legs close and swung my bound arms under my hips and around my feet. Then I used her as a jumping board, stepped on her and took off running.
FOURTEEN
Between the adrenaline in my system and the rage, I felt no pain. My legs weren’t even rubbery. I ran for the ramp. Behind me, Meena yelled. Her words echoed off the cement.
A sharp, blinding pain hit my shoulders. The Taser. Another jolt of electricity ran through me. Something hard and heavy smashed my legs, took me off my feet. I fell, rolled, and the pulse in my back became a raging fire.
I didn’t scream. Didn’t cry.
Meena’s steps rapped against the concrete, joined by the muted thud of her goon’s. He grabbed and hauled me up, then dragged me back to the car. Meena followed and zip-tied my feet together. “I know you hurt,” she said, “but don’t worry. You won’t be in pain for long.”
Eagle Man pushed me into the backseat, rounded on Meena and slapped her. Hard.
She gasped at the sting and cried out when he hit her again.
So he wasn’t working for her. She was working for him.
“Do it again,” I said. “She doesn’t seem like a fast learner.”
Eagle Man’s large hand went around my jaw and squeezed my cheeks tight. “Enjoy your joke, little girl,” he said in a quiet, high voice. “You won’t laugh for long.” He shoved me back and turned to Meena. “Fix this. Now.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to—the terror in her face gave him all the response he wanted.
Eagle Man moved to his seat and slammed the door shut.
Meena gave me a hateful glare and rubbed her cheek.
“Don’t be mad at me,” I said. “Not my faul
t you can’t do your job.” I laughed, partly from the buzz of the pain, mostly because I knew that no matter what happened to me, my family was about to get justice.
She threw herself into the driver’s seat and pulled out of the lot. “You’ve been a real pain. Two years of searching for you.” She shifted. “Thought I was dead when I saw that video of the house fire go live. Wondered who had posted it. But when you didn’t come forward”—Meena twisted around to look at me—“I figured you had your reasons for staying quiet.” She gave me a triumphant smile. “Figured it was a matter of getting to you before anyone else did. And now I’ve got you.”
I bared my teeth. “It’s nice to be wanted.”
“Some punk kid. This a gang thing? You trying to get in with one of the Vëllazëri rival gangs?” She stopped at the exit of the parkade, checked for cars, then took off. “Who’s initiating you?”
I looked out the window, orienting myself to where we were going. Clear night, with the car heading down Howe Street, toward the water. “You.”
In the rearview mirror, her gaze flicked my way, then went back to the road. “What?”
“You initiated me, Meena.”
At my using her name, she jerked the steering wheel. Her panicked gaze met Eagle Man’s deadly stare.
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear: “One way or another, you’re going down. Courtesy of Danny, Emily and Emma.”
Her jaw went iron hard. “Nice try. But you got the name wrong.”
“No, I didn’t. You got it wrong.” I glanced over at Eagle Man. “You screwed up hiring her.”
“I’m getting that.”
“You mistook Emily for me,” I said. “She was a friend. I was out that night doing a junk-food run when you came into the house and murdered my family. I saw everything, Meena. Saw you go into the house. Heard the shots. Watched you run out as the flames burned. I’m a witness. What happened when the shooting started? Did you just see Emily’s dark hair and assume it was me? Just decided to shoot everything that moved and hoped you got us all?”
“Josie?” Her head twisted my way. Disbelief gave way to recognition. “Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
“Right. Some distraught teen’s word against the word of a decorated cop. No one would have taken me seriously. You’d burned down the house—probably used a stolen gun. How was I going to prove anything? And I didn’t know who else was in on whatever you were doing. What if you had partners on the force? That would’ve been hilarious, wouldn’t it? I go blabbing about what I saw to some officer or detective who turns out to be working with you. I’m sure they’d have been all too happy to arrange for me to have an accident while in protective custody. No. No way. I couldn’t trust anyone in blue.”
She stared. Processing. “But the girl—”
“Homeless kid. Off the radar. When she died, there was only me to remember her, to mourn her loss. No one else knew. No one else cared.”
“Two years on the streets? You should be dead.”
“So should you.” I leaned back and settled in. “The night’s still young.” I looked over at Eagle Man, took in the anger that made his body hum. “And looks like it’ll be a fifty-fifty roll which of us will die.”
FIFTEEN
In 2007, severed feet began washing up on the beaches near Vancouver, along the Strait of Georgia. No bodies, just feet. As Meena hit the brakes and we came to a stop by a deserted house that stood by the water, I wondered if my feet would become part of that mystery.
“Get her out.” Eagle Man sounded disgusted. He stepped out of the sedan and took the laptop. “Find out who else she told about the files.”
Three people, and they were safe in a parkade far from here.
Meena opened the car door, pulled me out, cut the ties that bound my feet and pushed me toward the broken front doors of the house. “You may as well tell me.”
“Yeah, I’m all about doing your job for you.”
She cuffed me on the back of my head. “Who else knows?”
I twisted, looked at her over my shoulder. “In five minutes, the whole world.”
Eagle Man looked like he was going to swallow his face. “Fix. This.”
Meena shook me hard enough to loosen my teeth. “Who knows?”
“Face it. You went wrong on a bunch of levels. But your big problem this time was that you couldn’t go through police channels to watch Vincent’s apartment, could you? Had to do it with your gangbanger buddies, and it took time to get everyone in place.”
“A couple of hours.”
“More than enough time to put my plan in motion.”
“And look how well it worked out for you.” Amusement and victory lifted her voice. “Hogtied and—”
“Hey!” Eagle Man’s roar cut her off. “What is this?” He lifted the laptop. “Where’s the real computer?”
Meena turned. Stared at me.
I stared back. “Who’s laughing now?”
“It’s a shell,” he yelled. “A case and nothing more.”
I shrugged. “There’s a little more in it. Like the GPS tracking device from Meena’s computer.”
“We were tracking the wrong laptop!” He slammed the computer against the sedan and sent the plastic pieces spinning into the air. “Where’s the real one?”
I shrugged. The night I’d stolen her laptop, I’d bought an identical copy at the pawnshop. Dressed as a girl, I knew she wouldn’t look, wouldn’t make the connection.
Meena grabbed me by the throat. “Tell him.”
“No.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“I’m already dead.” I wrenched free. “I died the night you murdered my family.”
Eagle Man was coming at me, and coming hard.
“Why, Meena? My mother loved you. How could you—” My voice broke. “How could you shoot her? Shoot Danny? He was just a little boy. You took everything from them. From us. And Emily? She was harmless—all she ever wanted was a home.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You set them on fire!”
“I would burn the world for my daughter!” She grabbed me, shoved me against the porch steps. “Your mom would have told you how sick Dollie is, the medications she needs. It’s experimental—none of it is covered! You think I can afford two hundred dollars a pill on a cop’s salary?” Her hand went around my neck and squeezed. “Where’s the laptop? Tell me or they’ll kill her.”
Pricks of light sparked in my darkening vision.
“Tell me!”
“Let her go!” Eagle Man’s voice.
Meena’s grip disappeared, and I fell to the ground, gasping for air.
Eagle Man yanked me upright. “The files. Where are they?”
I ignored him, talking to Meena as I struggled to my feet. “That was my mom’s mistake, wasn’t it? Treating you like family, feeling like you were family. What happened? Did she use your laptop? See something she shouldn’t have?”
“She didn’t know—I tried to tell them she was okay—” Meena glanced at Eagle Man. “It didn’t matter. I had to fix it.”
“It was for nothing. She never would have figured out your connection to the gang.”
Eagle Man and Meena exchanged a glance that said whatever had been in those files, it could do more than prove she was a corrupt cop.
“Where’s the laptop?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
He took a step, lifted his hand and cracked me on the side of the face.
With my hands tied, I had no way to hold my balance or break my fall.
He kicked me in the ribs. “Where are they?”
I retched, grateful there was nothing in my stomach to puke up. “I don’t know. I gave i
t away.” That day at Bishops Prep, I’d handed it to Jace and told him to make the files public. In exchange, I’d delete the video of Bentley. I’d told him I was giving him the computer as a sign of good faith.
That had been a lie. It was my end game, my final play.
Eagle Man stared down at me. “Finish her,” he said to Meena. He moved to the car. “I’ll deal with you later.”
“I can find the laptop.” Meena’s voice rose with hysteria. “I can fix this.”
He turned. Gave the cop a look only she understood.
Meena sobbed as she dragged me to my feet. “Tell me where it is.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me or they’ll kill my daughter!”
Meena made an inhuman sound. Her fists rained on me. She screamed at me to tell her where the computer was.
I didn’t say anything, and after she’d hit me enough times to turn my vision red, she stopped. Became quiet. “We’re all dead. Me, you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“My daughter. You’d let them take my daughter.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Meena was working for the gang or that they’d use her daughter as collateral, but it was too late now. I was dead. So was Meena, and there was no way to stop Eagle Man from abducting Dollie. “You took my brother. My mother. My best friend. One for three.” I was just talking, using words to cover my pain. The thought of Dollie being hurt, another innocent victim because of Meena, another fallen child because of me… It was another black mark I’d carry on my soul.
“Let’s go.” She pushed me into the house. Using a flashlight, she traced the architecture. When the yellow beam landed on a column, she shoved me toward it and used the zip ties to chain my hands and feet around it.
“Why don’t you just shoot me?”
“Bullets can be traced.”
“You think the cops finding a body tied to a column will be less suspicious?”
“The fire will take care of the zip ties.”
“Another fire, huh? There’s your problem. No creativity, no imagination.”
“Keep whistling in the graveyard, kid. Lots of transients here. Lots of them start fires to keep warm. It’s the perfect place to end you.” She hesitated. “Unless you tell me where the files are.”