The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  Nick’s words from the first night slammed at the forefront of my thoughts: You think I’d kidnap you for something as insignificant as money?

  No fucking way. No way I’d go back to Michael. I had to get the hell out of there. It wasn’t that I thought Nick would hurt me, but the possibility of sending me back to Michael would kill me, and I was too close to freedom to piss it away.

  I had to find a weapon. A woman didn’t just roam the streets of Detroit without some form of protection. I had to find a gun, a knife, something. I’d already cased the kitchen, but, surprisingly, Nick didn’t decorate his countertops with a Ginsu block.

  I turned to the closet, and as I crossed the room, Blue came to a stand beside me. Placing my hand on the knob prompted a bark from the dog, like he’d been trained to keep people out of it.

  Which only made me want to know what was inside.

  Testing the dog’s patience, I slowly turned the knob again.

  Blue whined and paced, antsy—until he snapped out of it in a way that had the hairs standing across my arms.

  Stiff as a board, he stood at attention, his eyes focused on the doorway. Oh, shit. Nick’d said he wouldn’t be long.

  I released the knob, closing Nick’s door behind us, but instead of following me, Blue trotted down the stairs. A deep growl rumbled in his chest, freaking me the hell out.

  “It’s Nick,” I whispered, but the dog kept on, stalking toward the front door.

  It’s Nick, I told myself. When had Blue ever reacted that way to Nick, though? It was like the dog knew his master’s routine, the sound of his footsteps, and something didn’t seem right to him. Which meant, it didn’t seem right to me, either.

  The pounding inside my chest beat a steady rhythm in my ears, and I rushed to the window in my bedroom, peering through the bars. Beyond the adjacent trees, in what I estimated to be the neighboring mansion, lights flickered to darkness, as though a set of headlights had been turned off.

  Downstairs, Blue’s constant low growl filled the otherwise quiet house.

  As seconds ticked by, his growling grew louder, more intense, peaking into the edges of a bark. I couldn’t take my eyes of the vehicle outside, though. A vehicle meant a means of escape.

  My stomach churned with the indecision swirling in my head. Should I take a chance and approach a complete stranger, or stay where I could land back in the arms of a psycho, one who’d surely kill me? At that point, Michael had to have figured out I’d stolen that chip from his desk.

  I’d vowed never to be a victim again. I’d never be broken again. Not knowing Nick’s intentions made him an enemy.

  A quick glimpse outside the window showed the lights hadn’t yet flipped back on. Do it, Aubree. Go now.

  A bark tightened my muscles, and I tiptoed to the bedroom door, peering down into the dilapidated foyer. Blue’s barks turned frantic, and he jumped at the door, scratching the wood like he tried to claw his way to whatever stood on the other side. He sounded like a starving lion ready to break from its cage.

  With Blue occupied, it was then or never. Dashing into the bathroom-slash-closet, I nabbed my coat, slung over the rack, and slipped it on. Not the warmest thing to wear in October, but it’d have to do.

  Holy hell, my heart hammered so hard I thought the damn thing might leap out of my chest, and my easy breaths turned to shallow pants of fear.

  All at once, Blue stopped barking.

  My body continued to tremble, though, as Blue remained by the door, frozen stiff one minute, whimpering and pacing the next. He lowered his head, as though sniffing through the door, then sat back on his haunches.

  Padding down the stairs earned a quick glimpse from the dog, but as though he was too occupied to care what I did, he turned his attention back toward the door.

  Inside the dark kitchen, I searched for something I could use as a weapon. Anything. Rifling through mostly empty drawers produced nothing more than spatulas and a can opener. I twisted around and zeroed in on the kitchen chair.

  Blue’s distant bark stiffened my spine, and I lurched forward, grabbed the back of the chair, and slammed it into the countertop. Once. Twice. The leg finally splintered into a sharp spike of wood, a pathetic little jabbing tool.

  Better than nothing, though.

  Through the kitchen, into an adjacent mudroom, I made my way toward the back door. The slamming of the chair hadn’t interrupted Blue’s incessant barking, and another glance over my shoulder showed the dog hadn’t bothered to follow me.

  I slipped through the door, shutting myself outside, where brisk winds whipped through my opened jacket. I hadn’t had time to change and wore nothing more than a T-shirt and jeans beneath the coat.

  Scampering across the lawn brought me to the edge of the shallow grove that separated the two properties. Christ, I didn’t even have a flashlight.

  Voices erupted from a distance away. Two? Three? Blood pounding through my ears made it difficult to distinguish, but each one definitely sounded deep, masculine.

  The trembles wracked my body, and each breath arrived shaky. Who were those people? Drug dealers? Nick’s neighbors?

  Twigs crackled beneath my boots as I rounded trees and snuck through the narrow forest, until I arrived on the edge of the adjacent estate.

  Perhaps more dilapidated than the one I’d just escaped, the mansion had more of a gothic look. Sounds from inside echoed across the yard. Glass breaking. Slamming, thumping. Crumbling, like whoever was inside had taken a sledge hammer to the walls. Laughter.

  Thieves.

  Across the unkempt lawn, an older model red truck sat parked, the bed of it filled with metal and furniture—objects that backed my suspicions. The closer I stalked toward the truck, the louder the noises became, like a stampede moving through the house with speed. Behind a lower level window of the house, flashlights flickered about, and in one of the rooms on the upper level. Crouching low, I rounded the vehicle and, finding it empty, opened the door and climbed inside.

  My father, in his determination to protect me and teach me to get out of sticky situations, had shown me how to hotwire a vehicle once. That’d been years ago, though, and dread twisted my gut as I bent forward and searched the glove box for something I could use to remove the panel on the steering column. Depending on the age of the truck, a screwdriver could be used like a key to start it, too , but I found nothing. Still clutching the wooden spike, I flicked the sharp tine, testing its strength. Maybe I could use the tip as a key. Or lodge it into the panel to pop it off. Was worth a try, anyway.

  As I sat up, breath trapped in my throat.

  Through the windshield, a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, stared back at me. Dirt coated his pale face, and his clothes were no more than rags hanging off his skinny frame, like he’d been living on the streets. He glanced over his shoulder, toward the mansion behind him, then back at me.

  Breaths arriving fast enough to make me dizzy, I slid my hand across my lap, patted along the door for the handle, and gripped tight.

  Before I could bolt, he opened his mouth and screamed. Loud, piercing. It wasn’t until it reverberated back that I realized he’d yelled, “Thief!”

  I jumped out of the driver’s seat, and the second my boots hit the grass, I dashed toward the woods. A backward glance showed three men exiting the mansion and trailing after me. I kept on, pounding as much speed as I could from the clunky boots I wore, ignoring how they thumped as I leapt over fallen branches and brush.

  Oh, shit, oh shit!

  “Stay on her, Trey!” I heard one of them call out.

  “To the right!” Another masculine voice followed the first. “She went to the right!”

  The sound of their voices put them in their early twenties, maybe. Street kids.

  All I had was a makeshift weapon from the chair leg.

  One, I could probably fight off, just out of sheer adrenaline. Two, would be tricky. I didn’t stand a chance against three, so the best thing was to run as fast as my fucki
ng legs could hammer out.

  “We catch her, she’s mine! You hear? Mine!”

  “Here, kitty, kitty.” One of them laughed, and I choked back a whimper.

  My mouth dried of all moisture at the nearing footfalls. I could just make out the edge of the trees when my legs flipped out from beneath me. The earth crashed into my face, and a shooting sting rushed through my nose, as branches bit through the thin fabric of my T-shirt.

  Palms squeezed my thigh, pulling me backward, and a man’s face appeared, dark, evil eyes above the wide grin stretching his lips. “Ha! Found the bitch!”

  I let out a scream, stabbing him in the arm with the wooden spear. “Get the fuck away from me! I’ll fucking kill you!”

  “Bitch!”

  Gripping my hair, he tugged hard. A slap across my face jarred my vision, sent a flash of light bursting behind my eyelids.

  Teeth gritted, I attacked with everything inside of me as the cold forest bed tore through the jacket, to the skin on my back. Kicking. Scratching. I swung, and my knuckles drove hard against bone. Blood sprayed in my face.

  “Fuck!” The one I’d struck covered his nose with one hand, while a flash of white hit my periphery.

  Pain exploded in my left cheek, rattling bones and teeth. My jaw felt unhinged. Another blow numbed the first as lightning struck my skull.

  “Bitch broke my fuckin’ nose!” Fingers dug into my jaw. “Cunt!”

  A thunderous crack against my cheek knocked my face to the right again. The surrounding forest tilted on itself while the men scrambled to hold me down. A black hole was closing in on my view, threatening to steal my vision. No! Fight it! I double blinked and concentrated. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.

  Two dirty-faced, pale skin men stared down at me with missing teeth, their rancid breath like something had died in their mouths. Hands spread eagled my legs, and at tearing, my gaze snapped down toward the guy who’d wedged himself there.

  “Oh, fuck, she’s beautiful. Hold her down, Trey.”

  “Look at those scars!” The one closest to me leaned in. “You like bein’ cut? Huh?” His wet tongue dragged across my face. “You get off on pain? Is that why you’re fighting?”

  I tried to move my arms, but they’d been pinned above my head by the third man.

  The treetops beyond them came into view, a dark shroud looming over me.

  A hand groped my breast.

  “Hurry the fuck up! I’m about to blow my shit any second.”

  “Bitch has three holes!”

  Their laughter pierced my ear like nails punching through my eardrum.

  My stomach sank, twisted and turned in on itself as the one below lifted up to his knees and his cock sprung loose from his boxers. Both of my legs were held down, one by the man at my side, the other by the one positioning himself at my core.

  The attacker beside my head unzipped his pants and beat his tip against my chin.

  “No! No!” I strained my muscles to kick, tugged at my limbs, but a palm hit my forehead, slamming my skull into the ground. My breaths arrived faster, panicked.

  “Choke on this, whore.”

  Deep menacing growls arrived out of the darkness to the right of me, and I caught a flash of black before Blue took down the man at my side.

  “Oh, shit!” The one between my thighs pressed into me, squeezing the bones in my legs as he shifted about. “Get your fuckin’ gun! Shoot the fucker!”

  A thunderclap bang echoed through the trees. Blue’s growls and barks followed. Three more bangs. More barking. Four bangs. A yelp. Each noise had my muscles jerking, and I kicked at the attacker below, knocking him back on his ass.

  Fire ripped through my scalp as the other one tugged my hair, and a sharp sting burst across my cheek with a slap.

  The one I’d kicked scrambled up onto my thighs, digging his fingers into my flesh. “Hold the fuck still, bitch!”

  I pushed past the dryness in my throat, and screamed. “Help! Someone, help!”

  Terror curled through my veins in a rush at the reality that the men intended to and would tear into me.

  “You try to steal from us? Huh, cunt? Try to take our fuckin’ truck?”

  I didn’t even know which of them spoke, but the voice sliced through my skull, robbing me of the blackness that clung to the fringes of my consciousness. My head spun, the world tilt-a-whirling before my eyes, and all I could make out was the stench of their breath and the digging of their nails into my skin.

  More weight pressed into my body, and I turned to find the man Blue had attacked had returned, his jacket torn and bloodied. Blue? Where did Blue go?

  As their awkward hands fumbled with my shirt, hope slipped away. How fucking stupid! Why had I run?

  I could see the mansion from where I lay, mocking me—my sanctuary from Michael, from the men ravaging my body, standing off in the distance like an impenetrable fortress. On the cold ground, in the woods between abandoned houses, where no one would hear my screams, I could die, ravaged, beaten and alone. The thought crushed down on me, pounding terror through my body.

  A hard slap stung my thighs. “Stop fucking moving!”

  I didn’t even realize I’d continued to struggle against them. My body had gone numb, my mind disconnecting, falling into darkness. That same hopeless pit of doom that’d prompted me to run in the first place, to keep from getting sent back to a monster, just like the ones tearing into my clothes.

  My thighs jostled with the wrenching of my jeans. I stared up at the man above me, and like a nightmare, his features contorted until they’d morphed into the sickening familiar face of Michael. “You love this, don’t ya? You get what you come for? This is what you was looking for when you tried to steal our shit, yeah?”

  Tears blurred his smile, and a sob ripped from my chest. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t do this.”

  A shot rang out. Warm spray hit my face, followed by a tortured outcry. Another blast of fluid hit my stomach, and a mass of weight fell on top of me, knocking wind from my lungs, as warmth oozed down my belly.

  Like an answered prayer, my arms were released. A scuffle at my head knocked my ear, yanking my hair.

  As a single gunshot blasted the air, the man above me stopped screaming. His body slumped to the side, crackling the leaves with his fall.

  It happened so fast I couldn’t keep up with what was happening. My gaze darted toward the right, and I didn’t know whether to plead harder or whimper with relief.

  Nick’s silhouette stood for only seconds, before he charged headfirst into the guy beside me, knocking him to his back.

  Trapped beneath the lifeless body of a man who’d almost raped me, I screamed and heaved until I’d thrown the deadweight off me, scrambling backward until my head hit a solid surface. I startled to the left, relieved to find it was only the trunk of a tree, and tugged my jeans back up onto my hips.

  Straddling the stranger’s body, lip peeled back in a snarl, Nick pounded his fist into the bastard’s face. The sickening crunch of busted cartilage turned my stomach. When at last the man stilled beneath him, Nick pushed up from the savage devil, aimed his gun at the man’s face, and shot a bullet square at his forehead.

  My muscles flinched, breath trapped in my chest as I sat in complete shock. Through parted lips, a scream yearned to tear out of me, but I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do more than stare in disbelief at the macabre that surrounded me.

  I caught Nick’s gaze and drew in a breath. His enlarged pupils merged into the blue, giving him a crazed, rabid appearance. Burning with wrath and rage. For a split second, my heart hammered, as he glared at me like he’d attack me next, but the echoing crackle of branches diverted his attention, and he took off, presumably after one of the men. Perhaps one I hadn’t accounted for.

  Every muscle in my body shook. On the forest floor in front of me, all three of my attackers lay unmoving and face down in a converging pool of blood that seeped into the thirsty ground.

  “Trey!” At the so
und of another foreign voice, I scrambled for one of the fallen guns and aimed it at the source.

  The young boy who’d alerted the men back at the truck stood a couple yards off. Eyes wide, mouth agape, he stared at the gore, but as his gaze fell on me, he twisted away and darted off into the dark woods.

  Lowering the gun, I curled my knees into my body and sobbed.

  Minutes passed before the thump of boots had me lifting the gun again. I found myself aiming at Nick.

  He rushed to my side and pushed back strands of hair. “Fuck, Aubree.”

  My body trembled with relief at the sight of him, another round of tears filling my eyes.

  With a growl in his chest, he lifted me into his arms, as if I weighed nothing. Through the darkness and chaos inside my head, I heard him whisper, “I’ve got you,” as he carried me across the lawn, toward the mansion.

  Those three simple words blanketed the aftershock still quaking through my body, and the world around me stilled. I’ve got you.

  Caught in his arms, all I could do was stare in awe at the raw intensity of his features—the tightness of his jaw, the furious pulse of the veins in his neck, the flare of his nostrils.

  As he kicked open the door and carried me up the staircase, I felt numb.

  He killed those men. For me. So easily, and with such lethal grace, I didn’t know whether to wrap my arms around him or fear him. In either case, Nick had instantly become something more than my kidnapper. He’d become my rescuer, my savior. A dark angel, with blood on his hands and fire in his eyes.

  No one had ever fought for me, killed for me. Not even my own father. I’d always taken care of myself, faced my own battles, and part of me wanted to curl up into a ball of shame for being so weak.

  Onto shaky legs that I swore would give out any moment, he set me down in his bathroom, still holding me up as he flipped on the faucet for the bath.

  I clutched his jacket. “No!” Burying my face into his neck, my body planked, my jaw so stiff and sore from being punched, I could hardly form a word. “N-not the d-d-deep water.”

  Without argument, he walked me to the shower instead and flipped on the spray. “Let’s get his fucking blood off you.”