Chapter Thirty-One – Lucy

 

Every ragged breath I took seemed to drive the barrel of Lazarus’s pistol deeper into my side. He didn’t mind of course, just gazed out of the windows as we drove in near silence to wherever they were taking us.

I say silence, but there was noise.

The sound of the work truck’s tires on the road. Brakes, the engine as the RPMs rose and fell. The sound of the wind rushing by, like all the hopes and wishes I’d had for Carter, without even realizing it. The idea that maybe we’d be right for each other, as silly as that had seemed. The hope that I’d have a chance to, just one more time, feel his arms around me, or his lips on mine. That, maybe, we’d be able to just get a cup of coffee together, when there wasn’t some weird supernatural entity killing people, or a shootout happening every five minutes. Maybe a drink? Even dinner?

Hope that, perhaps, there could have been something more. Something deeper. Truer. A real connection to another person in the world, one that understood me. And that I, in turn, understood.

God, what was I doing? Why was I torturing myself this way? Those hopes were as dashed apart as Carter’s Jeep.

This was my fault. I should have tried to awaken him, like Amber had suggested. Maybe if I’d gotten him moving, he could have protected us. Or he could have at least gotten out of the way of Lazarus’s deadly shots. Had a chance to try and resist. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have just left him sitting there, unresponsive to the wreck?

I’d screwed up. I’d screwed everything up. And now Amber and I were going to pay for my horrendous mistake, just like Carter already had.

Beside me, Amber continued with her soft whimpers of fear and shock. Pathetic sounds of powerlessness and loss. I couldn’t blame her, though. How could I? I laid my head on her shoulder, tried to comfort her the best way I could. It’s hard to put an arm around someone when it’s cuffed behind your back.

“Lucy,” Amber sobbed into my shoulder, “what’s going to happen to me?”

“It’ll be okay,” I whispered right back. “I promise, Amber. It’ll be okay.”

But these were the kind of men who had no qualms about what they were doing. The kind of men that believed violence was part and parcel of life, and that sometimes you were on the delivering end. And sometimes you were on the receiving.

And what they’d done to Carter said the exact opposite of what I’d just told my friend. Those two bullets in his head told me that I needed to tell the girl to make her peace with the world.

I kissed the top of Amber’s head, the cotton of her bandana rough against my lips. “Just need to be strong, okay? We’ll get through this together.”

We continued our trek. Amber pressed her frail, cancer-wracked body against mine, my mind going over the possibilities of how all of this could turn out. I knew we had to get away, but the question was how I could manage it.

“Listen,” Winters said, finally, breaking our collective silence with his Irish brogue. Maybe he’d smelled something in the air, like Carter could sometimes do, and had discovered I was considering our escape. “The girl has something I need, and we just want to get it out of her.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “A phoenix egg. We know.”

“You do, do you?” Winters asked, a smile in his voice. He’d clearly been running himself ragged for the last day, and his voice sounded strained and as exhausted as I felt. “Well, you two are safe, so don’t worry your heads about it.  Once that egg’s safe and cared for, you’re on your way. Everything’ll be right as rain. You have my word.”

I swallowed hard as I listened to his lies, as he told us exactly what he thought we wanted to hear.

His words hung in the air, a stark contradiction to what Tabitha had told us over the phone, less than an hour before. How did someone lay out falsehoods so easily? Was it really true about the Blarney stone? That it gave you a silvered tongue if you kissed it?

“You won’t hurt us, then?” Amber asked, sitting up a little. I could tell she believed him, on some level, her youth and naïveté coming through. “Either of us?”

“No, lass, of course not! What do I look like to you? Some murdering bastard? I’m a businessman, plain and simple.”

“Why’d you hurt Carter, then?” I asked.

“Carter?” Winters asked, a sound like a frown in his voice. I could hear him as he smacked his lips together. “The big bear in the front seat? Well, because if he had a chance, he’d put two in my head, same as Larry here did for him. Mark my words. The people he works for, lass, are bad news for people like me and my partner, here.”

I shook my head. “Geez, I wonder why.”

“Now you look here,” the head rat replied, a note of defense in his voice, “I’m just trying to make a living here, to get by in the world. You begrudge a man that? His livelihood?”

Beside me, Lazarus remained silent as Winters spoke, only shifting around in his seat a little and grinding the barrel of the pistol deeper into my side.

I winced a little, readjusting so it wasn’t stabbing so directly into my ribs. I turned to Lazarus. Or Larry. “What about you, Lar?” I asked. “What do you think of this life you’re leading?”

Lazarus didn’t reply. Not as such, at least. He kept his mouth shut, just sniffed a little, like he’d smelled something awful.

Amber snuggled into my side, her tears drying on her face. No longer crying, no longer shaken by sobs. “M-m-maybe he’s telling the truth?”

I swallowed hard as I put my head on her shoulder, hugged her as best I could. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

But what else could I tell her? To be scared? To be terrified?

I needed her calm, needed her able to handle what was going on. Because if I was going to find a way out of this for the both of us, I had to focus.

Eyes closed for a moment, another tear escaped its little corner and ran down my cheek.

Because, even if Carter was gone, Full Moon Security was still there. And Tabitha, too. All I needed to do was make it out of here with Amber in tow, both of us in one piece, and Carter’s coworker witch could help us. From the sound of it, they could even give us protection from Winters and Lazarus, and anyone else who might come after the creature about to burst from Amber.

I just needed to get to them. Or somehow contact them about where I was, so they could maybe get to us. Carter had mentioned there were more like him, other shifters who’d been trained to fight the way he had.

I had an idea, though. Maybe something that would at least make us a bit more comfortable. “Hey Winters,” I said, lifting my head from Amber’s shoulder. “How about taking off these cuffs, then? You can leave the blindfold on.”

The pickup began to slow, and I felt the vehicle and my weight shift as we turned left onto a rough road.

“Where are we?” Amber asked, getting up a little.

“Where we’re going to perform the ritual, lass,” Winters said. “Just a little longer now, and we’ll have that pesky shell out of you, and we’ll all go our separate ways.”

Beside me, Lazarus shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Want me to…?”

Winters shifted in the front seat. “Huh? No, I have it.” He opened the driver’s side door and climbed out, slamming it shut behind him. He tramped through the mud, the sound of his boots sucking at the soft, wet earth traveling inside the cab of the pickup. He marched away, not very far, and began to unlock what sounded like a chain. A chain link fence. Sounds of him pulling both sides open.

I strained my ears, tried to hear anything about our surroundings, but it was useless. The truck’s noise-proofing was too secure.

Moments later, Winters hopped back into the pickup, began to pull us through the open gate. He hopped out on the other side, shut it closed. He was faster this time, cursing more.

“Looks like snow out there,” he said. “Dammit. Just our luck we’ll get stuck in this damn town.”

The pickup continued to jostle us back and forth as we drove into the lot. Winters pulled it around after a considerable drive, and put it in park. “And here we are,” he said, killing the engine and throwing the door open. He climbed down from the truck, his boots crunching on broken gravel.

Now, there was silence. True silence. No birds chirping. Only the sound of highway traffic off in the distance, reminding me of the time my father had taken me to the shore with my mother. Back when they were both alive. I’d been young, and didn’t recall much of the trip. But I could remember the sound of the Atlantic’s waves as they came rushing to the shore, how we’d been able to hear them at night despite the house my father had rented not being on the beach.

Winters went around to the rear passenger side door, Amber’s side. He pulled open the door and eased her out, helping her down from the elevated seat, which would have been almost impossible to make it out of on her own with her hands cuffed. I could practically smell the snow clouds on the horizon as the wind whipped up, heard the sound of scattering gravel and dead leaves as they raced each other across wherever we were.

I hesitated for a moment, the realization of how far away from civilization we were settling in.

Lazarus prodded me forward with the barrel of his gun.

I yelped in surprise, but didn’t budge at first.

“Not now,” he growled, and dug the barrel deeper into me. “Get moving. I’ll get your cuffs when we’re down.”

Shuddering, I moved forward with reluctance, scooting my butt along the rear bench seat towards Phillip Winters and Amber. Behind me, Lazarus shifted himself along, right on my back. Somehow, even blindfolded and without the barrel buried in my side, I knew it was just inches away. Like when your kid brother is taunting and teasing you with his fingertip, saying, “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!”

Lazarus hopped down after me, and I felt him at my back. “Hold still,” he said, grabbing hold of my hands.

Winters started. “Hey! What are you—”

“Said they’re safe, didn’t we?” Lazarus asked. “You wanna lead them around in there. What if the girl stumbles? Liable to crack their heads open.”

The rat leader growled. “Fine. Yeah, you’re right. Toss me them keys, now.”

I stood there, rubbing my newly freed wrists as Winters unlocked Amber’s cuffs.

“Come along, lass,” Phillip said, and began to lead Amber to wherever we were headed. “We’ll get you and Lucy settled while I start to prepare everything.”

I swallowed the taste of bile in my mouth, choked it down at the sickly-sweet sound of his voice. This man made me sick. The way he spoke to her with familiarity, like he was a friend doing her a favor, made my stomach churn and roil.

“Sure,” Amber said, going along with him. She stopped after two steps, though. “Lucy?”

Suddenly, I realized I hadn’t moved at all.

Quickly, though, Lazarus’s pistol in my ribs reminded me that I was supposed to be following along.

I took a deep breath and joined Amber, our arms brushing against one another.

She reached down, entwined her fingers with mine, and squeezed them tight.

I squeezed right back. Because what else could I do? I was trying to keep her calm, keep her relaxed, while I tried to figure out a plan. At least, that’s what I was supposed to be doing.

As Winters pulled open the big, metallic-sounding front door, I swallowed hard.

I didn’t know exactly how I was going to get Amber out of here.

I just knew I had to. One way, or another, we were going to get to St. Louis.