Hidden (To Love A Killer #1)

by Lexie Ray

  In no time he had freed Hunter of her pants. She was wearing nothing but white lace panties that clung tight and low around her hips. The crimped dark curls that lay beneath drove Ash insane with desire. He ran his hands over her hips and down the back of her ass, as he lowered to his knees. She smelled so good, even through her panties. He hoped she would discard them of her own desire, and give him the opportunity to show her what real love felt like.

  Hunter could feel his warm breath blowing through the lace. Every hot exhale stimulated her senses, arousing her desire, until she was edging up the heights of a slow burning ache that felt sweeter than anything she’d ever known. She ran her fingers delicately through the silky strands of his hair. Her legs spread almost without her knowing it, as though her body wanted more of him.

  His kisses became wet once she had stepped her right leg out, then the left, widening her stance for him. She could feel his hot tongue lick the length of her. He was making her ache for him. The warm pulse clipped rhythmically between her legs, giving her the intense urge to lie down. She wanted nothing more than to surrender to his exquisite tongue. She knew if she did, there would be a world of pleasure in store.

  He paused and Hunter looked down at him, sensing there was something he wanted to say. His steel blue eyes cut through the darkness, gazing up at her. He said nothing, but seemed to ask with the angle of his eyes if he could proceed. His fingertips hooked under the sides of her panties. She could tell he wanted to pull them down. She was scared, nervous, worried, always fretting deep down, like a low quake in her psyche, but she wanted what he did. Staring down, she nodded, her breath quickening, her heart beginning to race in anticipation.

  All of a sudden a faint cry floated in through the open window. It was distinct. A girl’s cry. It had come from the neighboring apartment, Hunter’s old apartment.

  “No!” said a female voice faintly through the night air.

  Ash sprang to his feet.

  It could mean only one thing.

  Travis had found his way back.

  Chapter Ten

  Hunter scrambled to get her clothes on, all the while listening intently to any new sounds, words, or cries that might pour in through the open window. She was most concerned to hear gunfire, though she prepared herself for the possibility that Travis could have a knife or some other kind of weapon. She was worried for the girls. She knew they had to be scared, unsure of what to do. If they remembered the rules, if they were still following them in times of danger, like they should be now, then Hunter told herself she should rest assured that they wouldn’t do anything heroic at this moment. Rule number three was to never cross the man with the gun. It had been the most important rule when she had lived at the farmhouse. Crossing an armed man would have amounted to suicide.

  As Hunter tucked Ash’s gun down the back of her pants, she hoped the rule worked both ways. Unless Travis was feeling particularly brave or particularly stupid, he should surrender as soon as they entered the apartment.

  Ash grabbed her arm, surprising her.

  “I need you to let me handle this,” he said, careful not to speak above a whisper.

  “What happened to not letting me out of your sight?” asked Hunter.

  “That’s not what I mean,” he said, as he reached down the back of her jeans, extracting the weapon that belonged to him.

  “I can’t go over there unarmed,” she reasoned.

  Ash took a deep breath in. It wasn’t that he disagreed. It’s that Hunter had proved herself to be unpredictable. Putting another gun in her hands concerned him.

  “Come here,” he said, as he crossed quickly to the closet where a black trunk had been hiding tucked in the shadows. He dragged it out, and opened the lid.

  Hunter looked inside. It appeared to be an arsenal of weapons, guns mostly, but she also noticed clamped to the inside walls were a variety of knives organized from largest to smallest.

  Ash selected a smaller gun for Hunter, and quickly confirmed it was fully loaded by popping the clip out and back, then sliding the chamber back. The only potential problem was that this gun didn’t have a silencer. None of them did except for his, which was why he needed it.

  “You fire this only if your life is in danger. Do you understand?” he asked, but Hunter didn’t seem to register the question. “There are too many people in there. We can’t have unnecessary gunfire. We need to get in, apprehend Travis without incident, then deal with what to do with him. He probably has a gun, so we can’t allow him the upper hand by threatening him aggressively. We need to sneak in, and take him by surprise, hopefully when he’s at a distance from any of the girls.”

  Hunter nodded.

  “I don’t want to have to worry about you in there, Hunter,” he said, looking her square in the eye.

  Hunter wasn’t sure what he meant by that anymore. Was he worried she could get hurt? Or was he worried she would go against the plan? If it was a little of both, she wouldn’t blame him, though she didn’t like the distrustful look in his eye. They had a lot to work on with each other, evidently.

  “I won’t do anything to make you worry,” she said, though she wasn’t blind to the fact that she did tend to be unpredictable. This could be challenging. She wanted Travis dead. She wanted all the men dead. But she would hate herself if she went off half cocked and caused one of the girls to get hurt or killed. Hunter repeated her words, this time to convince herself more than anyone. “I won’t do anything. I just want the girls to be safe.”

  Below the surface of her deep brown eyes, darkness swirled in pools of fantasy and confusion. Ash wasn’t sure that she would be able to hold it together. He had noticed she often slipped in and out of memories around him. She wasn’t always present. He could only hope whatever raw intrigue that pulled her inside of herself, making her unreachable, would leave her be until they got through this.

  “Hunter?” he asked, shaking her shoulder as soon as he realized her vision had softened and she was slipping away. “Hunter are you with me?”

  She nodded, fighting hard to stay with Ash, focusing on his face instead of the darkness inside of her, but the need to kill was strong.

  “Just tell me what to do,” she said, looking down at the new gun she held in her hands as excitement riled through her.

  * * *

  Molly had been lying on her stomach, asleep underneath the bed when Travis had come in. She wasn’t sure if he had broken through the front door, which seemed unlikely since Andy had been careful to lock the deadbolt. Or if he had come up through the fire escape, which she thought Devon had locked.

  That’s why Molly had decided to sleep under the bed. She trusted no one.

  From her vantage point, Molly could see very little. The girls had been made to sit against the wall and were now huddling there. Molly could see their feet, knees tucked under their chins, their hands grasping their shins.

  Travis paced slowly in front of them. Molly watched his boots, his slow stomp across the floor. She had to assume he had a gun to their heads, but since she could only see his lower half, she didn’t know for sure.

  Travis had been doing a good job of keeping them all quiet. Molly was most worried that Hunter and Ash hadn’t heard a thing, and that they would sleep through all of this.

  Molly steadied her breathing, though it was difficult. Her heart had been racing, pounding hard against her chest cavity into the hard wood floor. She was certain Travis would be able to hear it. Holding her breath had done little to calm her. She was starting to panic. What if she gasped out for air uncontrollably, and was discovered? There would be absolutely no hope. She couldn’t let that happen. The girls were counting on her.

  Travis had mentioned a van.

  If Molly didn’t do something and do it quickly, whoever showed up with the van could take the girls, dragging them out of the building, driving them back to the farmhouse, and they’d never be seen again.

  She wished all the girls were thinking what she was thinking at th
is moment. They outnumbered Travis radically. It wouldn’t be easy, but they could attack him. Molly sensed the girls were still following the rules. That’s what happened in the face of these men. Old survival tactics would take over, whether or not they had ever really worked, whether or not they would help in a moment like this.

  Molly was ready to throw all that out the window. All she needed was a weapon, anything that could pass for one would do. She glanced around the floor. It was dark under the bed and she had to be careful that her limbs didn’t poke out. If Travis caught sight of her, then there truly would be no hope.

  Near her feet, under the head of the bed, Molly discovered something. Her foot had brushed against something. It made a faint rattling sound against the floor, but she immediately pressed her foot down on top of it, ceasing its motion across the hard wood. She felt its shape under her foot. It was a pen. All she had to do was drag it up and into her hand without making a noise.

  The sounds of light tapping distracted Molly from her effort. She couldn’t place the sound until she looked out again from under the bed and saw dark red circles on the ground near Travis’s boots. He was bleeding. The taps were the sound of blood drops hitting the floor.

  Molly’s heart practically sprang out of her chest, beating with wild excitement. He was injured. Maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult to take him down. She didn’t need to kill him, only surprise him and rouse the other girls to attack. With all of them fighting, they could overpower Travis, take his weapon, get Ash and Hunter, and survive.

  The pen under her foot was rolling up nicely. Her barefoot was muffling the rattling noise well enough. Just a few more inches and she would have the pen in her hand. The angle of her knee against the bed frame was getting tight, awkward. Molly realized she would have to kick the pen up. If only Travis was talking or making some kind of noise to pull his attention away from the sounds she was afraid she might make.

  Her anxiety skyrocketed when she saw Devon rise up to her feet. Travis was standing in front of Devon. He had lifted her up. Whatever he was about to do with her, he had to be stopped now.

  Molly kicked the pen upwards, but it rolled out the side of the bed, into view of the girls. She nearly gasped at her error, but sucked in her breath. There was only one thing to do now.

  She rolled out from under the bed, reaching out until the pen was in her hand. Almost without thinking, she jumped to her feet, held the pen tip out like a knife, and ran towards Travis, screaming.

  In the blur that was her effort to stun him, Molly could barely comprehend the scene before her. The blood, Travis’ expression, the girls huddled on the floor, but it didn’t matter. She thrust downward, hoping to stab the pen into Travis’s blood wound, aiming for the dark red splotch of saturation at his left shoulder.

  But the pen snapped under the force of her momentum the second it struck Travis.

  That’s when she realized his gun was pressed into her chest. She hadn’t noticed him raise it, but now it was all she could see.

  * * *

  A gunshot rang out from Hunter’s apartment.

  Hunter grabbed Ash’s arm, as tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Can you see?” she whispered.

  Ash was crouched in front of her on the fire escape, leaning towards the apartment window. From his point of view he could see the girls huddled on the floor, their backs to him, but not much else. Suddenly, blood began to creep across the floor towards the girls. They were crying, no longer able to choke down their sobs.

  “Why are they crying?” Hunter asked.

  Ash didn’t want to have to tell her. He knew it wasn’t Travis’s blood he was looking at. As soon as he got a line of sight on Travis, Ash would either shoot if the distance was good, or he’d go in. But for now there was nothing they could do but wait, or else risk another girl’s life.

  “Who was shot, Ash?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know yet, but it wasn’t Travis,” he said.

  “We have to get in there,” she said.

  Ash turned to face Hunter. What he was about to propose would require every ounce of conviction he could muster. He already knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  “I need you to go around to the front door of your apartment and key in when I call for you.”

  Hunter glared at him with an icy stare while anger made her blood boil.

  Ash thought, judging by her expression, that he had just lost her, but Hunter took a deep breath and backed away. She turned and stepped through his apartment window, having accepted his instructions.

  With Hunter out in the hallway waiting, Ash peered through the window once again, this time more boldly. He saw the girls again. Then a large bloodstain came into view. Ash shifted his weight, angling himself further to see across the interior of the studio apartment, and soon realized that Travis was not there. Neither was the body of whoever had gotten shot.

  The girls were crying softly, but not hysterically. They also were not moving from their position on the floor. That’s when it hit him. Travis was in the bathroom with the girl he had shot.

  In an instant, he pulled the window open and jumped into the apartment, gun poised and ready to fire.

  The girls all turned their heads the second his feet hit the floor. Their eyes lit up, but Margot and Andy looked distressed. Devon pointed in the direction of the bathroom, confirming what Ash had suspected.

  Ash stepped lightly around the bend until the bathroom door came into view. He then paused, listening carefully. It was soundless. He remained, aiming his gun at the door. Whenever Travis decided to come out, Ash would have him. If only he could call out for Hunter. He knew this was probably killing her, but he couldn’t risk it. The last thing he needed was a stand off with an armed gunman in a bathroom.

  Suddenly, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. It was Andy. She was shaking her head, as if to say, “no”. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  Ash motioned his hand with three presses downward, as if to say, “don’t move, don’t make a sound, calm down.” Andy would have to let him handle this.

  But what did she know that he didn’t?

  * * *

  Hunter waited in the hallway with her ear pressed to the door and her keys in her hand, ready for the signal. It was quiet inside the apartment. If she hadn’t known five girls were in there with Travis and Ash, she wouldn’t have believed it. She couldn’t hear a thing.

  And that’s when a terrible feeling came over her, washing through her, a swell of black panic.

  Her stomach lurched with unease. Something was wrong. She could feel it. And it wasn’t just the fact that Travis had broken in and had begun to do God only knew what to the girls. Hunter could feel that something was definitely wrong. It was like a sixth sense that caused her bones to tremble. Whatever was going on inside her apartment, she sensed an overwhelming paranoia that the result would be death. Or worse, that the killing had already begun. But if it had, wouldn’t she have heard something?

  It was eerie that she hadn’t. It gave her the creeps that she hadn’t heard so much as a floorboard creak. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. Dread, raw and dark, surged through her. She couldn’t wait any longer for a signal that she was beginning to fear would never come.

  If she were wrong, Ash would be furious with her for not sticking to the plan. But she’d rather have him alive and furious than dead and happy. When she had a feeling this strong, Hunter was rarely wrong.

  She lifted the keys, and slid one slowly into the deadbolt lock, wincing at the sustained scraping sound it made until the key was met with hard resistance deep in its hole.

  Preparing to turn the key, Hunter grasped her gun firmly in her right hand, aligning her index finger carefully over the trigger.

  Hunter’s heart was racing and the rush of blood flow through her head was making her dizzy. She took a long deep breath. She told herself to lock eyes on Travis the second the door had been thrown open and to aggressive
ly take him out. She reminded herself of what the Latino boy had told her, what the gang had reinforced: don’t hesitate.

  Her legs felt rubbery. Her hands felt weak, numb with fear. Hunter closed her eyes briefly, gritting her teeth, and told herself that on the count of three this was happening.

  One.

  She opened her eyes.

  Two.

  She inhaled a deep breath.

  Three!

  Hunter twisted the key hard in its lock, and thrust her shoulder against the door with all her might.

  The door buckled in, opening, and Hunter spilled into the apartment with it. Stumbling forward, she managed to keep her gun raised, aiming straight ahead, as she barreled down the odd corridor that led to the inside of her studio apartment.

  There in the studio her eyes first caught sight of the girls, huddled on the ground. Not a second later, Hunter saw that behind them Ash was standing with two arms raised in the air, his hands spread wide, empty.

  And that’s when Hunter understood.

  A gun was pointing at Ash’s temple.

  Travis was standing behind Ash, holding him hostage.

  This wasn’t over, as far as Hunter was concerned. She trained her aim on Travis’ head.

  “Let him go, Travis,” she said.

  “We both know that isn’t going to happen,” said Travis.

  “I killed Dale. I have no problem killing you,” she warned.

  “I doubt you’ll risk shooting your boyfriend,” he said.

  “You have no idea how good my aim is.”

  Travis said nothing. He didn’t move a muscle.

  Ash looked worried, and when Hunter stared at him longer, she realized his eyes were red and his cheeks were wet as though he had been crying. Yet he seemed unharmed. The girls were cowering on the floor. They didn’t so much as lift their gaze at her. What the hell had happened in here?

  “What do you want, Travis?” she asked, lowering her tone by an octave. “You obviously don’t want them dead, so what do you want?”

  “Everything is going to go back to the way it was,” he said.