Ride Hard

by Amity Cross

  “I’ll kill you.” I hissed, seething. “I’ll cut your filthy cock off and ram it up your asshole while you beg for mercy.”

  Blue Eyes snorted and raised his eyebrows. “Hear that? That sounds like a party.”

  “She’s got fight in her,” Bailey said, practically bursting from his jeans in excitement.

  “You’ll never win.”

  Blue Eye’s hand grasped my face and forced me toward him.

  “Oh, sweetheart…we already have.”

  Chapter 27

  Chaser

  I closed the door behind me and gritted my teeth.

  Sloane was never meant to find out. I was meant to deliver her to her father as promised, then things would go back to the way they were before I left California. At least, they were supposed to.

  I hadn’t bargained on a lot of things in my life. Least of all meeting Sloane.

  A cough drew my attention, breaking me out of my spiraling thought pattern. My gaze slammed into a familiar face, and I growled. Ginger hair, poor choice in clothing, ratty beard, eyes full of murder, and a perverted desperation for non-consensual fucking. What had Sloane called him? Pube Face. I got the resemblance now I was looking for it. His face looked like a pussy covered in coarse, ginger pubic hair.

  He was standing at the top of the stairs, smiling at me in triumph. Instantly, I pulled my gun and took a purposeful step toward him.

  Sensing my reaction, Ginger retreated down the stairs, and I followed.

  Sloane would be fine as long as she stayed put like I told her. Kept the door locked. Tried nothing stupid. There was nowhere for her to go on a moving train.

  Leaning against the wall, I twisted around the corner, pointing the gun down the stairwell. Clear.

  Rage burned through my veins as I descended, my shoulder banging against the wall as the train swayed. The moment I reached the bottom, a hand shot out and grasped my wrist, slamming it to the side.

  I grunted as Ginger collided with me, his elbow striking me on the temple. I shoved him away, and my grip loosened on the gun. He wrenched my wrist as he stumbled backward, twisting until my fingers loosened, and the firearm clattered to the floor.

  Ginger was limping slightly, giving away his stab wound was still a long way from healing. How many days had Sloane and I been on the road together? It was bordering on two weeks, give or take. Stab wounds didn’t heal that fast.

  We eyed each other for a long second, then he pulled a knife from his pocket and held it out in front of him. My gaze flickered to the gun lying between us. I could make a play for it, but it was unlikely I would lift it in time to fire before he stabbed me. I had to get the knife away from him.

  I had to put an end to him before he got me. Otherwise, Sloane was done for.

  Ginger lunged, and the knife came with him. Metal flashed, and I flung my body to the side, but there was nowhere to go. I grunted in pain as steel stabbed into my thigh, embedding into my flesh, and I fell back against the wall.

  Stunned, I reached for the gun, but Ginger kicked it away as he strode toward me. Leaning over my stunned body, he grabbed my hair, his expression contorting.

  “Eye for an eye, bitch. How does it feel?”

  He slammed my head against the wall, and the world blurred. When he ripped out the knife, I hissed, not giving him the pleasure of hearing me howl in pain. And when he shoved me onto my side and smashed my head into the ground, I knew I was a goner.

  I’d been lured into a trap. They knew we were here. They knew…

  I shouldn’t have spoken to her like that, I thought to myself as my thigh burned, and my head swirled. Now she’s on her own.

  She’s alone, and she hates me. She thinks…

  My head collided with the floor again, and the world plunged into darkness.

  “Hey…”

  I stirred, my eyes taking their sweet time adjusting to the brightness.

  “Hurry up, and take the photo already, Gunnar.”

  I blinked, the camera was heavy in my hands. The sun shone overhead, and the air was full of the salty tang of the ocean. Focusing on the woman in front of me, my limbs went numb.

  “Madison?”

  The wind was tossing her chestnut hair around, and a strand caught on her pink lips. She swiped it away and laughed, the sound pulling at my heart.

  “You’ve had too much sun,” she said. “Just one more picture, and we’ll go back to the car, I promise.”

  “Where am I?” I murmured.

  We were standing on a bluff overlooking the ocean. I could see the cliffs in the distance, hear the crash of the waves below, and feel the sun on my shoulders. I remembered this day. The last we’d had together.

  I also remembered being on a train with Sloane.

  “It’s okay,” Madison said. “It’s been a long time.”

  She rose to her feet and walked toward me, her eyes full of understanding I didn’t recognize. Her fingers closed around mine, taking the camera from me.

  “A picture won’t fill the hole in your heart,” she whispered, the wind tugging at her words.

  “What did you say?” I asked with a frown.

  Her gaze met mine. “She needs you, Gunnar.”

  “Who?”

  Madison smiled, her hands cupping my face. “It’s okay to let me go. It’s okay to love again.”

  “But…”

  The light dimmed around us, and I shivered, my thigh throbbing with a hot pain. My knee buckled, but I didn’t fall. My gaze was caught on Madison’s, and she held me upright.

  “Seven years,” I whispered.

  She nodded. “It’s time, don’t you think?”

  “I…”

  My vision blurred, and I groaned, my head lolling from side to side. Blinking, the haze cleared.

  The ground moved beneath me. I was surrounded by empty luggage racks. The sound of wheels clicking over tracks brought clarity back, and I lifted my head. My hand was heavy, and the knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

  My fingers stuck to the hilt, my blood tacky to the touch. Ginger had put the knife into my hand to make it look like I’d attempted suicide. The perfect cover-up, but he was a complete dumbass. He hadn’t made sure I was dead first.

  He probably thought the blood loss would get me. His need for a slow painful death as his revenge would be his undoing.

  Everyone knew you made sure your victim had no pulse before you left them to rot.

  Everyone knew…

  Groaning, I picked up the knife, my hand shaking. Blood was all over the floor, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. The leg of my jeans was soaked, and a hole was torn in the fabric where the blade had stabbed through.

  Hauling myself up, my head spun, and my entire body felt clammy. Glancing at the floor, I swallowed hard as I saw how much blood was left behind on the floor.

  No time for that, I thought. I have to get to Sloane. I have to get upstairs…

  Outside the luggage compartment, the train car was empty. Our fight would’ve drawn a lot of eyes, and the fact nobody was here made my heart twist. The car was empty. We were the only people in it. No one was coming.

  They’d lured us into a trap.

  Dragging myself up the stairs, I stumbled into the hallway and back to our compartment. Wrenching open the door, I grimaced as I saw our stuff strewn all over the seat and floor. Immediately, I knew she’d run, and if she had, they had her. There was no way in hell Ginger was here alone.

  After what we’d done to them, they would try to take her alive. Make her pay. Tear her apart just like they’d done to Madison.

  Sloane.

  Closing myself in the room, I tore off my jeans, ignoring the pain in my thigh and the throbbing in my head. I pushed it all aside as I bound my leg as best I could with a pair of Sloane’s tiny leggings. Tying the fabric in place, I pulled on a pair of clean jeans and washed my hands in the basin, cleaning the knife Ginger had left behind. Both guns were gone, so it was all I had.

  When I
was done, I opened the door and scanned the hallway. I had to find her before we reached the next station, or she would be gone forever.

  Glancing to the right, I knew she wouldn’t have gone that way. That was the way she thought I’d gone. Turning left, I dragged myself down the hall and into the next car.

  When I found Ginger and his buddies, they were going to wish they’d never been born.

  Chapter 28

  Sloane

  Chaser was dead.

  The realization burned through me, tearing everything apart. My heart, my mind, my body, my soul… That was how I knew my feelings weren’t a passing fancy. I wouldn’t be able to forget him, no matter what I did. If he’d dumped me at Fortitude and fucked off into the sunset, I would’ve pined after him the rest of my life like a stupid little girl.

  Chaser was a part of me now whether I wanted him or not.

  “Why don’t you just kill me?” I asked, my voice sounding almost robotic to my ears. “Just end it.”

  Blue Eyes snorted. “You’ll love being a sex slave, Betty. We’ve got the perfect owner for you. He loves slicing his women open and fucking them as they bleed.”

  “I don’t like it,” Bailey whined like a bitch, still hung up on the fact he couldn’t touch me.

  “Orders change,” Blue Eyes snapped. “We’ve caught her now, so it’s time to make her pay.”

  “I’d rather make her suck right now.”

  “You’re a sadistic bastard, Bailey, but no one messes with the boss’s whores, you know that. When we get back to the Strip, you’ll find another hole.”

  I stared numbly out the window, my entire body feeling listless in my despair. They were going to give me to the head of their creepy as fuck organization. Sounded like he was a real party animal. All cocks, blood, and bondage.

  I should’ve done something. Fought back, tried to end it, but everything was just out of reach. My fingertips scraped the edges of giving a shit about my fate, but I couldn’t grasp it.

  Chaser was dead.

  I shouldn’t have said those things to him. I was angry. Upset. He had a life before me. Of course, he did. So had I. I was stupid to believe I’d been his one and only. If I’d been his at all.

  I guess I would never know.

  “She’s giving up,” Blue Eyes mused. “Can you see it in her eyes?”

  Bailey leaned over me and stared into my face. His breath stank like shit on a hot day, and I growled, kneeing him as hard as I could in the balls. He doubled over with a cry, grasping his dick as Blue Eyes laughed.

  Pube Face let out a cry of rage and fisted his hand in my hair. “You’ll never escape. This is your life, slut. Piss, filth, and cum up your ass. That’s all it’ll ever be.”

  “Don’t forget the slicing,” I declared.

  I kicked him in the thigh as hard as I could, smirking when he howled in pain. I guess there was still some fight in me after all. That, or I just couldn’t help myself. Pube Face Bailey was such an easy target.

  I cried out as Blue Eyes’s knuckles struck me across the face, and my head collided with the window.

  “Try that shit again, and I’ll slit your throat myself,” he said with a snarl as my head throbbed. “Then I’ll let Bailey have his way with your corpse.”

  “Best do it that way because I’d hack off his tiny cock with my own teeth the moment he stuck it in my mouth.”

  “Bitch!” Bailey roared, raising his hand.

  Before he could hit me, the door slid open, and I gasped as my gaze collided with Chaser.

  Blue Eyes pulled a gun with a snarl, and I cried out, but Chaser was too fast. He slammed the heel of his palm against Blue Eyes’s wrist, forcing the gun to the side as it went off. The boom was deafening in the small space, and my ears rang as the two men wrestled.

  Bailey lunged, desperate to join the fray, but I was on him in a flash. I kicked his knee out from under him, forcing him to buckle to the floor with an angry grunt.

  I threw myself on him and fisted my hands into his hair. Slamming his face into the floor, I let out an enraged cry, enjoying the violence a little too much. Like father, like daughter…I hoped not.

  We were squashed in the room like sardines in a tin, but I was hardly aware of what Chaser was doing. The gun hadn’t gone off again, but there was still movement around me as I tried to bash Bailey’s face in.

  Pube Face bucked underneath me, and the force dislodged my grasp. I fell back against the seat and thrashed as his hands closed around my neck.

  “Choke, bitch.” He snarled through a mouthful of blood.

  I clawed at him, desperate to finish the job as I gasped for air. Not today, I thought to myself. Not like this.

  A body fell to the floor beside me, and I kicked, thrashing against Bailey’s hold. Then Chaser was standing over us.

  Without a single shred of hesitation, he rammed a bloodstained knife into Bailey’s ear and kicked him to the side. Instantly, the hands around my neck slackened, and I gasped, coughing as air rushed into my starving lungs.

  Grabbing me underneath the arms, Chaser hauled me out of the room and into the hall, away from the blood.

  It was all over in a matter of minutes, and I stared at Chaser with something close to awe. I’d seen him in action before, but this was something else. He was a whirlwind of death. Precise and brutal. A shadow…

  “I thought you were dead,” I blurted, my eyes filling with tears.

  “Almost,” he replied, his grip loosening. “Almost…” He stepped away from me, limping heavily.

  My gaze fell to his thigh, and I realized Bailey got his revenge but was too stupid to see through the haze of his obsession. He’d made the ultimate mistake and left Chaser alive. Lucky for me.

  “He stabbed you,” I exclaimed.

  He didn’t reply, which was his typical response when he didn’t feel like explaining shit.

  “Help me,” he said after a moment, reaching down and grasping Blue Eyes’s wrists. He dragged the body down the hall, having some difficulty managing with his leg.

  “What are you doing? What if…”

  “These cars are empty,” he said. “No one will see us. It was a trap from the start.”

  I lowered my gaze, trying not to look at the bodies on the floor.

  “Give me a hand.”

  I grimaced and lifted Blue Eyes by the ankles. He was still warm.

  We leaned him in the alcove by the outer door, and then went back for what was left of Bailey. My stomach rolled as I was caught in the gaze of their empty eyes.

  Chaser forced the outer door open, and I grasped the handrail as wind whipped through my hair. The ground was rushing past at a terrifying speed, and it would only take one stumble in the wrong direction to fall. One little misstep and I would be dragged underneath the train and onto the tracks.

  I glanced at Chaser and nodded when his gaze met mine. I was ready.

  Together, we lifted what was left of Blue Eyes and Bailey and rolled them out the door. As their bodies hit the ground, the sound of their flesh being torn apart by the train made me wince.

  I turned away, and the noise was cut off as Chaser heaved the door back into place.

  “Why isn’t the train stopping?” I asked. “Surely there’s an emergency procedure…”

  “Let’s get our stuff,” he said, ignoring my question. “The next station is only minutes away. They’ll stop there and investigate. We need to be gone before they find what we left behind.”

  Picking up my bag, I followed him up the stairs, not liking the way he was limping. His leg was stiff, and I could see the pain he was doing his damnedest to ignore.

  “Chaser?” I asked as we moved down the hall and back into our own car.

  He grunted as he opened the door to our compartment.

  “Are you sure your leg is all right?”

  “It’s fucked,” he replied. “But we don’t have time.”

  Scooping up my things, I shoved them into my duffel as the landscape outsi
de filled with power lines and buildings, signaling the station was almost upon us.

  When we were done, we went downstairs and waited by the outer door of our own car. My skin prickled in anticipation as the train rolled into the station.

  “How do we do this?” I asked, staring fretfully at the platform.

  “Put your head down and walk,” Chaser replied. “Act natural and don’t panic.”

  “Sounds easy when you say it like that.”

  “Follow my lead, and we’ll slip right out of here.”

  I hoped he was right.

  The train finally came to a stop, the brakes screeching. The moment the doors disengaged, I forced it open, and we stepped out onto the platform.

  Chaser winced as he put weight on his injured leg, but he never made a sound. Whatever he’d wrapped his thigh up in was working a treat. So far, only a spot of blood had bled through his jeans. Nothing that would draw attention.

  Putting my head down, I linked my arm through Chaser’s, and we walked down the platform with the other disembarking passengers. I started as a group of uniformed men from the train ran toward us, but they passed us by without even looking twice.

  “Keep walking,” Chaser murmured as a commotion broke out behind us.

  Swallowing hard, I resisted the urge to look back. People around us were already stopping to see what all the fuss was about, but we kept going.

  We turned into the main building, passing noticeboards and waiting areas. Our footsteps were muffled by the commotion of passengers coming and going. Loved ones embraced, taxi drivers loaded luggage into the trunks of their cars, people rolled suitcases toward a bus stop, and we melted into the scenery.

  Exiting the building, we walked down the street, disappearing into the wilds of the little town of Winslow, Arizona.

  No one called out or chased us down.

  No one tried to stop us.

  No one at all.

  Chapter 29

  Sloane

  Bringing the car to a stop, I rolled down the window and looked for Chaser.