Chapter 18
It was always weird seeing the school at night. Empty of children, with the classrooms in darkness, it always made Rafe uneasy. He loved the school noise, the bright lights and colors, but the hall was the only place in town big enough for the town meeting. He’d missed the last one, but the minutes went from parking to lawns, and he didn’t think he’d missed much.
Deacon had insisted on coming as well, and he’d clearly gone shopping somewhere, because he had a new shirt that stretched over each muscle. He’d caught the eye of quite a few of the ladies here tonight, but he was oblivious.
The hall was cold as well, and everyone had to wear coats until the portable heaters kicked in; school cost-cutting meant the thermostat was turned down overnight. Rafe had taken Sam’s jacket and only when he pushed his hands into its pockets to warm them did he feel the black disc, the tracker.
To think there had been a time he’d needed that little disc to reassure himself that he’d be okay.
As usual, tables groaned with donated food, and soft drinks, and chatter that escalated in volume as each new person joined. Everyone wanted to talk to Rafe about the accident and wanted to know who Deacon was. Rafe was the one who suggested they’d met at the hospital, and everyone seemed happy with that explanation.
Why wouldn’t they be? No one here knew about their connection. People were interested in Deacon only in that they assumed he was Rafe’s boyfriend. For a small town, the residents were welcoming, but he still wanted to be circumspect around the parents of the kids he taught. Cambridge Falls School was home to one hundred students pulled from all over the area, aged from five to Junior High. The rest of their education was handled by the large senior high school a few towns over. Everyone knew each other – things didn’t get done in this town without consensus, and this appeared to include Rafe’s accident. They were debating more stop lights, so Rafe found a chair at the back of the lounge and perched on its arm, Deacon next to him, standing, with his hands in his pockets.
Anna came over, her youngest daughter in her arms. “Can you take her?” she asked Rafe, who held out his arms. He loved the little ones, and Chloe was only eleven months old. In a few years she’d be in his school and he’d be teaching her the alphabet and how to count to ten. He’d seen this baby born, or at least seen her when she was only a few days old, and had watched her blossom from cute-baby to aware-baby, to this point where she was normally desperately trying to escape everyone’s hold to crawl around. Only she was asleep now, and Rafe cradled her. He ran a finger softly down her face, right to the little birthmark on her shoulder, a star shape that meant her name had almost been Starlight, which hadn’t gone down too well with Anna’s husband. So, Chloe she had become.
The meeting was long. There was consensus on another set of lights, and a warning to watch parking outside the school. Like that would have stopped the hit-and-run by an unknown assailant that had nearly taken Rafe out.
Of course, the assailant was known, and all these people spread out in the hall were oblivious to everything. Rafe was friends with a lot of them, passing acquaintances with others, but every single person there was part of this town.
“They need to know,” he murmured, and rocked Chloe.
“No, they don’t,” Deacon said back.
Looking down at the baby in his arms, all Rafe could think was that there was every reason to be honest about everything, but then he wouldn’t be Craig Jenkins anymore, he’d be Rafe again, and they would know he was related to the Martinez family. Deacon appeared to pick up on his discomfort, and pressed a hand to Rafe’s knee.
“It’s okay,” he reassured him in a low tone.
Rafe had to believe that was true, even as Chloe curled up and snuffled against his shirt. Any moment she would wake up, and this sweet interlude would be over.
Anna came over and took Chloe from him. “Need to get this little one to bed,” she said quietly.
Rafe was bereft when the baby had gone. Without the baby on his chest, he would probably have to mingle, to talk to the people who would ask him all the same questions about his leg, about how he was feeling.
The meeting went on, this time focusing on Christmas and the lighting on Main, and was it possible to fundraise for more, and hey, did anyone have any ideas. By the time another hour had passed, Rafe’s leg was aching like a bitch.
“I’m just going to walk this out and visit the bathroom,” he said, and tapped his leg.
“I’ll come with,” Deacon said, and helped him to stand just as the sheriff wandered over their way.
“I’m okay,” he murmured. “Give me five.”
“Coffee?” Oscar said from the other side of Deacon.
“I’ll come back for mine.”
He made his way through the crowd of people with plates of food. He could answer the questions about the leg from the few friends in town he’d made – Sheila who owned the café, Johan whose dad owned the grocery store and had just retired, leaving Johan in charge. Ultimately, though, he wanted some air. He used the bathroom and limped back the way he’d come, bypassing someone standing with his back to him.
“Hi,” he said in his friendliest tone, and then saw the baby. He didn’t have to see the birthmark to know that it was Chloe. He recognized her – the sleepsuit, the blanket, and there was blood. A lot of blood.
Ice froze his heart, and he looked up at the man holding her.
Right into the cold, dead eyes of Felix Martinez. One side of his face was a mess of burns, raw and bleeding, and he was hunched to one side, but he was holding Chloe and he looked determined.
“You don’t want me to hurt the baby like I’m hurting the mom, right?” he said, his voice slurry, one side of his mouth split and twisted.
“Felix—”
“Best come with me, huh?”
Felix headed for the door and pushed it open.
“Gray Mazda at the back. Get in the driver’s seat.”
Rafe was frozen in place. Felix was supposed to be dead, burned in a car. Should he go back out the door and shout for Deacon? What was happening here? Then Chloe whimpered and Rafe’s decision was easy.
“Leave the baby here,” Rafe pleaded, watching as Felix looked down at Chloe and snarled at her.
“I don’t wanna hurt a baby yet, but the mom? She’s all kinds of bloody in the trunk. Wanna see?”
“Don’t…” Rafe didn’t know what to say, how to stop this. He needed Deacon. Where was Deacon? How the hell had he even got into the school? “They’ll know you’re here,” he said.
“Then who’s stopping me? ’Cause I don’t see anyone armed and heading my way.” He popped the trunk, and to Rafe’s horror he saw Anna, unconscious, tied up in there.
“Get in the fucking car.” When Rafe hesitated, Felix lifted Chloe above his head and grimaced. “Want me to hurt this little thing?”
“Felix, Jesus.”
Rafe didn’t know what to do. Did he get in the car, where the baby would be out of his reach, or did he try to wrestle the baby away from Felix? Was Anna even alive? Felix slammed the trunk closed before Rafe could focus on checking her breathing.
“Get. In. The. Car.”
He still hadn’t lowered Chloe, and Rafe began to do as he was told, relief running through him as Felix laid the baby on the back seat. This was his moment – grab Chloe and run. Or in his case hobble; at least Chloe and the baby would get away.
“I will kill you here and now.” Rafe froze at the gun pointing at him. “And then I’ll finish this baby’s momma, and then maybe I’ll leave the baby right next to her bleeding corpse, what do you say?”
“If I go with you, you’ll let Anna and her baby go?”
“You have my word,” Felix said, then snorted a laugh. “You got no fucking room to negotiate.”
He sat in the passenger seat, pulling on his belt. Chloe was lying loose on the back seat, so there was no way that Rafe could crash the car; there was nothing he could do. He started the engine, hoping to God Deacon would appear.
Nothing.
They were on the main road out of town, no roadblock, nothing. His leg hurt like a bitch and it was difficult to drive, but he was managing it. The streets were empty this time of night, and not a single law enforcement officer anywhere.
They drove for twenty minutes, out of town and up the windy roads to the base of the mountain, the clock ticking away the seconds, and Chloe woke up and was sobbing in the back, with Felix growing more agitated.
“Jesus, fucking baby. Pull over,” Felix ordered, waving the gun in Rafe’s face.
“Fuck, no, don’t hurt her – I can get her to stop crying.”
Chloe was screaming now. “Stop. The. Car.”
Rafe did as he was told. He wasn’t belted in – he’d put himself between a bullet and baby Chloe if he had to.
“Get her out of the car.” Rafe reached to pick up Chloe, and Felix shoved him toward the trunk. “Her, for fuck’s sake.”
Rafe pushed through the pain and opened the trunk and got Anna out as quickly as he could, thankful he could still hear Chloe sobbing in the car. At least that meant she was still alive, even if she was distressed.
“Lie her down over there.”
Rafe stared into the darkness. They were in the middle of nowhere, not on a main highway, it was cold, and they were abandoning Anna?
“She’ll die,” Rafe said.
“You think?” Felix laughed again, and shoved him and Anna away from the car. “Over there,” he said with a wave of the gun.
Rafe placed Anna carefully on the ground, hoping the rocks she lay against would be enough shelter. She was breathing, although the blood on her face was sticky to touch.
“Get the fucking baby,” Felix snapped, and Rafe hurriedly returned and gripped Chloe close. “Take her to her momma.” He gestured with the gun, and Rafe went straight to where Anna lay.
“Please Felix, don’t hurt them. You have me…”
Felix ignored him. “Put the brat with her momma.”
“It’s too cold. She’ll die.”
“Gonna die anyway. Leave her.”
Rafe fell awkwardly to one knee next to Anna. “Wake up, Anna, please.” He had no phone, nothing to leave with them, and they were in the middle of nowhere. He placed Chloe next to her mom, in her mom’s arms, and inspiration hit him. He was going to die, but there was no way he was leaving the girls to die as well.
“Craig?” Anna whispered, her focus bleary.
Rafe shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped Chloe in it, snuggling her back with her mom. The tracker would lead Deacon here, to Anna and the baby, and they would be safe.
“Thank you,” Anna said, her voice stronger.
“Stay alive,” Rafe said back. “Tell Deacon…”
“Craig?”
“Tell him I’m sorry.”
“Get the fuck over here,” Felix snapped from behind them.
Careful to keep himself between the gun and the little family, he walked back to the car, waiting until they were both ready to get back in. If anything happened to Anna or Chloe, it would kill him. He wasn’t going to let anyone else die for him.
They drove for another few minutes, and Rafe honestly had no idea where they were going. They’d moved between the mountains, taken a side road, and ended up at a shack. That was all it was – a broken-down shack – but it was obviously where Felix had been staying. There was a camping stove, and a sleeping bag, and chains. A lot of chains.
And bodies. He counted three, laid in a precise line.
Rafe tried to take everything in, so he could tell someone if he managed to live past today. He wanted them to know there was blood here, and the chains were stained with it, and he had no clue whether the blood was from Felix killing, and that he was terrified about what would happen next.
Terrified but resigned.
“On your knees,” Felix said, his voice soft, the gun right in Rafe’s face.
This was it; the moment when he was going to die. Rafe went to one knee on the dark, damp ground, the give of it making him think there was earth there, and no floor to this place. “Hands out in front of you.”
With practiced ease, one-handed, Felix slipped loose rope around Rafe’s wrists, then with one tug he tightened it before moving behind him.
“Hands over your head,” he said, and Rafe felt the press of cold steel to the nape of his neck. He’d felt a gun against him before, only that time Deacon had saved him.
Felix grabbed his tied hands and hooked them to something, and then slowly he walked to face Rafe head on and pulled on a chain. As he did so, Rafe was pulled to his feet and then higher, until only the tips of the feet of his good leg were on the ground, just enough to balance him with his arms at full stretch. His cast made him lopsided, and he knew he should care that his side hurt, but he couldn’t.
“You should have died when I hit you with the car,” Felix said, in a sing-song voice as if he was telling a story. “But your daddy didn’t die either. I drove that car straight at him – thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour. He shoulda died when he hit the windshield, but no, the fucker held on for fucking days.”
“I’ll kill you,” Rafe snapped, and tried to pull on the chains.
“You, I went slower, ’cause I wanted you in pain for what you did to us. Then I was going to kill you in the hospital, suffocate you, watch you squirm. You left. Now I get to kill you as I wanted all along. Slowly and painfully.”
Felix smiled, then, placing the gun very deliberately on the floor, and Rafe took his chance, kicking out at Felix and catching him in his side. It wasn’t enough to make any difference, and all Felix did was jump back and laugh at Rafe.
“You know what my dad said? He had to kill your mom, course he did, but he told me his sister was feisty when he killed her. She refused to die, even when he hit her over and over, and you know what he said after that?”
Felix poked Rafe in the side, then the chest. Hard.
“Dad told me she said she was ready to make a bargain. Anything to keep you alive. He told me he shoulda killed you the same day. Fucking spawn of something so perfect and your street rat dad.” Felix’s words were getting more incoherent as he spoke.
“Fuck you,” Rafe snarled, anger and despair kicking his fear down to levels he could handle.
Rafe kicked out again; he wasn’t listening and he wasn’t going to answer.
“I don’t want you to fuck me,” Felix said, and ran a hand from Rafe’s chin to his waist and then deliberately punched him in the groin. “That diseased cock is getting nowhere near me.”
Felix disappeared into the darkness of this shed. Then he laughed, but there was no joy in it.
The hit, when it came, was right across Rafe’s back, a path of fire that stole his breath. A second hit, and he heard the rip as his shirt caught on whatever Rafe was hitting him with.
“I’ll be with Dad soon, you know. They’ll get me soon enough, but not before I take you as well. Someone pushed a shiv in Chumo’s side. My beautiful brother, dying as he bled out alone in his cell. And Dad? He heard Chumo was dead, and he had a heart attack; having to stand in front of a judge, you know, that started to kill him a day at a time, and it was all because of you and your cop friend. You did that to him. We were fine until you arrived. You.” Another hit, and this time Rafe couldn’t help the shout of pain. “Blood,” Felix said, and disappeared again. “Had a guy in the city, wanted him to bleed, but he died way too quickly. I like to take my time. Dad always said I was the best at making the pain last. That old guy was a disappointment. And as for the others… I give up on making things last anymore.”
“You’re fucked in the head,” Rafe said.
A fist came out of the darkness and caught him under his left eye, stole his breath and any sense of where he was.
Rafe knew he was in bad shape, wished Felix would just kill him. He thought it had been forever – it felt like forever – but probably only minutes had passed. He’d seen action movies where the heroes in chains jumped up and twisted to escape their bonds, but the blood made his wrists slippery and he couldn’t get the strength.
Another hit, and another, and Felix wasn’t letting up. Then he was there using something to cut into Rafe’s back.
Rafe’s last thought as he fought unconsciousness was about Deacon.
And that he was so damn sorry that Deacon would one day find his body.