by Ada Scott
“Sir, I want you to think about what you’re doing, you’re-”
“Shut the fuck up and get out!”
“OK! OK!”
She slowly, over the course of a geological time-scale as far as I was concerned, released her seatbelt. I stuffed her gun in my pocket and grabbed her by the front of the shirt to speed her exit up, dragging her out and shoving her away from the car.
“Back up! Back the fuck up!” I looked at Eliana. “Get in.”
My quasi-captive circled around and I heard her opening the passenger door.
“Run away,” I said to the rookie cop. “Run as if you’ve got a bullet chasing you, motherfucker.”
“Just stay calm and-”
I fired a shot that her ballistics team would have to dig out of the wall behind her in a few hours, close enough that she would have felt it whistling past. That made her forget all about her Negotiations 101 class back at the academy and she was running for the hills.
After a few seconds she was far enough away that she couldn’t interfere, and getting farther with every passing moment. I holstered my gun and picked up the bags, shoving them in on top of Eliana and getting behind the steering wheel.
I floored it and got us moving away from the motel as quickly as I could, at least out of ear shot of all those other sirens. A glance in the rear view mirror made my heart freeze.
Taking one hand off the wheel to reach for my gun, I turned my head to look at the owner of the eye-whites I’d seen in the rear view mirror. What I saw there gave me pause.
I looked in the direction I was driving at breakneck speed and blinked a few times, then turned back again. In the back seat was a man, on the large side, dressed in drag, with his heavily-made-up face frozen in a mask of horror.
“Who the fuck are you!” I yelled, my gun now free from the holster, unnecessary though it was after the initial shock.
“Please man! I was just out… s-suckin’ dicks for a few bucks! I got no beef with you!”
The falsetto voice was wildly out of place with his size, but I couldn’t believe the high-pitched scream when I whipped the car around a left corner and sent him tumbling around in the back. It was enough to dislodge the blue-haired wig and reveal the hair-net underneath when I glanced in the mirror again.
Eliana was losing it in the passenger seat, laughing so much she might have to stitch up her own sides before this was done. I shook my head and couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle in disbelief either.
They call me in when the job is supposed to be clean and clinical. Now here I was racing a stolen police car through the streets of the city, lights still flashing because I didn’t know how to shut them down, with the kidnapped daughter of a Presidential candidate in the passenger seat laughing her ass off, and a cross-dressing prostitute in the back starting to pray loudly for his life.
Sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. What I really needed to do was get another car, before they called in a helicopter.
The radio crackled to life. “Car two-eleven, turn back, the Stodfell Motel is in the other direction, over.”
Since the officer of The Good Ship Two-Eleven was female, I was going to ignore it, but Eliana grabbed the handset before I could even fathom why.
“Negative, dispatch, I’ve spotted a possible forty-eight-niner-zero-niner in progress and I’m in pursuit.”
“Negative, Two-Eleven, your assistance at Stodfell is a priority,”
In the back seat, the drag queen was trying to yell to get the dispatcher’s attention. “Please send help! I’ll never suck another dick, I promise!”
“Never’s a long time, sweetheart!” Eliana said, then pressed the button on the handset again. “Negative dispatch. Not on my watch. Not in my city. The good people of Beech Grove deserve better.”
There was a pause long enough that I thought the dispatcher might have finished her shift, but then the tentative voice came through, sounding like maybe she was even more of a rookie than the officer I’d commandeered this vehicle from.
“That’s… a possible instance of a marriage between cousins… in progress?”
“Possibly more than one, ma’am. There are a lot of people on that truck.”
A car was coming at us from the other direction and I slammed on the brakes while twisting the wheel, sending us into a half spin in front of it. The guy in the back flew from one side of the seat to the other and hit the door with a deep grunt unlike anything that had come out of him up to that point.
“Who is this?” asked the dispatcher, but I interrupted before Eliana could reply.
“Out, let’s go.”
I holstered my gun, grabbed the bags, and stepped out. I held up my hand as if I was holding identification and then stuffed nothing into my pocket as I ran over to the other car, which turned out to be a 1970s-era Ford.
The window was coming down as I opened the door. “Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to commandeer this vehicle for official police business.”
In a daze, the man stepped out of what was no doubt his pride and joy. Eliana went to the passenger side.
“Hey… what’s wrong with your car?” he asked.
“Nothing, it’s yours,” I said, hopping in.
I floored it again, laying down some rubber as I turned the car around its owner and headed in the direction we’d been going. This was the quickest way to the interstate and, so far, there weren’t any helicopters involved, which was a great mercy, but I’d want to change cars again before too long, once we were more than a stone’s throw away from the greatest concentration of law enforcement in the city.
In the meantime, I tried to wrap my head around the ridiculousness of what had just happened. Definitely one that would win a round of drinks at the office Christmas party.
“Is that a smile on your face?” Eliana asked. It was. “Is Mr. Serious having some fun?”
Without answering, I reached over and curled my hand around the back of her neck, pulling her into a kiss while I kept one eye on the road. Holy shit, what a week.
“That’s my girl,” I said, when our lips parted.
“That’s my man.”
Eliana
The first car we took after the police cruiser had a bench seat in front and I spent some of the time just resting my head on his shoulder and watching the road get eaten up in front of us by the old V8. At one point, the road was dead-straight all the way to the horizon. I wished it went all the way around the world and connected with itself so this trip would never end.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t what happened. After 2 changes of car, taking advantage of fresh tanks of gas almost as much as covering our tracks, Eric drove until just after midnight. He finally pulled into a quiet street just outside of Anchorville and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“This is as good as it gets for tonight. No forests around this part of the world. Fuck, I’m tired. How are you holding up?”
“Just peachy. Tomorrow’s the big day, huh?” I said without enthusiasm.
“Yep. Hopefully after that we can spend a few days at least without running for our lives.”
“If we still have lives,” I muttered.
Eric lifted my chin towards him. “You will.”
In comparison with the meal from last night the fare was pretty bland today. The last of our original snacks and some apples we found in the car before this one went down quickly and then we climbed into the back seat.
This one was even more cramped than the last car we had slept in, but I welcomed the confined space that meant we had to squeeze together as tightly as possible. His arms were wrapped around me, his body pressed against me, and I tried to block out everything that might happen tomorrow.
The fact that I might die tomorrow wasn’t making me as frantic for one last session of hard sex as I thought it would. I was a little confused by that, why wasn’t I making the most of my time anymore?
You are. Just enjoy it.
My brow knitte
d as my own voice in my head seemed to be aware of something that my conscious mind wasn’t. I worried at it for a while and it dawned on me.
I was in the arms of the man I loved. I fucking loved him. What better use of time was there? My own internal voice praised me.
There you go. Feel him. Savor it. Remember this moment. If it all goes to shit tomorrow, close your eyes and make sure this is the last thing you think about. The sex was great, I was there, but it’s these moments you’ll want to take with you. He’s holding you, he sees you…
I swore I’d stay awake all night, stretch this moment out forever, but I was wrong. The voice turned into a lullaby and the thoughts turned into dreams. Maybe Eric was right about Jace, or maybe I was falling asleep for the last time.
I had a dream I was on a beach with Eric, nobody was in sight, we had the whole place to ourselves. The wind whooshed through the palm trees and the waves were crashing on white sand so bright it was almost too much to look at.
There was a bright pink flower in my hair, I could barely catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, and I had a similarly colored drink in my hand, ice-cold to help combat the sun, and with a frosting of sugar around the rim. Eric was just emerging from the ocean, the salt water dripping off his chiseled body.
He walked closer and closer, but he never made it out of the sea. The nearer he came, the further up the beach the waves crashed. They came louder with every step and the sun went behind a cloud.
I squealed a little, spilling my drink in the scramble to pick up our towels and a picnic basket. Those waves… they were so loud. The last one crested over me and crashed down with ear-splitting volume.
The water wasn’t cold… in fact, it wasn’t water. Broken glass sprayed down on my face and lower legs and several voices yelled at once as I was snapped back to a confusing reality of noise and movement.
Eric erupted into motion and I was flung forward into the rear foot-wells as hands and guns reached inside the car. The rear window was smashed in as well and more shouting voices came through there too.
I couldn’t make out what anybody was saying, aside from a constant stream of swearing, in the turmoil. Eric was dragged out of the window so fast it might have been an alien abduction for all I could tell.
Lights shone in the car and I finally found my voice, letting out a terrified scream as I was blinded by the glare. Rough hands grabbed me by the hair and shirt, dragging me out the same way Eric had gone.
I was dropped unceremoniously on the ground for a second and saw Eric slumped on his side near the rear wheel of our car, bleeding from his head before a black hood was placed over it and men began to hog-tie him.
“Eric!” I screamed.
“Shut up, bitch!”
I was rolled on to my front and had cable ties pulled cruelly tight on my wrists and ankles before I was carried along behind the unresponsive Eric. They brought us a long way back in the direction of the main road before we came to their cars and they stuffed both of us into one of the trunks.
With my hands tied behind me, and a hood over his face, I couldn’t tell if Eric was breathing or not. I tried to shuffle into a position where I could feel his chest moving, but the space and our positions were just too awkward.
Acrid fear burned in my throat as panic set in. I couldn’t hear him taking any breaths over my own frantic noises and the voices outside muffled by the lid of the trunk. I started screaming for help, but nobody in earshot gave a fuck.
Whatever they were talking about outside, it didn’t take much discussion before our car lurched into motion and did a U-turn, then a left turn back in the direction we’d come from yesterday. For some time, with no light but what the brakes provided, I bumped and rocked along with a body that was utterly still when the road was smooth.
I moved as close to him as I possibly could, rested my forehead against his chest and cried the entire time. They took my man. It was even more lonely than before I met him.
When, hours later, I heard him let out a wordless groan I almost laughed with joy. He was alive! They may have caught him off guard this time, but he’d find a way to get us out of this. He was unstoppable!
“Eric! I’m here! Are you OK?”
I heard him suck a big breath in through his teeth and let half of it out in another groan before his breath caught and he spoke. “My fucking head… holy shit.”
“I thought you were dead!”
“I feel like it. How long have we been driving for?”
“I don’t know, three… five hours, maybe? Back in the direction we came from.”
“Hmm. It’s comfy back here, I see why the trunk is your preferred mode of transport.”
“I know, right? Unfortunately, there’s no first aid kit this time. They support local car manufacturers, I guess.”
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I’m fine, they didn’t hurt me. How are we going to get out of this? What’s the plan?”
Eric was quiet for such a long time, I thought he might have lost consciousness again. No answer came except for the constant drone of the car.
“Eric?”
“Eliana… this could get… bad,” he said.
“How bad?”
He paused for a long time again, but eventually spoke without prompting. “I saw police uniforms, I saw suits. I don’t know where we’re going right now, but your father is almost certainly behind it. Whoever it is… I’m dead.”
“No!” My heart lurched.
“Eliana… listen to me. Eliana! Listen. I’m not trying to scare you, but you need to listen to me if you want to live. There are no plea bargains I can imagine for my life, but if you say I forced you the whole way, you have a chance.”
“No!”
“Eliana… I’m dead, but you can live. Do it to live.”
“No, no, no! I don’t want to go back! Not that! I just want to stay with you!”
“Shhh. Shhh.” He leaned forward and rested his hooded head against mine. “I know. I’m sorry.”
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. We stayed like that, with my sobs gradually quietening down to silent tears, until a turn and a bump told me we had arrived wherever it was we were going.
The tires crunched on a gritty surface before the car came to a halt. A few moments later, the trunk opened and blinding sunshine streamed in around a familiar silhouette.
“Hello, cunts,” said Keith, President of The Smoke Devils MC.
Eric
Keith and his boys had us tied to chairs in a room somewhere while they worked me over a little in front of Eliana. They were holding back, though, just making a good show for her and hurting me rather than killing me.
Thunk!
Somebody’s fist caught me right in the temple. The punches hurt that much more because of the hood. I couldn’t see them coming, it was hard to brace myself properly when the only warning was maybe a grunt of effort from one of the bikers a split-second before I was hit in some unknown area.
Eliana screamed and begged them to stop. Fat chance of that. I was a little confused by the restraint they were showing, but I wasn’t under any illusions that they were going to teach me a lesson and send me on my merry way.
They were waiting for something, and that delay was pretty much the only glimmer of hope to speak of. Another blow came out of the artificial darkness and I held back a groan, trying to listen out for the next hit while half my mind was on working at my restraints.
It was a pretty fucking hopeless situation, they weren’t taking any chances here. My wrists were bound with a combination of cable ties, duct tape and rope as if they were magicians trying to convince the audience that there was no trickery here, and there were mittens or bags of some kind over my hands.
Aside from the mittens, I had the same combination around my ankles, and the chair didn’t budge when I was hit. All I could do was rub the outer layer of restraints against the not-especially-sharp edge of the seat and hope that I could su
rvive the beating long enough to free myself.
Not only that, I had to do it all effectively blind. All I knew about this place was that it was a Smoke Devils MC chapter somewhere. We hadn’t driven long enough to get all the way back to the Hutchinson HQ, so this was somewhere maybe outside of Laredo or Vikandersville.
I didn’t have the brain power to spare for trying to remember the distribution of biker gangs across America at the moment. A whistling uppercut caught me in the stomach and the wind was knocked right the fuck out of me.
The door opened while I wheezed and tried to untie the knot my stomach had just been twisted in to. The guys around me paused as their attention turned in that direction.
“Keith, he’s here.”
Keith grabbed me by the hood and gave my head a little shake. “See you outside soon, motherfucker. Start thinking of some last words. Let’s get the bikes ready.”
The three of them left the room, leaving Eliana and I alone with our sobbing and wheezing. I started to speak, but had to clear my throat and start again.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“You look like you should have said ‘Fuzzy Duck’,” said Eliana, laughing through her tears.
“I forgot.”
“Rookie error.” She paused. “What do we do, Eric? I don’t want this to happen…”
As if in answer, a lone set of footsteps in hard-soled shoes started coming in our direction from the other side of the door. Their unhurried pace set my teeth on edge.
The owner of those footsteps wasn’t scared like a normal person would be coming into a torture-interrogation room. They weren’t excited, like the bikers baying for blood. They were some of the coldest footsteps I’d ever heard.
I lifted my head when the door opened, not knowing whether to expect bullets or a machete. Eliana gasped.
“Dad!”
Vito Mondalo paused but he didn’t immediately answer, until after he’d closed the door behind him. It clicked shut behind him like a hammer being cocked back on a revolver.
“Dad! Please! Look at me! It’s me!”