Chapter Eighty
Bree
I woke up in Nathan’s arms but he was wide awake. I knew he hadn’t held me the entire time, but there was no reason to ask him what he had been doing. There was nothing to do.
I blinked my eyes against the flickering bulb and yawned. “What time do you think it is?”
“Close to dawn,” Nathan said.
I scowled. “How could you possibly know that?”
He shrugged. “I overheard the guards.”
As if the guards had been listening, the door rattled open. I stifled a scream as Nathan shielded me behind his body. A yellow box flew into the room and dropped at our feet. Before I could look up, the door was closed again.
“Looks like breakfast,” Nathan said.
I glanced down at the dented box and my stomach flipped. “No thanks. Waiting to die is just killing my appetite.”
Nathan shot me an irritated look. “We’re not waiting to die. The transfer’s going to happen soon and we’ve got a plan.”
My head was spinning. I knew it was probably hunger but the nearly-impossible plan we’d dreamt up didn’t help. I leaned against the wall and shut my eyes again. The room was still real when I opened them.
“We’re going to make it through this, Bree,” Nathan said.
An hour or so later, according to Nathan, the guards heaved open the door again. I wanted Nathan to fight them; I wanted to scratch at them and scream instead of accepting that black bag over my head again.
Except Nathan didn’t fight. He was ready to go. And I had no choice but to follow. He was my only lifeline and he needed me to pull off the plan.
The guards zip-tied our hands in front of us and immediately after they were done, Nathan caught my hands in his. We walked side-by-side to the door and into the hallway. Feeling his warmth and bulk next to me made the blackness inside the hood almost tolerable. We moved willingly in the direction the guards prodded us.
Then the guard next to me made a mistake. He reached across and ripped our hands apart. The guard was in the midst of transferring me to the other side of his body when Nathan became enraged.
It didn’t matter that his wrists were bound together, I heard him swing his fists like a club. The guard next to me grunted and slumped back against the wall.
I reached out and flailed my arms through the air until I bumped into Nathan. He caught my hands and calmed down.
“Let’s just get them to the van,” the other guard muttered.
His partner swore and unbent painfully. He grabbed my arm and hauled us down the hallway and into the warehouse.
I knew the second we hit the larger room. The air was cooler and I could feel the space reaching out far around us. Then the guards muttered at each other again and I heard the echoes bouncing back from a long distance.
The guards prodded us in front of them and continued their muttered conversation.
“I’ll distract them,” I told Nathan.
“What? Why?” He gripped my hands tighter.
My heart was drumming so loud I could hardly hear him. The swell of adrenaline was taking over. I was done being trapped, blindfolded, and tied. I wanted out.
“Take the van now. We’ll drive out of here like we did before,” I said.
Before Nathan could talk any sense into me, I slipped out of his fingers and ran. There was so much space that I picked up speed despite not being able to see a thing through the dark hood. I could hear the guard running up behind me, and I dodged to the side at the last minute.
His partner’s laughter echoed across the warehouse. Then I heard a second pair of footsteps circling around me. I didn’t panic until I ran flat out into someone.
He was thin and I knocked him back a step, but his grip was strong. “You must be Nathan’s lucky charm, eh?” he asked.
“What?” I strained to hear him above the guards shouting.
“He thinks I’m in a run of bad luck. It’s nothing compared to his debt. I hope you’re his lucky charm because his luck’s about to run out.”
The two guards plucked me away from the man and dragged me back to the van. I hadn’t made it more than fifty yards.
They shoved Nathan and I in the stripped-out back of the van. I huddled close to him and hoped he had used my distraction to get a weapon or at least a knife to break our restraints. The guards had learned from the first time and had wound multiple ties around our wrists.
“Save your energy, Bree,” Nathan whispered.
“What?” I was angry at how he sounded. As if I was child that had been run wild for no reason.
“We shouldn’t talk.” Nathan’s voice was barely audible even though he was right next to me.
My pulse was still jumping too fast to calm down. “I think we should talk. Let’s talk about how many friends you made while you were working here.”
Nathan grabbed my wrists and squeezed until I shifted in pain. “Stop talking, Bree.”
“No.” I wriggled away from him. “You’ve remembered something, haven’t you? And you were just going to go along with all the information like you’ve done this whole time.”
Nathan caught me close and I could feel his lips moving against my ear. “I changed my mind. Keep it up, make it more dramatic. If we split up and stop talking the guards will relax. Then maybe they’ll start talking.”
I shoved him back. “Fine. Then how about we talk about your gambling? Funny how you never mentioned your habit of going on wild benders and losing thousands of dollars.”
“Bree, just listen,” Nathan pleaded.
I lashed out again but the hood kept me from making contact. “Just stay away from me. This is all your fault. I’m done with you.”
I wriggled across the van floor and pressed my back to the side opposite Nathan. The heat from the hood was itching my face and mouth, and I could feel tears burning behind my eyes. On top of it, the sudden quiet was unbearable.
All I could hear was the road grinding along underneath us and the speed filled me with fear. How far away we were going? If we managed to get away, how would we ever make our way back to the border?
Then the two guards started talking.
From the first subtle jabs and chuckles, it was easy to tell they were family. Then they started talking about an uncle and it was clear they were cousins. They complained about how his will had been distributed and they had gotten nothing. Not once did they express any sadness over the deceased. It was all about money.
The heartless conversation and the rocking lull of the van almost put me to sleep. Then one cousin asked the other how long they had to go.
“About forty minutes. Then we’ll stop,” he replied.
He didn’t say anything about the transfer or meeting the armored car. A twinge of fear moved down my back. What if there wasn’t going to be a transfer? All he had said was ‘stop.’ Why did that make me think we wouldn’t be going anywhere after that?
I wanted to crawl to Nathan’s side and take some comfort in his strength. He would figure out a way to get us free. I couldn’t even think about what he would do, or how he wouldn’t stop. I had to believe in him.
I took a deep breath and decided I had to believe in myself too. Just that thought was enough to loosen my tangled anxiety. I took another deep breath and got ahold of my fear. It wasn’t over yet and I couldn’t even imagine giving up. I pushed myself upright and concentrated on my breathing.
Nathan was still with me. We had a plan. Now all I needed to do was believe we could pull it off.