by Lexie Ray
Hunter wasn’t sure she had played that leg of the game well, but she was certain of one thing: Blair was all that mattered.
Chapter Two
Hunter quickly approached the idling sedan and jumped in the passenger’s seat. As soon as her foot was off the ground, Ash pulled out. Driving fast through the back of the parking lot with headlights off, he headed towards a dirt road that would thread through the bowels of Laconia and hopefully lead them to the interstate.
“Where the fuck is Twitch?” shouted Ash, alarmed, looking at the backseat in a series of panicky jumps.
“He’s not here?” yelled Hunter. Not that she needed to. It was abundantly clear that their little transgendered friend was not in the car, anywhere. “Where is he?”
“That’s what I’m asking you!”
“I have no idea,” said Hunter, panicking. “He was here, wasn’t he? We left him sleeping here.”
“Should I pull over? Do you see him in the parking lot?” asked Ash, overlapping her questions with his.
“No, keep going,” said Hunter, spotting a train of police cruisers entering the far end of the parking lot. “Shit, they’re here. Keep going.”
The dark sedan bucked abruptly as it rolled from the parking lot to the dirt road that extended through the woods.
Hunter turned back around, placing her seat belt on. “Keep the lights off for as long as you can.”
“What the fuck is going on? He would never go off alone without me knowing,” said Ash.
“He wouldn’t? You did,” said Hunter with an edge of resentment in her tone, referring to the fact he had met Sarah at a diner by himself.
“That was different,” said Ash.
“You think it’s different because you think you’re above everyone. You think you’re better, the decision maker, the leader. You aren’t,” said Hunter.
Ash swallowed his response. He didn’t want to fuel the fire.
“Did you see Twitch when you came back with Sarah? Did you walk by the car and see him?”
“I didn’t notice,” said Ash. “I wasn’t thinking about it. I didn’t think to check.”
“You should have.”
“Stop blaming me,” he said. “This isn’t my fault.”
Hunter glared through the windshield, furious at the claim. She carefully scanned the darkness for the unexpected. Anything could be out there, and the last thing they needed was to hit a deer and total their only mode of transportation.
“Maybe he had to go to the bathroom,” said Ash, trying to stay optimistic and hold it together.
“You brought a cop back to our motel. If you think she doesn’t have anything to do with Twitch being gone right now, you’re out of your mind.”
Ash took a breath, considering. “I’m on your side, Hunter.”
“I’m not so sure you are,” she said.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” said Ash.
“How could you? You had no right to go behind my back, meet with her, and bring her back here! And you know it!”
“You’re losing it, Hunter! You fired a gun in a motel room! What were you thinking? Twitch probably heard it and ran off into the woods,” he yelled.
“None of that would’ve happened if you hadn’t brought her there.”
Suddenly Ash jerked the wheel, pulling the car off the road. The vehicle bounced and swerved onto the grassy shoulder before he slammed on the brakes, throwing the gear shifter into park. He turned to Hunter in an instant.
“You are going to get yourself killed! All you seem to do is go off half-cocked! You aren’t thinking! You’re constantly putting yourself in danger! And I’m telling you right now, Hunter, you are going to fail at getting Blair out of there if you keep doing things your way! She is going to die, and you are going to die! You have to stop! You have to let me do this and trust me!”
“No, I don’t!” yelled Hunter, trying desperately to regain control.
“Yes, you do! We aren’t going to be able to go into the farmhouse, just the two of us, and accomplish anything but getting ourselves killed!”
“I don’t care!” said Hunter, finally breaking down, tears springing from her eyes.
“Well, I do,” he said. “I know when I need help. And I know when help has arrived.”
His voice was quiet, deep, and unemotional. These were simple facts, and whether Hunter believed them or not, his mind was made up. However, it killed him to see her in pain, crying. He wasn’t blind to how she felt. There was nothing worse than being out of control and ineffective. There was no worse feeling than knowing there’s nothing you can do.
“I don’t trust her,” said Hunter in a whisper through her tear-soaked lips.
“Then, trust me,” said Ash. “I know you trust me. Don’t give that up. Keep trusting me.”
Ash put his arm around Hunter. The warmth of her body and the way her t-shirt draped loosely over her chest made it impossible to resist running his hand across her stomach, scooping her towards him into a firm embrace.
She wasn’t reciprocating like he wanted her to. She didn’t embrace him in any way. She was fighting it by remaining limp and slow, but that didn’t matter to Ash so much. If he continued to hold her, he knew that eventually she would soften, mold to him, and hold him in return.
He nuzzled his face in her neck. Despite the days of driving and the lack of showering, Hunter’s skin smelled sweet and slightly sharp. It was a salty mix of sweat and unwashed hair—a scent he had grown to love.
Ash lifted his face and kissed her cheek. It was soft and supple against his lips. He traveled to her mouth, nibbling her with kisses until he found her lips responding, pressing against his and kissing him back.
Hunter reached up, placing her palm flat against his strong chest. She could feel the muscles beneath his shirt—the flex of his pecs and the firmness of his abs—as her hand slid downward to his belt.
There was no doubt she loved him, and no doubt in her mind that he loved her, but Hunter was beginning to understand that even amidst love there could still be a divide. There could still be a question as to whether or not they were on the same side.
Hunter reminded herself that if she wanted to win her father’s game she was going to have to play it like her father. It didn’t matter if Ash was inclined to go against Hunter in favor of Sarah’s mysterious help. She needed to stop worrying about what that might do, what it could cause, or what it may mean. Worrying was a waste of time. Hunter needed to start to figure out how could she get Ash to do what she wanted? How could she get him to control Sarah in the exact manner that would serve her plan best?
The sixth rule to surviving had always been “sex tames.” Hunter knew exactly how to turn up the heat to influence men. It was a skill that used to make her disgusted with herself at the farmhouse; but, it was one that had kept her alive. It was a skill she perfected in subtlety and calculation during her years in Brooklyn.
It wasn’t to say that guilt wasn’t already being stirred up inside her at the thought of manipulating and controlling the man she loved; it certainly was. However, nothing was easy in this life. If she had to make the hard moves in order to free her sister, then Hunter had no intention of hesitating.
She popped her seat belt off then held his face in her hands, kissing him deeply. She sucked his lips gently, running her tongue delicately over the peaks and valleys of his warm mouth. A moan escaped her lips—though lowly and under her breath—the second her hands discovered the bulge in his lap. He was growing larger, responding to her warm kisses.
“Hunter,” he whispered when his mouth reached her ear, nibbling and licking as the fire stoked within him.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she whispered back. “And we should keep going.”
Ash laughed in a burst of arousal, squeezing her hips in hopes of stilling her from the circling gyrations against his body that were driving him wild—too wild considering an army of police was not more fifty yards behind them. It was too c
lose for comfort.
“We should keep going,” agreed Ash, “if you mean drive. But as far as making out right now…that’s not our best idea.”
Hunter pressed her mouth against his and began kissing him deeply once again, shutting him up. He felt so good. The way his warm hands rubbed up and down her back and the way her body straddled his—perfectly aligned—was making Hunter wet with desire. She couldn’t let herself get carried away. She kept her eye on the prize. She needed to make this work. Blair’s life depended on it.
“Ash,” she whispered. “I do trust you. I need you to take charge here.” Hunter silenced him by kissing him so deeply she seemed to be drinking him in. He had no way of responding.
Her hands caressed his cheeks and down his neck, brushing over his sexy stubble. Part of her wanted to keep this going, unbuckle his jeans, free the length of him, and mount him for real; but, instead, she proceeded with her objective.
“No one but you can get into that farmhouse. No one but you can save Blair. I don’t know why you’ve allowed your confidence to shake. You’re solid.”
“I’ve thought this through, Hunter,” he said, but he immediately lost his train of thought when her hand reached down and squeezed him. These jeans were too constricting. He was straining hard against them but had no room. They needed to come off. It was crazy, and he knew it; but, Hunter had always had an effect on him. She could melt him with a look. There was no way he could resist her—no matter how close to danger they were.
“Think about this,” said Hunter, as she watched his eyelids flutter closed. The stronger and harder she stroked him through his pants, the deeper he fell. “We’re in a small town. It’s the middle of the night. And I’m betting they sent the entire police department to our motel room. There’s no better time to strike the farmhouse. It doesn’t have to be a battle. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. We can slip into Blair’s room. I have an idea of where she could be. Then, we can get her out of there before anyone even wakes up.”
“I don’t know, Hunter,” said Ash, but Hunter could tell she was making sense to him.
“Hear me out,” said Hunter. “Sarah gave me a burner cell. I’ll call her once we’ve scoped the place out.”
“She told us not to do anything without her,” said Ash, breathing heavily in rhythm to her sensuous touches.
“Since when do you take orders? This is our mission. It’s always been our quest. No one knows better than we do. No one knows better than you, Ash, and I hate to see you influenced by someone who has no business on this mission. If she cared so much about Blair or me, why would she be showing up to stop us? Wouldn’t she have gone in there herself already? I’m not saying we should stop her from helping us; but, I’m not going to let her stand in my way.”
“She gave you a cell?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Hunter. “Her number’s already in it.”
Ash ran his hands up the inside of Hunter’s shirt. His warm strong hands against her bare skin sent a rush of heat though her body that stirred and swirled between her legs.
“I want you,” Hunter whispered into his ear.
If she was playing him, and Ash knew she probably was, then he liked it. Their relationship just hit a whole new level, and only time would tell if it would destroy them.
Chapter Three
Twitch couldn’t stop rocking his leg. It was a nervous habit. The tap of his rubber sole against the tiles that it caused, along with the quiet squeaking and creaking of the table his elbows rested atop, made for quite a distressing image. He had never seen the inside of an interrogation room. He had never been inside a police station for that matter. Ash hadn’t schooled him on what to say, what not to say, or how to act. Twitch had no idea what his rights were or if he even had any. Technically, he hadn’t been arrested.
However, this was about to go, and it wouldn’t go well. That was for sure.
The door opened and a portly, slow moving man entered, closing the door behind him. If Twitch thought the room was small before, now that he was sharing it with this guy, it was absolutely suffocating. The man sat, easing into a folding chair. He used his arms as a counter-weight to his beach ball stomach to lower down. When he finally landed, grunting with a staccato exhale, the man looked Twitch up and down.
After a winded performance like that, Twitch had no idea how this guy was going to pull off being intimidating, but Twitch knew that if he laughed at the guy, he’d never get out of this. Instead, he feigned a trustworthy smile.
“My name is Detective Charles Linden,” said the man. “And I have a lot of questions for you.”
Chapter Four
Hunter had lost all track of time. The night seemed to get thicker, darker. Pinpointing whether it was three o’clock in the morning of four was impossible. Even Ash had stopped trying. They had time before the sun would rise. That’s all they knew. They sensed they would have enough time—if they moved quickly.
Hunter and Ash had been hesitating on the perimeter of the farmhouse property for longer than they should have. Waiting, watching, and listening for sounds that weren’t there. They crouched behind a stone wall, peering out with iron-clad gazes at the dark farmhouse and the unlit barn. It was a world of unknowns.
A man was asleep in a rocking chair on the front porch of the house, another at the back. Hunter didn’t recognize them. It was starting to occur to her that she had already killed everyone she knew from here in Brooklyn. It gave her a feeling of relief and deep disgust. The latter was gaining a tighter hold on her, causing both nausea and despair. Who was this person she was becoming? Would she be able to live with herself once this was all over? And the most pressing question of all, how many more would she have to kill before she found her father?
The act of killing wasn’t the hard part. In fact, she liked it. It was the aftermath that twisted her conscience. The thoughts that rose up after the kill, and the undeniable flare of thoughts that told her she liked what she had done and wanted to kill more. Those were the real source of self-destruction. If Hunter learned there were two people living inside her who were competing for control— one good, the other bad—she would believe it.
Hunter pointed at a darkened window on the west side of the farmhouse.
“That’s one of the rooms we would keep the girls,” she said.
“Second floor?” he asked, but it was really a statement.
They both knew dealing with anything higher than the ground floor was going to be exceptionally challenging because they’d have to get through the ground floor in order to ascend higher.
“Which one used to be your room?” asked Ash.
“Other side of the house,” said Hunter. “Also the second story.”
“We don’t know how many men we’re dealing with inside,” said Ash, pointing out the obvious.
Hunter knew where he was going with that point. Her leverage to get him here had been the disposable phone that Sarah had given her. Ash wanted Hunter to call Sarah in. Hunter could smell it coming off his thoughts, but they both knew Hunter would be slow to involve the woman. One of them would have to be shot or captured before that happened.
“There’s a cellar,” said Hunter. “A lot of the girls were kept down there—underground—in a communal room. There’s a hatch door that leads in. See it there?”
There it was—set into the earth—two metal slats wedged against the side of the house.
“If we entered there, we’d just be tacking on another floor to fight our way through,” said Ash, thinking the option through. “We need to locate your sister. I hate to ask, Hunter, but where is Grizzly’s room?”
The question—though simple and direct—hit Hunter like a ton of bricks. The question implied that Blair could be so badly abused, so far gone, that she has taken to sleeping in their father’s bed. Bile inched up her throat, and her jaw tensed at the thought. If Blair had been manipulated to that extent where she suffered from some kind of Stockholm syndrome, she would not blame Blair; b
ut, she could already feel herself swelling with hatred.
“It’s not possible, Ash. There’s no way Blair would be in his room—for any reason,” she said, sounding much more affected than she wanted to.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” said Ash, backpedaling.
“Yes, you did. Obviously. It’s fine,” said Hunter. “But I know my sister and it’s not possible.”
“You haven’t seen her in five years,” he said. “She’s grown from being fourteen to nearly twenty. That’s a long time, Hunter.”
“She’s not in his room!”
“Shhhh,” said Ash, immediately alarmed that Hunter would let her emotions get the better of her to the effect that she’d become so loud. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but we need to involve Sarah.”
“Not yet,” said Hunter. “I think we need to split up. You take the man at the back door, and I’ll take the guy at the front. We’ll sweep through the house and kill everyone who’s not a girl until we find either Blair or my father.”
Ash took a deep breath. Things were getting real. Hunter’s proposition wasn’t a bad one, but he wasn’t sure if she fully understood what it would take to execute it. When all this had started, one of Ash’s biggest hopes was that it wouldn’t change Hunter. He didn’t want her killing. He didn’t even want her to see the killings. He wanted her to remain herself, uncorrupted by the grim acts it would take to survive. However, it was as though the harder he worked to protect her from that, the more involved she demanded to be. In this moment, Ash knew a line was being drawn. If Hunter crossed it, she would not return. He hoped she wouldn’t cross it.
“We could,” he began. “If we do, there’s only one way to do it.”
“Ok? What’s that?” she asked, her eyes widening. She was attentive and ready to do whatever it might take.
“We can’t shoot,” said Ash, bluntly. He hoped she would connect the dots and back out so he wouldn’t have to elaborate.
Hunter paused. Her eyes searched his face, scanning quickly. He could tell she was really searching within herself. Did she have it in her? Could she sneak up on a sleeping man and slit his throat—up close and personal? Could she wrestle him into silence until his body grew limp and slumped to the ground?