Chapter Twenty-Eight – Lucy

 

“Son of a—” I stopped, blinked my eyes. Nothing but darkness. My head ached, my forehead burned. I reached up, my fingers brushing over an open cut, causing me to wince as I yanked them back in surprise at the pain.

The smell of exhaust, and of sulfur, filled the Jeep. Oppressing, nearly suffocating.

What had happened? Why couldn’t I see? Who had hit us?

I coughed weakly, gagging as the smell of rotten eggs rammed itself down my throat.

“Lucy?” Amber asked from beside me, her voice dazed and confused-sounding. “Lucy, are you okay?”

“I’m here, Amber.” I reached beside me, towards the sound of her voice, and grabbed hold of her hand. “You okay, sweetie?”

“I think so. Just a little…my arm’s hurt, but nothing serious. Just shaken up, I think. What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Seconds later, as if by magic, an unmistakable sound I knew like my own voice. A heavy thunk, followed by the whine of hydraulics. The jaws of life, the heavy cutters and vises used to open up damaged vehicles after accidents, which meant Fire & Rescue were here already, and had set up on the passenger seat.

“Jesus,” I breathed. “How long was I out? Carter? You okay?”

No response. I reached up to my eyes, wiped a hand across them as I tried to open my eyelids. Something crusty, crackling, was over them. Dried blood, probably, from the cut on my forehead.

“Amber?” I asked. “Can you move? Can you check on Carter? I can’t see.”

“Yeah, hold on.”

I swiveled my head around in the blackness, tried desperately to see something. Anything. All I got for my trouble, though, was more throbbing pain in my head, more soreness in my neck. Meanwhile, the crunching and ear-splitting tearing of steel filled the inside of the Jeep as Fire & Rescue continued to cut their way in. Below that sound, just beyond it like some ephemeral thing, were honks of car horns, people asking if anyone needed help.

“Carter?” Amber asked. “Hey, Mr. Carter. Are you awake?”

“Nothing, huh?” I asked, frowning. “Well, he’ll be okay.”

“He’s out like a light, Lucy! What’s wrong with you?”

“Believe me,” I replied with a groan, “I saw him fall out of a three story window. He’ll eat a dozen Big Macs tomorrow and be fine.”

Just as I didn’t think I could handle the smell of rotten eggs, or the sound of grating steel, any longer, the Fire & Rescue team tore through the Jeep’s passenger side door, allowing cool, autumn air to come gusting in. Without saying a word, they moved the front seat forward.

“Oh thank God,” I gasped, undoing my seat belt and reaching out towards my saviors. “You have no clue how happy I am to see you guys!”

“Lucy,” Amber said, putting a hand on my leg as I stretched out to them, “don’t. I don’t think—”

Rough hands grabbed my wrist, yanked me out into the street.

“Hey!” I shouted. “What the hell are you doing?” Still blind, I stumbled a little, my ankle twisting, my head sagging to the side as I gasped in pain at the sudden movement. I tried to yank my wrist away, but the hand on me was like a vise and wouldn’t budge.

“Hold still, Ms. Skinner,” said a man’s voice I recognized from the night before.

All around me was the sound of revving cars, of honking horns, of cars passing by. “Hey!” shouted a man I’d never heard before in my life. “What the hell are you doing to that woman? Who are you?”

Two shots, just like the ones at the gas station, but louder. Screams from a woman. No. Women. I realized, quickly, it was both Amber and I, our voices keening together.

“Get the girl!” shouted the Irishman I’d heard the night before. Phillip Winters. “Get her out!”

“Lucy!” Amber screamed, her cry filled with tears. She sobbed as I heard the other man go into the Jeep after her. “Lucy! No!” The last word was a shrill, splitting cry, the kind that ripped vocal chords. “No!”

“Amber!” I shouted, trying to get back to her, but rubberbanded right back into the powerful arms of the phantom Irishman holding me. “Let go of her!”

“Hold there, lass, and you’ll be just fine. Just need your friend here to cover some debts, is all.”

Amber and the man inside, Lazarus I think Carter had called him, fought. Amber screamed, Lazarus cursed, and somewhere in the distance sirens wailed, and someone screamed for someone, anyone, to call 9-1-1. In my pocket, my phone began to ring.

Hoping Winters wouldn’t notice, I dug my hand into my pocket, tried to answer it by feel.

“We’ll have none of that, lass,” he said, and yanked the phone from my hands, tossed it to the street.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed, and tried to break free again, tried to get to my phone.

“Now, now,” Winters said, gripping my wrist more tightly, “all passengers on Air Winters must turn off their electronic devices before the flight can commence.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed, struggling to break free again. But I couldn’t get any leverage; my ankle kept giving out.

Shoes crunched on asphalt, and Amber whimpered softly. “Here, hand her over,” said Winters. “Take the woman.” He flung me over to Lazarus, releasing and shoving me at the same time into the smaller, but still equally firm, grip of the other rat shifter.

“Now,” Winters said, “come along, Ms. Vargas. We’ll have you set right in no time.”

“Lucy!” Amber sobbed. “Help me! Please!”

“Walk!” the Irishman snapped. “Or I’ll drag you to the car!” Amber’s crying voice and the Irishman’s cursing mouth seemed to travel across the intersection.

“What about Carter?” Lazarus called from right next to my head, causing me to wince in pain at the noise, my head throbbing even more intensely. “What should I do with him?”

“Shoot the prick!”

“No!” I screamed, lurching out of the man’s grip. I reached up with my free hand, clawing at my blood-caked eyes till the blinding autumn light peeked through my lids.

There Lazarus stood, one arm holding me, the other one gripping a big pistol that he’d extended out and aimed right at Carter’s unconscious form. At our feet were the discarded jaws of life tools. Tools that had been discarded, forgotten.

“No!” I screamed again, lunging for his arm steadying the pistol.

The gun boomed like a cannon; glass shattered.

I screamed again, my voice cracking just as surely as my heart. “Carter!”

Lazarus threw me aside, but stepped in quickly, twisting my arm up behind my back. “See that?” he asked. “Boyfriend’s dead, Ms. Skinner. Just come along quietly, and I’ll make sure you get out of this in one piece.”

Dead?

Was that all? After all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, was that how this was going to end? Was that how Carter would leave my life, with a silver bullet to the side of the head?

I went numb. Just slack. The pain in my head suddenly, abruptly, meant nothing. It was like a switch flipped, and I allowed myself to be dragged out of the intersection, over to the waiting four-door work truck where Winters had already stashed away Amber.

“Carter?” I asked no one in particular, my voice barely more than a pathetic whimper. “Carter?”

Lazarus crammed me into the backseat of the truck, right between him and Amber. Winters sat up front, gunning the gas even before the door was shut all the way.

“Hey!” Lazarus barked, his voice sharp and warning. “Fucking watch it, asshole! Gonna give me fucking whiplash.”

“Lucy?” Amber asked as she put an arm around my shoulder. “Is Carter…?”

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. Tried to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. All I had was an emotional shock that had descended on me, like an impenetrable force field of numbness that even a diamond-tipped drill would shatter against.

“Lucy?” she asked, whispering right in my ear. “Lucy?”

“He’s dead,” Lazarus said from the other side of me, adjusting himself as he dug the barrel of his pistol into my ribs. “Now shut the fuck up about it, both of you, or so help me God I’ll beat the teeth right out of your fucking mouths. Hold still, both of you.” He started to do something, and moments later I had a blindfold over my eyes, and my hands behind my back in cuffs.

I didn’t struggle against the binding over my eyes, or the manacles over my wrists. Because why bother? Finally, after what felt like hours, one solitary tear rolled down my cheek.

I didn’t know what would happen next. I only knew it wouldn’t be good. And Carter wouldn’t be there to save Amber.

Or me.

God, I missed him already.