by R. J. Lewis
He didn’t look back.
I stared at him as he went, and then I looked down at the mountain road we’d come up. Chills wracked my body. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. I considered racing down the mountain, but the sun had moved along the sky and we only had a couple hours left of sunlight. The temperatures would drop and where would I be when night-time crept in?
I would die from the cold.
It would be a sad way to go.
Who was going to find me? Who would bury me? Who would even attend my funeral?
My internet friends might send some cyber flowers my way, but I deleted those accounts, so they were never going to know, and where would the cyber flowers go even if they did know?
My life was so fucking empty.
I’m so lonely.
I looked back at Nixon, carrying an impressive amount of weight in each hand, as he grew further and further away.
The problem was…if I followed him, something in my gut was telling me I was never going to be the same again.
It might have been silly intuition.
But I just knew it, dammit. I really did.
Only, I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?
It was either go his way or go down the mountain and maybe have cyber flowers in remembrance of me.
I looked up at the snowflakes as they fell around me, whispering, “Mom, don’t leave me. I need you right now.”
I tried to feel her in the air. I tried my hardest to think of what she’d do.
Go to him.
They were my thoughts, but they were said in my mother’s soft voice.
A gentle calm eased into my heart when I looked up the mountain. Go to him. I followed the feeling past the dead fat guy Mills – I dry heaved at the blood all around him – and did my best to catch up to Nixon.
Because he was right.
Going up the mountain might mean death, but it wasn’t as certain as the death I’d face if I went down.
And I fucking hated flowers.
31.
Nixon…
There was only so much bullshit he could take.
The day, right from the get-go, was utter fucking bullshit.
Hobbs had given him a crew filled with fuckheads. He’d worked with them previous times before and should have known it wouldn’t go to plan, that someone as fucking smallminded as Beckett would fuck shit up.
Hobbs had promised him a reprieve from his mourning.
An exciting last-minute job, but this was more than he bargained for.
He didn’t look back at the girl as he trudged up the road, but he heard her following feet behind him. She shivered loudly, her teeth chattering as the wind blasted all around, howling like a beast. The cold snap had been expected. You had to have been deaf, blind and dumb all at once not to have known the warnings.
His peripheral caught the bare skin of her legs as she struggled not far from him. Why in the fuck was she in a skirt? And gumboots? She had no socks either. He couldn’t find them in that van, and he wasn’t keen on poking around that mess.
Every step he took, he saw her in the rearview mirror, blindfolded, being touched by that feral fucking idiot.
Every step he took, he thought of her in that van. Saw the fuckhead over her, saw her fight, that spark in her alive.
Every step he took, he saw her in nothing but her bra, her tits swollen and covered in goosebumps and blood.
This was a complication.
On the ride to the minivan, he’d leafed through her backpack and phone. He couldn’t access her actual phone because he didn’t know her passcode, but he was able to click a little symbol on the bottom corner of the screen that went straight to her gallery. He was able to go through a handful of her photos, all selfies.
She was pretty.
Really, really pretty.
Unable to hold back, he’d pocketed her phone. He had to throw her backpack in the blaze when he’d spotted Beckett chasing after her. He was a fool to think they’d let her get away. He couldn’t leave any sign of her behind.
He didn’t know how this was going to play out. How Roz would react when he got to the cabin minus the two men. What Tucker would do when he caught whiff of the girl in their midst for a whole week straight.
Tucker was known for his impulses.
These men…they wouldn’t think twice before raping the girl and dumping her in some hole when it was time to go. They’d keep her alive until they bled her dry and then they’d move right along.
And Nixon didn’t think he had it in him to watch that happen. He didn’t want to be haunted by more fucked up shit than he already was. He didn’t need to close his eyes and see the bus girl in his head, bending down to fetch the coin from her backpack as the troll driver breathed heavily over her.
The way she’d looked up at him, startled to find him there, her giant brown eyes scorching him – he couldn’t get that image out of his fucking head.
Yeah, this was a very serious complication.
“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath, glaring at her over his shoulder because she was so fucking pitiful now, crossing her arms to her chest, her hair covered in wet snow, her skin so pale, he thought she could pass as an ice sculpture.
She reminded him of a defenceless fucking puppy.
But puppies were smarter than her.
Jesus, his chest went tight at the pathetic sight.
This fucking idiot girl in her idiot skirt showing up at the wrong place and at the wrong time and now he had to endure this bullshit.
Such a bullshit day.
He threw his duffle bags down and moved to her. She looked up, brown eyes wide as he picked her up in one swift move. She didn’t even object. Her arms immediately wrapped around his neck and she buried her face just under his chin. She was so cold, he had to run his hand up and down her legs in an attempt to warm her.
“Relax,” he murmured. “We don’t have a long way to go.”
That was a lie, though.
They had a long way to fucking go.
Victoria…
My shivers weren’t so bad in his arms. Our breaths clouded around us as the sun continued to move across the sky. The snow hadn’t let up once. It just kept falling and falling.
It almost felt like we would never stop walking. The path was endless and winding. I closed my eyes after a while, feeling myself lulled by the rhythmic movements of his footsteps. His skin was cold, and I could feel the pulse in his neck against my forehead thrumming at a strong, steady rate. I felt how deep his steps were in the snow; the amount of energy exerted without carrying me would have been enough to dizzy any man of his stature. I must not have been easy to carry, but he didn’t seem like he was struggling at all.
I should not have felt at ease in this man’s arms. I had to remind myself what he was capable of. He’d blown a man’s head off and then stabbed the other guy without breaking a sweat. All in under a minute. He had done it without blinking because he must have done it so many times before.
Whatever his purpose was keeping me alive, it must not have a happy ending.
“You don’t tell them anything,” he suddenly said to me, his tone solemn. “You just stay quiet, got it?”
I had to take a moment to understand what he was referring to, but when I poked my head out from under his chin and saw us turning into a gated path of sorts, I knew.
Don’t talk to the other guys. I nodded in response.
The gate was already open when he swung it from us and continued down a narrow path. Clumps of snow fell from the trees overhead, their branches hanging so far over the road, it obstructed us from the snowfall for some time. I saw the footsteps of the other two in the snow, but they were already halfway buried as we trudged up the path to a small looking cabin ahead. It was the most random cabin in the middle of the forest; you wouldn’t even see it from the sky if you flew overhead.
The cabin door was wide open. I saw one of them standing there, looking out at us. He seemed confused, le
aning against the doorway with his arms crossed.
“I heard gunshots,” he said, his voice familiar from the ride. The driver Roz. “What the fuck happened?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Nixon replied as we approached. He gestured his chin to the cabin. “Tucker in there already?”
Roz nodded, swinging his gaze to me. “Yeah.”
He moved aside, letting us through. We stepped into one large room. I immediately spotted a tiny kitchenette with a few cabinets and a deep sink. Beside that were sealed boxes on the floor. Past that, against the wall, was a wood fire stove and a small wooden table with four chairs. In the corner closest to that was a stack of firewood hardly covered in a tarp. And on the other side of that was a single bed against the wall. As Nixon scanned the room also, I spotted another single bed on the other side, behind us, against the wall and window. Seated on it was Tucker, staring at us with a strange expression.
Nixon put me down on my feet straightaway and nudged me in the direction of the bed furthest from us. I went to it quickly; my stiff feet felt like ice blocks the entire way. I sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed at the thin wool blanket that covered it. I immediately covered my legs, praying for some warmth.
“Where’s Mills and Beckett?” Tucker asked.
As Nixon glanced around the room, he casually responded, “Dead.”
Tucker’s spine straightened. “What?”
“They were fighting over the girl when I showed up. Beckett had pulled a gun on Mills, and Mills took off running. He shot him a couple times, dropped him to the ground. He was rabid, so I shot him in the head before he turned the gun on me.”
Tucker blew out a breath, looking shocked. “What the fuck, man?”
“I saw it coming,” Roz muttered, though his eyes were on me as he spoke. “The second he took the girl, I figured he was nothing but trouble.”
“Do we need to go back for Mills?” Tucker questioned.
Nixon shook his head. “He got shot in the spine and chest and was bleeding out. I finished him off.”
They took a few minutes absorbing that. It startled me a little how easy it was for Nixon to lie. He didn’t seem the slightest bit affected. Actually, none of them looked like their hearts went out for the two dead men.
Tucker looked at me for some time before shooting Nixon a peculiar look. “Why’d you go back, Nixon? You were ahead of us.”
Nixon removed a knife from his pocket – the same knife he’d killed Mills with – and bent over, slicing open the top of one of the boxes. “I wanted a turn,” he simply said as he opened the flaps and peered in.
Roz looked at me too, running his hand over his light beard. “Did you get to have one?”
Nixon pulled out blankets and pots and various other items I couldn’t see, throwing them down feet from where he stood. “No.”
Silence.
They watched as Nixon sliced open the other box and emptied it out on the floor. From what I could see, there were cans, pots, a kettle, lots of camping food, soaps, toothbrushes and toothpastes, and more blankets. He sorted it out on the counter of the kitchenette, and Roz helped, leafing through the camping food, reading the meals aloud.
“Butter chicken and rice,” he muttered. “Eggs and bacon. Blueberry oats. Just add boiling water. Jesus. They’ve come a long fucking way, hey?”
Nixon didn’t reply. He hardly spoke, I gathered. I hadn’t heard a single word from him the entire ride. He appeared reserved, a sore thumb among the others.
As I studied Roz, I noticed he didn’t appear like he belonged either.
He was very groomed. His hair was cut fashionably in a short style and his beard looked even. He had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen, and they glowed in contrast to the snow and dark cabin walls. He was definitely in shape. I could see his muscles bulge against his black sweater, and he was tall too. Tall as Nixon, but Nixon was definitely broader and more muscular. They seemed close in age, him and Nixon. They couldn’t have been pushing more than a couple years past 30.
Tucker, on the other hand, was young. He must have been close to my age or maybe even younger with black short hair and dark eyes. He wasn’t all that muscly, but he wasn’t all that skinny, either; he was in the middle, looking the weakest physically amongst the others.
But something about him made my stomach turn. Whenever he looked at me, his gaze lingering, I felt uneasy. He made his intentions known when his eyes slid down my face and to my body. It made me gather the blanket and cover my chest.
He noticed.
“You should take that blanket off,” he told me. “You’re getting it dirty.”
I looked to Nixon, hoping he’d say something, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was still sorting out the contents of the boxes on the counter with Roz, but Roz was watching the interaction, staring at me also.
“Did you hear me?” Tucker asked, his voice hardening. “Take the blanket off, girl.”
My face burned and my heart sped as I slowly peeled the blanket off and set it beside me. I stared down at it, unable to look at him. My body fell into a fit of tremors – fear and cold hitting me at once.
“Jesus, that’s a lot of blood,” he noted. “You might have to take that top off, too.”
Again, no intervention from Nixon. Why did I expect anything more from him? I remained still, staring at the coarse blanket, praying this guy would leave me the fuck alone.
“You do have a lot of blood on you,” Roz agreed, taking steps in my direction. “Fuck, how close was she to the shooting?”
Nixon didn’t answer. He made Roz connect the dots on his own as he approached me, blocking Tucker’s view of me. I turned my sight to him, staring up at his handsome face, pleading with my eyes for him not to touch me.
He smiled softly. “You really do need to get out of that sweater, sweetheart.”
I shut my eyes tight, trying to keep the tears from falling.
“But it’s too cold for that,” he added. “Let’s get the fire going first before you get to clean yourself up.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding as I heard him turn and walk back to Nixon. When I opened my eyes again, sight blurry with tears of relief, I caught the look of contempt on Tucker’s face.
My hours were numbered.
32.
Nixon…
There was something about her brown eyes.
Something about the way she smelled.
Something in the way she moved.
Fate had dropped the ultimate temptation in the midst of savages. And the men were hungry. Even Nixon felt drawn in a way he shouldn’t.
He didn’t like the way Tucker was talking to her. He clenched his teeth, feeling the rage roll off his shoulders as he stood there, silent, his mind playing out scenarios.
He couldn’t react impulsively. When you reacted out of anger, chances were you were going to fuck up. He’d seen it one too many times. You had to be in control of your faculties. You had to strike when the opportunity was right.
When Roz rescued the girl from having to strip down to her bra, Nixon looked at Tucker from his peripheral. Pure disdain clouded the kid’s face. He wanted to touch her badly. He cast a look of irritation at Roz before he stood up abruptly and stomped out of the cabin.
“This is going to be a long week,” Roz muttered.
After the meals were organized, Nixon went to the wood pile in the corner. As he tore the tarp off, noting how poorly it had been used as a cover, he thought it was unusually cold in this part of the room. He stared up at the ceiling, frowning when he felt a gust of wind come through the top.
“Hobbs fucked up,” he said, his gaze returning to the firewood. He kicked at the large pile, watching as some of them fell to the ground at his feet. Then he bent over and grabbed at a handful of the cut wood, his worries realized.
Roz joined him. “How? He had the cabin ready for us a few weeks ago.”
Nixon pointed to the ceiling. “There’s a leak in t
he roof.”
Roz looked up at the gap in the ceiling, his face falling as he returned his sight to the pieces of wood in Nixon’s hands. “Fuck, it’s wet, isn’t it?”
Nixon nodded. “Yeah, it’s drenched.”
“Can we get the fire started at all?”
“We’ll have to go over the whole pile.”
The problem was the tarp hadn’t been properly secured over the pile. The wind gusting from the roof would have blown the tarp so it was exposed to the elements.
And all of last week it had been raining.
Because that was all it did here.
Just rained and fucking rained.
Kneeling down, Roz began rifling through the pile, shaking his head as he went. “The floorboards are rotted through, man, all around this spot. I don’t like our chances finding a dry bit.”
“We’ll have to cut them up, find dry spots in the middle. I think there’s some fat wood in here, too.”
“Fat wood?”
“It burns regardless of how wet it is.”
“Still going to take a while. We might not be warm tonight.”
Nixon glanced at the girl on the bed as she shivered in her bloodied top, looking dejectedly at the blanket she wasn’t allowed to use. He wanted to tell her to wrap herself in it, blood and all, but he didn’t want to make his concerns known with Roz present. As far as him and Tucker were concerned, she was just a dead girl walking.
But if she didn’t get warm anytime soon, she wasn’t going to last the night. Even Nixon was feeling the effects of the cold. This sort of weather consumed you from the inside-out.
And she was so fucking little.
Interrupting them, Tucker returned to the room, glaring at him. “Where are your bags, man? You didn’t come with any, too busy carrying the fucking girl. Is she made of gold to you, Nixon?”