A canister rolled into the room and Iron dove for it to throw it into the hall before it went off, recognizing it as a gas release bomb. Before he could toss it out into the hallway, it let out a loud popping sound and exploded in his face. Iron tried to hold his breath but it was already too late. He felt lightheaded as he turned to Roz intending to tell her to get the hell out of here but he saw as he slammed into the floor that she was moving towards him. He blinked as he began to lose consciousness and he prayed that they didn’t hurt Roz.
Roz felt fear pour through her when Iron suddenly stopped her from talking with a finger to her lips. She was pressed against the door jamb, her back supported by the thick mahogany trim. She felt her heart pick up as she waited, listening for any sound in the house. Iron was doing the same and both of them strained to hear any sound that could alert them to an intruder. She didn’t hear anything inside the house, just a car going by outside, and she hadn’t heard whatever Iron had heard to make him concerned.
Roz felt his breath against her ear as he asked her if she heard anything and she shook her head to indicate that she hadn’t. He frowned and his head tilted in the direction of the bedroom door, his eyes trained on it for another long silent moment. Roz wondered if he was just hyper-aware because of them almost getting hurt the other night at the rec center and the night Burner was shot. He told her he was going to get his gun and had stepped a few feet towards the door when she saw the bottle thrown into the room.
All she saw was a brief glimpse of an arm tossing the canister and Iron diving for it but it exploded and for a minute her heart stopped because she wasn’t sure what was pouring out of the top of it into his face.
Was that poison?
Dear God, would she lose him so soon after finding him? That thought in her mind, she moved to his side. Whatever that gas was, Iron was passing out and she knew she had to do something to help him because she wasn’t willing to live without him anymore. Roz held her breath as she moved to his side, trying to drag him away from the gas pouring into the room. She tugged on his arms trying to drag him towards the bathroom but he was too heavy and she fell on her ass, startling her into taking a deep breath.
Roz knew that was a mistake almost immediately because she felt lightheaded. She held her breath again but it was already too late, she knew she’d inhaled too much of the gas. Her limbs felt weighted and her head was spinning. She looked up to see three figures walking into the room, two male and one female. They all wore breathing masks over the lower half of their faces. Roz blinked a few times trying to bring the figures into focus.
The figures came closer and the female stepped up to stand over her and she felt her shock scream through her. That was Patricia. What the hell was she doing here? Roz felt the haziness of her thoughts and the heavy feeling that let her know she was going to pass out soon. She just didn’t know how to process Patricia being here in Death Valley. She shouldn’t be here and she surely shouldn’t be with those two Headhunters who were lifting Iron off the floor. Roz blinked hard and she heard Patricia’s muffled laugh.
“Oh, don’t strain your little brain, Roz. You’ll know why I’m here to get you soon enough. And don’t worry, you and your boyfriend will wake up in a little while but you are not going to like what you find when you do.” Patricia’s laugh was chilling and her voice was understandable despite being muffled by the mask she wore.
Roz knew she was going to pass out any second by the dimming lights around her that were slowly fading to black. She couldn’t seem to wrap her head around the fact that Patricia, a woman she’d known for over five years, was here and she was apparently drugging her and Iron.
What the heck was going on?
Patricia was supposed to be in Grandyville where she worked at the clinic as a nurse when they needed one. Roz didn’t know what Patricia was doing or why she had just drugged them. It didn’t make any sense. Roz felt the shadows overtake her and she slipped into darkness with those thoughts swirling around in her head before everything went black and she knew no more.
Chapter 20
Iron came back to the present with a bang, mostly because one of the stupid motherfuckers who’d kidnapped him threw him against the wall. He fell to the side, hitting the wall with his shoulder hard.
Wincing as pain radiated down from what was very likely a dislocated shoulder from all the throbbing he felt, Iron could just make out the fact that chains were wrapped around his ankles and he was in a tiny room with only a single window. It surprised him that they had put shorts of some kind on him. He hadn’t expected that.
Light coming in through the window revealed that he wasn’t alone in the room. A small figure was dumped in a corner. Iron moved closer, realizing that figure was Roz laying in a fetal position against the wall. She had also been wrapped in a robe of some kind and Iron prayed that she was okay.
“Rozzy, baby,” Iron said, caressing her cheek as he knelt on the concrete beside her. Worried when she didn’t move, he leaned closer. He was reassured to find that she was breathing when he saw her chest rise and fall but he didn’t like that she wasn’t responding to him. He shook her lightly, his hands on her shoulders gentle as he pulled her closer to his chest.
“Roz, please wake up,” he begged, unable to stand her being out like she was. He needed her to wake up and assure him that they hadn’t hurt her or he was going to lose his mind. Those stupid fuckers better hope they hadn’t hurt her or they were all going to be dead.
“Ir––Iron,” Roz finally whispered, her voice filled with confusion before her arms wrapped around his neck and she clung to him. Suddenly she began to babble about a woman named Patricia and how she was the one who’d kidnapped them. Iron was confused as she rushed through the words and finally had to stop her.
“Slow down, damn it! You’re talking too fast and jumping from one thing to another. First tell me if you’re all right? Did they hurt you?” Roz stopped, pulling back to look at him before nodding. He watched her take a deep breath.
“I’m fine. I was out just like you were until you just woke me so I don’t know. I don’t feel like anything hurts,” Roz said, frowning as she seemed to assess herself for injuries. Then she met his eyes with her own, hers filled with confused worry. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think my shoulder’s dislocated but I’m fine otherwise.”
Roz looked relieved before she spoke again, another frown appearing on her face. “Before I passed out from inhaling the gas, I saw a woman I worked with at the clinic in Grandyville in the room. Her name is Patricia and I thought she was a friend.”
“Are you sure it was her? Maybe the gas made you dream?” Iron asked, wondering if she was projecting a familiar image over the person who’d taken them.
“No, it was her, I’m sure of it, Iron. She spoke to me only I don’t know what the heck she would be doing with the Headhunters. It just doesn’t make any sense.” Roz shook her head seeming confused but Iron knew she was convinced that this woman was the one who’d taken them. Iron wasn’t sure that was true but time would tell.
He needed to get them out of here though or at least get Roz out of here. She wasn’t chained up like he was. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t tied up at all. Iron thought that strange but maybe they just didn’t see her as a threat.
“The first thing we need to do is get out of here, then we can figure out who took us,” Iron told her, kissing her forehead, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay. “Let me just see if I can budge these chains they have attached to my legs,” he told her, moving away from her towards the wall where his ankle was chained. He followed the chain to the wall by holding onto it where he tugged on it several times, finding that it was unfortunately sturdy.
“Damn,” he growled, pissed that his legs were chained. Those damned idiots had to get smart this one damned time and chain him up. Fuck, why did it have to be when he was with Roz that they actually managed to find something to hold him that he couldn’t
get out of.
“Let me see. I’m actually pretty good with locks, maybe I can get them off,” Roz said surprising him. She moved to where he was sitting and grabbed his leg, lifting it towards the light coming in from the window above him.
“How did you become good with locks, Rozzy?” Iron asked while she inspected the chain attached to his ankle. She glanced at him, her face turning red, and she was silent for a long moment before she finally spoke.
“I was on the run alone with very little credits, Iron. I did what I had to trying to survive. I’m not proud to say I broke into more than one house to steal stuff because I didn’t have a choice. Mostly food but sometimes clothes. I went back after I found a job at the clinic and left credits for the things I took. But I got really good at picking locks.” Roz turned her head away, making a show of inspecting the lock.
Iron’s hands clenched and his teeth clamped together at the thought of Roz hungry, breaking into houses to steal food. He didn’t want to think of her alone on the road suffering and the idea that she could have been caught and killed ripped his heart out. Damn, when he’d been filled with self-righteous anger with her he’d never thought about what she went through on her own for so long. It made him wonder what else he didn’t know about the time she had spent away for him. He made a mental note to command her to tell him about those years in detail when they got out of this mess.
Hell, if they got out of this mess.
“Roz, I’m damned glad you did whatever you had to do to survive and make it back to me,” Iron told her, cupping her cheeks and forcing her to look at him. Roz’s eyes glistened with tears and she nodded before she turned back to the lock.
“I think if I had something I could open these locks. They’re not too difficult but I’d need something like a bobby pin.”
“Fresh outta those, babe,” Iron said, letting out a chuckle.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Roz said, rolling her eyes at him before she glanced around the room. “I wish I could see better, there may be something here I could use but I can’t see much, it’s too dark.” She sounded frustrated and he couldn’t blame her; he was frustrated too.
He wished he had thought to have the house watched last night because he didn’t like the fact that she was in this little room with him. Hell, if they wanted to torture him all they had to do was hurt her. Sadly he wasn’t sure he would hold out if their plan was to hurt her to get him to talk. He would likely tell them whatever they wanted to know. He loved her too much and if they’d brought her here to use against him, they’d chosen the right course of action for once in their sorry excuse for an existence.
Roz turned, looking at him in the dim light that was flowing in through the window. Iron leaned forward kissing her lightly on the lips, his tongue caressing hers. It was a promise, one from him to her that he would get her out of this mess. He knew that the chances of them both walking out of here alive were slim unless he found a way out of these chains. Roz wasn’t chained up however and that meant getting her out would be much easier than getting himself out of here would be.
All they had to do was wait until their captors came in here and he could distract them long enough for her to get away. It was the only option because even knowing that it wouldn’t take the club long to figure out they were missing, it would take them time to find them and if their plan was what he thought it was, then it didn’t look good.
“I’ll get us out of this, babe. When they come back in here, I will distract them and you slip out,” Iron whispered against her lips.
Roz pulled back, her look angry and her voice was a quiet hiss when she spoke. “I’m not leaving you here, Iron. No way in hell is that happening. We get out of this together or not at all.”
Iron winced because he was afraid she would say something like that and he wasn’t willing to allow her to die because he was chained to a wall. Shaking his head, he tried to sound stern.
“You can go get Reaper and the rest of the club to come––” Iron started but Roz interrupted him.
“I said no, Iron. I know that it would take me at least three hours to get them and likely two or three more to get back here and by then you could have been killed. I won’t leave you again and you can’t make me.” Roz’s words were filled with passion and the mutinous expression on her face told him he wasn’t going to win this argument. Iron sighed, his hand brushing down her cheek.
“You’re so damned stubborn, babe.” He kissed her nose, then her eyelids and down towards her lips. Iron heard the door opening and pulled back slightly, staring towards the door, which creaked open to reveal a woman and two men.
“Aw, ain’t that sweet,” the woman said, looking into the room at them, her wicked laugh sending a chill of foreboding down his spine. “Look at that, boys. He’s kissing a traitor.”
Iron looked at Roz, seeing her pale a bit when the woman said those words and he momentarily wondered what the hell she was talking about. Roz apparently thought whatever the woman knew would make him think less of her.
“What are you talking about?” Iron growled, his arm around Roz’s shoulders despite her trying to move away from him.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, sugar,” she said, aiming a gun at his head. “Now, if you want lover boy in one piece I suggest you walk out here with me, Roz,” the woman said, her smile cruel. Roz flinched and pulled away from him despite his attempt to hold her.
“Roz, what the hell are you doing?” Iron asked, shocked by her easy compliance.
“I can’t let her kill you, Iron. I love you too much,” Roz said, her eyes trying to tell him something that he wasn’t able to process. He watched her walk out the door to stand beside the woman. Iron felt anger speed through him and for a moment he wondered if Roz had betrayed him and the club, only to discard the thought as quickly as it had occurred to him. Roz wasn’t capable of betrayal, it just wasn’t who she was, and even as bad as this looked he knew there was a damned good explanation for it.
“Very good. Now, let’s go have a nice chat while lover boy stews over what a lying bitch you are.” Roz looked back at him, her eyes pleading with him for understanding, and he would have called out to reassure her but the men slammed the door shut and she was taken away.
Iron sat in the dark, his heart pounding with fear for her as he mulled over what had just happened, realizing that the piece of the puzzle they’d been missing was Roz. It was a cold comfort that he had found the element they needed to figure out what the Headhunters were planning. Iron waited in the darkness, periodically testing the chains to see if he could break them from the wall, all the while wondering what was happening to Roz.
Roz walked along the hall behind Patricia. She could tell that it was an abandoned house of some kind when they passed what used to be the living room. She should have known her hotheadedness was one day going to get her into trouble but when she’d been talking about crazy plans with what she’d thought was a friend, she hadn’t really thought about it.
Now she was though.
Patricia opened a door off to the left and Roz followed her inside the room. It was dusty and the curtains had holes in them, and along one wall there were a couch and a small armchair. Patricia entered and plopped down on the couch, a large cloud of dust escaping the cushion. She coughed, waving her hand in front of her face to dispel the particles.
“Well, that was nasty,” she muttered, still coughing slightly.
Roz watched her from the doorway, wondering what the heck was going on here. Patricia was acting like she knew what was going on but she didn’t have a clue. Roz watched Patricia warily, waiting for her to explain so she could get herself and Iron out of here.
“There are some clothes over there you can put on in the bathroom,” Patricia told her, indicating the clothes that were on a table she hadn’t noticed before. Roz thought about refusing but she didn’t like wearing only a robe, so she walked over to the clothes and picked them up.
“Over there,” Patricia said,
waving towards a door on the other side of the room. Roz opened the door to find a small bathroom that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. Roz cringed as she entered the room with the clothes. She wanted to run back out immediately because the room was that disgusting.
The sink was covered in a brown film and the toilet seat was broken. It looked like the bowl had been left un-cleaned for so long it was permanently brown on the inside. Roz gagged, but she closed and locked the door to the bathroom. Using the robe as a blanket across the sink to protect the clothes from the grime, she began pulling them on quickly. Suddenly realizing they were hers from last night, she shivered.
Patricia must have taken them when she grabbed her and Iron from the house. Dressed, Roz exited the bathroom leaving the robe on the sink, unwilling to touch it after it sat on the dirty surface. Roz hovered just outside the tiny room watching Patricia, who was playing with a hair bow she was spinning on the small tabletop beside her.
“Oh do sit down, Roz. You and I have a lot to talk about. I have to explain what’s going to happen in order for lover boy to be released,” Patricia said, looking up at her before waving a hand to the armchair nearby.
Roz watched her with a sinking pit of despair in her stomach. She had no idea what Patricia was up to but she was damned sure she wasn’t going to like it. Moving to sit gingerly in the armchair, she waited for her to explain.
“That idiot Jumper ruined everything the night he kidnapped you, Roz,” Patricia said, shaking her head in what looked like frustrated anger. “He was supposed to grab that idiot Tara, but you borrowed her raincoat that night and that ruined my whole plan.”
Roz felt anger burn inside her at the words leaving the other woman’s mouth. How dare she call Tara names when she was in league with the Headhunters MC. Roz wanted to smack Patricia in the face. The only thing that stopped her from doing it was Iron chained up in the other room.
Melted Iron (Blue Bandits MC Book 3) Page 20