I preceded him as I knew his build could be intimidating. I knocked on the door, noting the gray curtains swaying slightly. Someone had been watching our approach.
A blond man about my height in denim and a plaid shirt that bared his chest opened the door. He looked past me at Gavin with wide eyes. I was six feet but Gavin was six-five and almost godlike in size and muscle.
“Hello,” I said, bringing the focus back on me. “Jasper Black?”
“Why?”
“I think I have your truck.” I moved out of the way to show him the truck parked on the street.
His lips pinched to the side. “Yeah, that’s mine. Where’d you find it? Is Keri with you?”
“You know Keri?”
“She’s my kin. Although I ought to report her sorry ass for taking my ride.”
“Oh,”—I palmed the back of my neck, grimacing—“sorry about that.”
“Yeah, yeah. Where is she anyway?”
“We were hoping you could help us with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s gone missing and we’re worried something may have happened to her.”
Chapter Fourteen
Keri
Light spilled into the room covering the cement floor in a striped pattern. I winced, wanting to rub the crown of my head, but I couldn’t reach it. My hands were bound.
Pain pulsed in the back of my skull again as my head jerked up. The light was coming from the hallway and I was in a cell.
What the hell happened?
All I remembered was running down the steps at the motel and going to the front desk to get some menus since the kitchen was closed. Then someone hit me from behind and dragged me away.
“Well, look who decided to wake up,” a middle aged man drawled outside of my cell. “I thought we were going to have to carry you again, but now you can walk.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want?”
“It seems you require some training. For instance, speak only when spoken to.”
“I don’t know what you want, but you have the wrong person.”
He licked his tongue across his teeth. “Seems I have a hard-headed one on my hands.” He unhooked the keys from his belt and unlocked the door.
I inched back against the wall, knowing he meant to harm me. He hefted me up onto my feet and dragged me out of the cell.
“I’ll just have to put you to work sooner rather than later. Consider it hands-on training.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mekhi
“What do you mean you don’t know where my cousin is?” Jasper asked.
“What’s going on?” a female voice called from inside of his house.
“Nothing, darling, I’ve got to run out for a bit. I’ll be back.” He locked the door and buttoned his shirt. “Where is she?”
I held up a hand. “We don’t know if she’s missing for certain. She was just gone by the time we woke up this morning.”
He let out a deep sigh and chuckled. “So, you just gave me a heart attack over a doggone booty call?”
“A what?” I asked, not familiar with all of their colloquialisms, but I sensed its meaning was crude by his tone.
Evidently Gavin did, too. I threw up an arm to stop him from pummeling her cousin.
Jasper stumbled back a few steps, laughing. “I take it you two aren’t from here, huh?”
“We’re visiting.” I was starting to not feel bad about Keri stealing his car. He was a jerk.
“Ah, well, no offense, but I only meant Keri is not the relationship type. Maybe she just went home. Did you try there?”
“Um, no.”
He pulled out a mobile device. “Let me call her?”
We waited a few minutes before he said there was no answer.
“But that doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “She screens her calls.”
“What do you think?” I asked Gavin.
“I want to make sure she’s okay,” he replied.
“I agree.” I looked at Jasper. “There’s a friend of hers that she wanted to see. Mitchell, I believe. Can you take us there?”
“Yeah, he’s a family friend. I’ll drive.”
It seemed right; it was his truck. Even if I didn’t like the guy, he knew the way to Mitchell’s house. I nodded to Gavin and he tossed him the keys.
Chapter Sixteen
Keri
“Here we are,” the man said, opening a door to a small bedroom where someone was waiting on a bed. It was another man, just younger. Maybe about my age.
I cringed, understanding that he was pimping me out. “No,” I shouted. The disgusting man leered at me and I clawed and pushed and lashed out to get him away from me.
“Calm the fuck down.” He shoved me in the room. “Train her, Dayton, or I’ll blame you for her poor performance.”
“Yes, sir,” Dayton said.
“Good.” He left us and closed the door.
Dayton looked at me, his eyes dropping to my chest.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said. “I don’t care what that creep says, I’m not fucking you.”
“What? That’s why you think he sent you here.” He stood up and crossed the room to the door. “Yeah, no. We serve them. I’m just supposed to show you how to do your job.”
I was floored when the door opened for him. “He didn’t lock the door?”
“He didn’t have to. No one is dumb enough to try to escape unless you want to end up dead. Do me a favor and don’t think of running or it will get us both killed.”
Without waiting for me to comply, he walked down the hallway. I did look behind me and ahead of me. Both points of interest were guarded by armed men. So I followed Dayton.
He paused at an entryway, giving me time to catch up to him. Then held the door open for me which lead to a huge industrial kitchen. He handed me a hairnet and we washed our hands before joining an assembly of enslaved workers.
“Why don’t you fight back?” I muttered so that the guard posted by the door couldn’t see me.
“Maybe you missed the part where they’ll kill you, if you try.”
“But you have powers.”
He looked at me as through I’d sprouted three heads. Okay, so these people didn’t have powers which meant those men didn’t take me because of my power or the bracelet.
“It’s breakfast and Lionel likes his bacon crispy, but not burnt.” Dayton handed me the slabs of bacon. You do know how to cook bacon, right?”
I nodded and got to work, laying the slices on the pan. But my mind was already concocting an escape route. If they didn’t know what I was, I could trick them into letting me out.
Chapter Seventeen
Mekhi
“Where did you meet Keri?” Jasper asked, peering at me briefly before looking at the road.
“A party.” I straightened in my seat, not keen on partaking in the light banter. But I had a feeling he would just continue to drone on whether I spoke or not.
Gavin was on the bed of the truck keeping watch for those men. He was the lucky one or maybe I had it the other way around. There was no way that he’d have the patience to sit through this.
“Well, good for her. She seemed wound too tight when I saw her yesterday.”
“You saw her yesterday?”
“Yeah, I sure did. We—”
“You what? Please continue. Actually I’m curious to know what you did to make her take your truck and leave you stranded.”
“You spent, what, several hours with Keri and you think you know her?”
“No, I never claimed to know her as well as you for instance. I would think if you didn’t provoke her, then you would just say so.”
“It’s a private matter. Family business.” He reached up and removed a smushed pack of cigarettes from the visor.
“Of course.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Gavin was leaning against the cabin.
I turned to face forward again, my eye catching an envelope poking
out of the visor. I frowned when I saw the familiar black shape Keri had shown me last night. A crescent moon with a cross going through it.
I smashed his head into the steering wheel.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he asked, blood splattering on the windshield.
I gripped a handful of his hair, yanking his head back. “What did you do to Keri?”
“Are you crazy? That’s my blood.”
I tore the envelope out of the visor to force him to look at it. “This symbol was on the van that tried to take her last night.”
“What van?”
“Why do you have this symbol?”
The car swerved haphazardly over the road. Jasper’s limbs floundered about to regain control over the truck while I throttled him. “You’re going to kill us,” he said, spewing blood.
I grabbed the wheel and steered it onto the shoulder of the road. Then I slammed his head against the window. “I’ll ask again. Where is she?”
“Are you out of your mind?” Gavin said from the back. He hopped out of the truck and came around the front. “What are you doing?”
“It’s him,” I said. “He had something to do with those men trying to take Keri last night.”
Gavin grabbed Jasper by the collar and dragged him through the window. He yoked him up, unfazed by his screaming. “Where is she?”
“Okay, okay,” Jasper said. “I didn’t want to do it, but I got into trouble with some debt and...”
“You sold her, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t going to leave her there. I just needed some time to figure out a way out of this without getting everyone killed.”
Gavin punched him in the jaw, knocking him on his back. “Take us to her. Now!”
Chapter Eighteen
Keri
I looked around the kitchen. Some of the workers were teenagers, but most were kids. “How long have you been here?”
Dayton scraped the scrambled eggs onto a plate. “Four years.”
I cringed at the thought. “No one came for you?”
“My folks died a few years ago and my aunt never wanted me around. I suppose she assumed I ran away.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, most of us don’t have family which is why we were taken.”
I had family—an estranged one—but they wouldn’t let me rot. They’re not that spiteful, but a cynical part of me wasn’t banking on them to come through for me. I wasn’t going to sit here a second longer if there was a way out.
“How many guards are here?”
Dayton shot me an incredulous look. “Have you heard a word that I said? They will kill you before you get within an inch of the door.”
“No, my power won’t let that happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
I touched his hand, letting my magic spread up his arm which made him smile.
“What—what is that?” he asked, the tension in his neck loosening up. “It feels amazing.”
I let go of him and his eyes snapped up to me. The sweet tranquility leaving his body just as quickly as it started to consume him. “What the hell was that?”
“It’s my power and it’s how we’re getting out of here. Now, how many guards are here?”
He kept prepping the breakfast as if he didn’t have faith in my plan, but he told me how many guards were on this floor.
“One in here, two at each end of this hall, two guarding Lionel.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how many are on the other floors, but I’ve heard gunshots outside when others have tried to escape.”
“So, they have snipers outside.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” I took the tray he’d meticulously set up.
“No, you can’t do this.”
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life here? Because I don’t and I’m sure you don’t want this life for these kids, either. I’m going. Now or never.”
He looked at the others then gave me an intrepid nod. “What are you going to do?”
“Get our friend over there to kill the other guards for us.”
“The indirect approach.”
“Our best shot of getting these kids out, unharmed.”
He fixed the coffee cup and gave me an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Good luck. I’ll make sure the kids are ready to run.”
I turned around to head for the door where the guard stopped me.
“Hold on. You’re delivering the breakfast by yourself.” He grabbed my arm. “Who’s responsible for her?”
“I am,” I said, latching onto his arm and letting my power spread up his arm. “How many guns do you have on you?”
His eyes glazed over, letting me know he was docile and ready for suggestion. “Three.”
“Give me two of them.”
He pulled one from his back and another from an ankle holster and gave them to me.
“Good. I want you to take out the guards on this floor and take their guns. Then go to the other floors and shoot those guards too. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Then go to it.”
The guard left the kitchen and I went to Dayton and the others. I handed him one of the guns. “You know how to use one of these?”
“My dad taught me.”
“Great.”
Gunshots fired down the hall, making the kids jump.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll protect you. Just stay behind us.”
I crept to the door and peeked down the hall where I saw the guards piled on top of one another. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Dayton aimed his gun in front of him and took point. As we neared the end of the hall, he shot an incoming guard. He hitched his head to his left, indicating a door leading to a stairwell. “Go,” he said, shooting another guard.
I funneled the kids in before me and we ran down two flights of steps. I peered out the small window on the door to see if anyone was on the other side. I’d told the guard I’d influenced to shoot the other guards, but I had no way of knowing which floors he’d covered.
At the foot of the stairs I saw an ax encased in glass. “Get back and cover your faces,” I told the kids. I took a stepped back and shoved my foot through the glass. I handed the ax to one of the older kids.
“Protect them,” I said. “I’ll check the floor to make sure it’s clear and then I’ll come back for you.”
They all bobbed their heads, frightened, but stood behind the one to which I’d given the ax.
I knew I couldn’t leave them there for long, but it was safer for me to check the hall on my own and use my power. I didn’t want anyone dying because of me. Yet I noticed Dayton hadn’t rejoined our group. I hoped he was okay.
I stepped out into the hall and checked each point of entry. There were no guards there but no bodies either, which meant we had to proceed with caution.
Returning to the stairwell, I signaled for the kids to join me. I kept looking over my shoulder as we approached the docking bay. Then a guard emerged from a desk and lunged for me. I kicked him in the face, sending him sailing across the room.
Before he could get back up onto his feet, I clasped his face to give him a command. “Go outside and shoot the snipers.”
Blood drizzled down his face from where I’d kicked him, but he seemed inured to the pain. “Yes, I’ll shoot them.”
He stood up like a puppet and walked out on the dock. He jumped off the ledge onto the pavement, but there were no gunshots. I knew they wouldn’t shoot one of their own, which is why I sent him out there.
By the time they realized something was wrong, it was too late. He spun around and fired three times, which was followed by the screams of the snipers plummeting from their perch.
“Wait here,” I said over my shoulder and walked to the docking bay. The guard smiled at me just as a bullet burrowed through his forehead. The light in his eyes dimmed as he slumped to the ground. I ducked back inside just as a body hit the docking bay. It was
a sniper.
My hands shot up, aiming the gun at the approaching assailants. As they neared the docking bay, I realized it was Jasper. Mekhi pushed him forward, almost causing him to lose his footing. And Gavin lowered his hands, consequently making the wind cease.
“Keri?” Gavin said.
I dropped my gun, sprinted off the docking bay to run into his arms, and kissed him.
He hesitated for a moment, but fell into a sensual and languid rhythm. I indulged in it a while longer, then pulled away and stared at him in awe. “You came for me.”
“Of course I did.”
Ahem. Mekhi pointedly cleared his throat.
“Okay,” Gavin corrected his statement, rolling his eyes, “we did. You should know your cousin is the reason those men came after you.”
With that tidbit, Mekhi pushed Jasper forward to fall onto his knees. He let out an awkward chuckle. “Cous, they’ve got it all wrong.”
I stepped towards him, socked him in the face, and kicked him in the groin. He crumbled to the grass.
Dayton ran out with his gun ready and slowed down when he noticed all the dead bodies.
“You made it,” I said, relieved to see him.
“Yeah,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “I came down as soon as I could to help you, but it looks like you’re all set.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t take the credit for that.” I looked back at Mekhi and Gavin fondly. “My people came for me.”
He glanced at them and nodded his acknowledgment.
“Help me get the kids in the truck so we can take them home.”
“I’d like nothing more.” He wrangled everyone over to the truck that was parked just beyond the trees and we set off to get everyone home.
Chapter Nineteen
Keri
“So, this is home?” Mekhi said, taking in my abode.
“That it is.” My apartment was quaint, but quite comfortable and most importantly it was mine.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 79