The Madison Jennings Series Box Set
Page 49
The real question hung in the air. Where was the guy they knew as Tiffani, and where was Lilly?
“I only did a quick check of the house. No one else seems to be here. Look around and see if you can, I don’t know, find a clue or something.”
The end part of the sentence ended in a frustrated growl. Seeing one of the zip-tied men beginning to return to consciousness, Maddie took out her frustration and struck him in the head again.
“Madison!”
The admonishment in Aden’s tone was clear. Maddie ignored it. She picked up the machete he had dropped and shoved it at his chest with the blade facing away from him. “No football moves, dude. Use it. These guys are trained—probably. You need the edge—literally.”
“What guys? There’s two, which we have tied up. You don’t need to beat them. . . .”
While Aden and Maddie continued bickering, Dorete wandered into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and freezer, and the fullness of each sent anxiety sloshing around in her stomach. Unless the hog-taped men in the next room had shopped for a month and a half, there was too much in there for just two people. She turned to the kitchen table and spotted a blood-soaked rag on it.
Dorete started to call Aden and Maddie, but decided not to when she saw them still arguing. Then she noticed a small drop of blood on the floor in front of the pantry. When she slid back the pantry door, well-stocked shelves of canned food, rice, and other packaged goods were revealed. What caught her eye were the red finger-shaped smudges on the inside wall. She assumed it was blood, but thought it seemed weird to be there. On a hunch, she placed her hand on the shelves and pushed.
The entire shelving unit swung smoothly backward, revealing a set of stairs behind it. It reminded her of something you would see in a Batman movie—a hidden stairway leading down into the Batcave. Fascinated, she did not think to get her companions. She started down the stairs, not even bothering to quiet her steps. When she reached the bottom, a hand clamped onto her arm and yanked her forward.
Chapter Eighty-Two
A gut-wrenching scream reverberated throughout the house. Maddie snapped her head in its direction and the fast-moving sound of running footsteps that followed. But she only saw the empty kitchen before her. That changed as a large male appeared to walk from out of the wall.
Maddie saw a silver glint in his hand, so she moved to her left, yanking Aden with her. Moments later, the sound of a muffled firecracker swept through the room. White powder puffed into the air as bullets struck the wall behind them.
Concealed for the moment by the angle of the wall, Maddie aimed her crossbow at the momentarily empty space of the entryway between the kitchen and back room, shooting a millisecond after seeing a large shadow. Her timing was spot-on. The bolt struck the gun-wielding man near the collarbone just as he walked into the entryway. He fell back a step, clogging the space for the men behind him.
Action and movement were Maddie’s and Aden’s only weapons, but the sound of bullets flying had shocked Aden into immobility. Maddie sprang into action and grabbed the machete from his limp hand. She jumped to her feet and swung the blade with her right hand into the stomach of the bolt-impaled male. He cried out as he dropped the gun and fell backward.
The gun was near her foot, but she did not have time to pick it up. She kicked it away instead, then threw her blade overhand at a male who was bringing his hand up to aim. She did not wait to see if the long blade hit him. She ducked to her right and swung the baton in her other hand at the male who had been directly behind the man she had shot. She hit him in the side of the head.
It was a glancing blow, only stunning him. She moved in front of him, keeping his body between her and the third attacker. Maddie swung the baton again, but this time the man simply accepted the pain, pinning the baton at his side with his arm then twisting his body and ripping the baton from Maddie’s hands. She hopped backward to reach for a pot on the stove. She threw it at him.
Once again, Aden came flying past her, catching the man unawares as he focused on Maddie. He barreled into him, this time picking him up at the waist and pushing him all the way back into the third male. Maddie grabbed another pot, swinging it underhand at the head of the male she had cut. The pan struck him in the temple and snapped his head backward into the side of the wooden chair. He slumped to the floor.
Maddie moved to help Aden, who had an arm around the neck of one male, while the other was trying to kick him off. One of the male’s arms was hanging slackly, letting Maddie know her throw of the machete had been partially successful. She came at him with a straight kick to the side hip and knocked him backward. She reset her feet and followed up with a quick jab toward his face. She struck only air, then felt her own body being lifted and pushed backward.
He had ducked under her punch, then swept her up and off her feet with his uninjured arm. She saw stars as her back, followed by her head, hit the floor. Only instinct allowed her to throw her palms up in crisscrossing strikes. Neither had any power behind them, serving as defensive blows only; but they provided a breadth of space, allowing her to hitch her hips into the air and push the attacker on top of her forward. She twisted to the side, wrapped her arm around his neck, and whipped her right leg to the left. The MMA floor move propelled her from a position of weakness to one of dominance.
Vaska’s insistence on teaching the technique had paid off but was not complete. Her arm was at an awkward angle, and her size meant she did not have the strength to squeeze him into submission. However, it did offer other forms of leverage, which Maddie used, grabbing his free arm and wrenching it back until she heard a snap.
He roared in agony and fell limp. Maddie scrambled on top of him fully and struck him with two downward sharp elbows. The first crunched his nose. The second rendered him unconscious.
Turning her attention back to Aden, she saw he had gotten the upper hand on his opponent. Unintelligible screams tore from his throat as he struck the person again and again. He continued punching several more times, slavering blood across his fist and making a pizza sauce of the man’s face. When he finally stopped swinging, he broke down into tears.
Maddie could not go to him. She looked back toward the kitchen and saw the hidden door in the pantry for the first time. She started to move toward the door but heard footsteps coming up a flight of stairs. Seeing the baton on the floor, she grabbed it, then moved back.
“Aden, snap out of it!” she shouted.
She moved behind the end of a couch. It would offer no protection from a bullet but would hide her as a target while she tried to figure out what to do. Aden had not moved.
Out from the hidden entrance walked Mr. Y Leiro, three large, bearded men, and their former friend. Ihtisham was holding a tied Dorete in front of him. From behind her hiding spot, Maddie saw Mr. Y Leiro point a gun at Aden. She did not see any guns in the other men’s hands. The female pretender, Ihtisham, had a cell phone in his hand, which was bad.
“Aden, get up,” commanded Mr. Y Leiro.
When Aden continued to just stare at the man he had beaten to a pulp, one of the men with their deranged teacher walked over and yanked him to his feet. He whirled Aden around, and Mr. Y Leiro stepped closer to him, his gun never wavering.
Maddie’s mind swirled as she tried to decide what to do next. She hunched further down to hide better. The action caused her hand to brush up against her pocketed flashlight, which gave her an idea.
The sight of his history teacher pointing the barrel of a gun at him roused Aden from his stupor. Anguish in his eyes, he stared at the teacher then looked past him at Ihtisham. “Tiffani, Lilly is your friend. We all are.”
“The will and works of Allah are more important than the attachments of Westerners.”
Aden’s eyes narrowed. “Allah doesn’t accept gays or boys pretending to be girls. Only America lets you do that,” he retorted, heat in the words.
Mr. Y Leiro struck Aden’s face with the gun and knocked him to his knees.
Instead of answering, Aden looked past the group and screamed, “Maddie, no! Don’t!”
The ruse worked. Mr. Y Leiro turned to look behind him. Maddie knew she had to make a move now, so she rose from her hiding place. By the time Mr. Y Leiro turned back in the direction of Aden, Maddie was pointing her flashlight toward him.
Microquick, her thumb pushed the end three times, activating the flashlight’s strobe feature. The flickering bright lights immediately blinded and disoriented everyone facing her direction. Maddie moved like lightning as she struck Mr. Y Leiro’s wrist with the baton. She thought she heard a crunch of bone but could not be sure.
Aden sprinted past her as he zeroed in on Ihtisham. Maddie heard the two collide and hoped the phone was knocked from Ihtisham’s hand. Maddie turned just as one of the men fought through the dizziness the strobe lights had induced and rammed into her.
Their momentum carried them into the living room. This time, Maddie controlled her fall by positioning herself to land on her forearm. With her free hand, she reached around the attacker’s face, grabbed his nose, and ripped it backward. The painful move made him lean back, which allowed her to hit him with a palm strike to the lower chin, snapping his mouth shut and teeth into his tongue.
She repeated her hip thrust, but this time she moved to escape rather than attack. Getting to her feet, a yank on her ankle sent her back to the ground. A kick to her side followed. Deliberate or by accident, the kick had nailed her in the solar plexus and her lungs emptied of air like a balloon deflating. As she struggled to get her wind back, she had no choice but to accept kick after kick.
Then she was being lifted and tossed backward through the air. One foot skipped off the floor a moment before she was thrown against a wall.
In the other room, Aden had succeeded in knocking both Dorete and Ihtisham into the kitchen table. He swung over Dorete’s shoulder and hit the teenage boy behind her with little power. Ihtisham, in turn, swung around Dorete’s side and struck Aden in the face.
Aden stumbled back a step, then was thrown backward to the floor as Mr. Y Leiro had used his uninjured hand to yank the back of Aden’s shirt. The crazed teacher followed up with a descending stomp toward Aden’s face. Aden caught the foot in his hand and shoved it backward.
The football star was not a trained fighter but was large and strong. The powerful push sent the weaker man flailing backward into the tangle of Dorete and Ihtisham. The blond-haired boy dropped the cell phone.
Aden saw Dorete kick the phone away from them, and he cringed. Dorete had no idea that kicking it might trigger an explosive to go off. Despite being tied and gagged, she managed to crawl away from the boy toward the back room.
Aden forgot them both. Mr. Y Leiro needed to be dealt with.
Maddie was slumped on the floor, still unable to draw in a breath. Instead of pressing his advantage, the large man who had thrown her gave her a baneful smile.
“This child is who Ihtisham was babbling about. Ha! Perhaps he is a woman.”
As sweet oxygen refilled her lungs, Maddie projected her own malicious smile. “You found that out when he made a man out of you?” The taunt had the desired effect.
Enraged, he rushed forward. Maddie spun on her side, pushed from the floor, and elbowed the large man in the groin. He stopped in his tracks and fell backward, whereas Maddie rose to her feet, grabbed his head, and pulled it toward her hip-thrusted knee.
The sound of crushed cartilage rang loud and clear.
His partner moved in on her, anger causing him to throw a wide punch. Maddie ducked under it, palm slapped him in the balls, then wrapped her arm under his armpit and stepped around him. Using him as an anchor, she threw out a back kick and struck the third man in the chest.
The move kept the third assailant off her but allowed the man she was holding to recover. Once again, Maddie’s small size hurt her. He grabbed her leg and lifted her off the floor. Vaska’s words echoed in her mind: React to what your opponent is doing.
Maddie followed her trainer’s advice. She moved with the flow of the lift, twisting her body so that momentum swung her up and around his neck. Now, she was sitting on his shoulders with him unwittingly supporting her weight with his hand. Maddie released his arm, crossed her legs at the ankles, and threw herself backward, twisting to the side as she did.
She was not stronger than him, but strength did not beat physics. The torque of the move tipped him backward, head first, where he slammed into the floor. Maddie scrambled to her feet and turned to find the other man.
His fist found her face first. The blow scrambled Maddie’s brains. She had never been hit so hard in her life. She collapsed, and something hard bit into her leg as she hit the floor. A detached part of her mind screamed filthy words at her absentmindedness. She had yet another tool at her disposal she had forgotten.
Before she could do anything about it, a second punch caught her on the other side of the face. She rolled with the punch, planting her hands on the floor and kicking out. She caught the man in the gut, which bought her some breathing room. She shuffled back and turned sideways.
It was a classic fighting stance, designed to offer a smaller target to an opponent. But Maddie just wanted to hide the hand that was reaching to pull out the knife in her pocket. She decided not to wait for the man’s attack. She slid forward and spit in his face to distract him.
The vile maneuver did more. He screamed and launched two wide-swinging punches at her. She dodged one, then ducked under the second. Coming up behind him, she flicked her knife open and slashed the back of his knees. The sharp knife cut through the cloth and muscles of his leg, hamstringing him.
He toppled to the floor, unable to hold his own weight. He tried to rise again but collapsed in the attempt.
Maddie looked around the room. Her other two attackers were unconscious. She walked over to each, bent down, and cut the hamstrings of both men. Now, neither would be able to do more than crawl. It was also possible they could bleed out. Either possibility did not bother her in the least.
Maddie raced back into the kitchen. She was worried about Aden. He was on the ground, this time behind Mr. Y Leiro with his arms wrapped around Y Leiro’s neck. Maddie could tell he was just holding him in place, not exerting any undue pressure.
“Aden, put him to sleep or I will.” To emphasize the point, Maddie picked up the baton and gave him a hard stare. Aden glared at her but tightened his grip around the teacher. This cut off Mr. Y Leiro’s oxygen flow and rendered him unconscious.
“Where’s Dorete and candyboy?” asked Maddie.
“In the back.”
They headed toward the room by the garage, where their ordeal had begun. They could hear the buzzing sound of the Taser they had left behind in the room. Maddie raised her arm, poised to swing.
Dorete was on top of Ihtisham, tied hands in front of her and pushing the Taser into her classmate like she was trying to force it through his body.
“Dorry, you can stop now.”
She ignored Aden and continued to press the unit against Ihtisham, her eyes wild.
“DORRY!” Aden shouted, then he pulled her off the person he knew as a sweet girl. When Dorete was pulled clear, Maddie immediately struck Ihtisham in the head with the baton.
“Goddammit, Madison!” growled Aden.
“Shut up and get Dorry untied. Then tie these assholes up.”
She did not wait for his response. Maddie walked back into the living room. The remaining conscious man had crawled to the wall. “You cannot smother the will of Allah,” he blurted, then he spat at her.
Maddie swung the baton—hard.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Maddie returned to the kitchen and rushed down the hidden stairway. After reaching the last step, she walked into the basement. She froze.
On either side of the large basement were cells—a private prison hidden
beneath a suburban neighborhood, each cell containing a single female. Maddie wandered down the middle floor space between them, her mouth open but wordless.
From either side of her, girls stood up in the cells.
“Get us out.”
“Call the police.”
“Don’t touch the locks!”
“Madison!”
The shout of her name overrode the cacophony of the other jailed girls. Maddie sprinted the short distance to the last cell on her right. Inside languished Lilly, bedraggled with bruises on her face. Lilly stepped forward slowly but stopped a good twelve inches from the bars.
Tears cascaded down Maddie’s face. “I’m going to get you out. I’m gonna get you out.”
“NO!” came a collective shout from each of the cells.
“There’re bombs on the locks, Maddie. Touch them, and they’ll explode.”
Maddie heard the words. But now that she was so close to saving her friend, they went over her head.
The cell phone, she thought. The cell phone that Ihtisham had carried upstairs.
Maddie crouched to get a better look at the locking mechanism on the cells, noticing them for the first time. She swiveled around, looked at each cell, and saw the same blinking red lights on all of them. The events of the past weeks crumbled in on her: the kidnapped girls, the death of one, and the killing of Allie and Zara, Not-Tiffani’s deception and attempt on her life, and underlying it all, a simmering hate for the people who had taken Uncle Z from her. Different times, different people, and yet the same.
Maddie’s world mushroomed into a white rage.
She rose from her crouch and sprinted toward the stairs, and at that moment, Dorete walked through the basement entrance. Maddie shoved her aside. She ascended the stairs two at a time and reached the kitchen seconds later, wild-eyed, mouth twisted into a snarl.
“Where is it?” she growled.
Aden looked up from tying Mr. Y Leiro to see Maddie stomping over to the kitchen countertop. The gun Mr. Y Leiro had pointed at Aden was on top of the counter. Maddie grabbed it, then turned and strode toward her teacher with terrible purpose.