Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) (27 page)

‘It’s just a bit of fun, sweet thing,’ Stan said in an irritatingly mocking, soothing tone. He stopped less than a foot away. ‘All you need to do is relax and enjoy it. If you don’t, you’re going to get Travis here all worked up. You don’t want to get hurt now, do you? Get that pretty face all messed up.’

Her glare locked on Stan’s, locked on the thirty-something’s icy, calculating blue eyes as she kept half her attention on Travis closing in from the side of her.

Stan’s hand reaching for her breast was all she needed to stop caring about consequences. Before he got within an inch of her, she locked her hands on either side of his head and forcibly twisted.

In the cold night air, Stan slumped dead to the floor a split second later.

It was quicker and more painless than she would have liked, but the job was done.

The others froze as if not comprehending what had just happened.

The second Travis flinched into action, she slammed her elbow straight into his face with enough force to splinter his nose. He fell to his knees, giving Jessie the chance to send an even more severe blow between his legs. He bucked with an agonising scream, grabbing his groin as expletives spat from his mouth. She silenced him with a sideways kick hard into his throat.

She scanned the others snatching their attention between Stan’s dead body and Travis now a crumpled heap.

‘What the fuck?’ one of them hissed quietly.

Eyes ignited in anger, self-righteous in indignation, they all came at her at once.

She dodged more than one punch, a kick, wrestled out of a weak grab, before ramming an elbow, then a knee, and then her fist into whatever flesh she could reach. Grabbed around the neck, she used it to her advantage – used him to take her weight as she kicked another hard between the legs, and yet another in the face. Wrapping one hand around his hairy forearm to loosen the con’s chokehold, she slammed her hand against his thigh, sending a static spark through him. The con jolted back several feet, releasing her in his shock.

She knew she shouldn’t have done it. Knew she needed to stick to regular attack in case any of them got away. Her strength alone would be raising questions, let alone the white spark of electric shocks she could generate from her fingertips.

It meant she now couldn’t backtrack. She couldn’t let any of them escape.

The other three were already more wary, angling themselves in her blind spots, working as the sick pack that they were as they moved into position.

‘She’s not even fucking human,’ one of them spat out. ‘Fucking filthy third species.’

‘She’s fucking dead, that’s what she is,’ another’s curt tone grated out.

She had no choice. She
had
to kill them.

As they closed in determined to finish it, she took more blows than she managed to deflect, her body starting to ache from the unrelenting onslaught. Cruel, rough hands grabbed at her arms, her thighs, her chest, between her legs as they tried to force her to the ground to gain an advantage.

By sheer instinct, she predicted their moves, retaliating out of survival rather than technique, knowing the weight of them if she went down would be too terrifying a disadvantage. Hitting at whatever weak spots she could, she was nimble enough, let alone strong enough, to remain on her feet despite their attempts. She shocked them at every chance she could – every time she could bring the flat of her palm down onto a surface of flesh, needing that contact to channel it.

‘Fucking knock her out!’ Travis yelled as he struggled to get to his knees.

She took a blow to her face – the first time she’d ever been hit that hard. With Pummel it had been harsh slaps whenever he’d resolved she was too far out of line, but this one was intended to knock her out cold. She clutched her nose, her eyes watering.

Another sharp blow to the small of her back knocked her to her knees. Another kick to her stomach had her rolling onto her back. Two of them took an arm each, pinning them to the floor, another grabbed and spread her legs. She tried to buck free, but each put their full weight onto them to hold her in position.

‘We need to get her in the van,’ one of them said, anxiety resonating in his tone. She almost wretched at the stench of dried sweat as he leaned over her. ‘Travis!’

She could think only of getting back to the wall, back through the gap that would slow them down. She’d be back inside, back up the steps where they wouldn’t dare follow. Back in her room. Back to relative safety.

She tried to buck again, tried to fight, but tears of anger and frustration began to leak from her eyes as her attackers remained unmoveable. She just needed them to give by a couple of inches and then she could gain some leverage. If she could get the palms of her hands or the soles of her bare feet to make contact with the ground, all hell could break loose. She could splinter the ground beneath them, send the whole fucking building toppling down on them from the quake beneath their feet.

But her hands were as helpless as she was.

In the corner of her eye she could see Travis approaching, blood pouring from his nose. He slammed a chemical-soaked rag down over her mouth. She couldn’t be sure if it was to kill her or knock her out, but they were soon seeing it wasn’t having the desired effect as quickly as they wanted.

‘She’s a fucking little fighter,’ Travis spat as he forced the rag deeper into her mouth.

There was no way it was going to knock her out – it would take far more than that. But the toxic fumes still soaked into her system in the minute or two that passed, knocking off her senses.

Forcing strategy to override instinct, she stopped retaliating, knowing the only way she’d stand a chance was to let them think it was working.

Their grips loosened slightly. Her one arm was freed. The one who held her legs tugged them either side of his as he lifted her by the back of her knees ready to hoist her off the ground. Working in well-rehearsed synchrony, one of the others looped his arms under hers, interlacing his hands at her chest.

The second they lifted her off the ground, she reached back and grabbed the greasy hair of the one holding her arms, almost tearing it out of his scalp. He laughed but he wasn’t laughing long when she looped her fingers in the hoops in his ear and ripped them out.

He yelped, dropped her, Jessie’s upper body crashing to the floor, her head hitting concrete hard enough to stun her as the other did the same. That, on top of whatever drug they had given her, only weakened her further.

‘Bitch!’ he hissed, kicking her hard in the side.

She curled over, clutching her kidneys, pain shooting through her.

‘We’re out of here,’ Travis declared. ‘Get her in the van. Now.’

She felt herself being lifted again, this time her arms wrenched behind her back, her legs locked apart as two cons took a leg each.

She felt the rain on her face, saw the tops of the buildings pass in some distant dream as she was carried down the alley, past the fire-escape steps, away from The Row, away from home, away from all she knew.

Footsteps echoed in a rhythm too slow to be natural, mumbled voices like a drone of insects simmering in the background.

She heard the clunk of metal, an echo, was lifted into the back of a cold and hard catacomb before being dropped face first onto a corrugated floor.

Doors slammed behind her. She saw three pairs of feet, one being dragged. There was the slamming of more doors in the distance, a rumbling of an engine. She felt herself fade out, despite fighting it.

How long she’d lost consciousness, she wasn’t sure, but now the voices were more jovial. And whatever was happening they were moving fast, swaying around corners.

In the distance, she could hear bikes.

She frowned, her head splintering in pain. This time the voices were laced with excitement
and
anxiety.

She reached down to her stomach – felt that her trousers were still secure.

‘Fucking faster!’ Travis demanded from somewhere up near the front of the van.

She looked up from her face-first position on the floor.

One of the others was right next to him, clinging onto the headrests of the two in front.

They spun around another corner.

Breath left her body as she finally started to come fully back. They were going too fast. They were getting too far away.

She pulled herself up onto her hands and knees.

‘Watch her!’ Travis said, as if having a second sense for her.

She saw boots, felt one slam onto her back, holding her down.

She needed to get to the door. She needed to open it and get out. She
needed
to get out.

With any semblance of strength she had left, using the advantage of the manically swaying van, she grabbed at the con’s ankle, yanking and sending him plummeting onto his backside as she lifted herself onto her hands and knees.

She turned and scampered for the back doors.

A hand caught her ankle, yanking her backwards.

She kicked back hard into his face. Another was on top of her a split second later.

‘I told you to fucking keep her still!’ Travis snapped. ‘Flip her over.’

But the second the other con grabbed her ankle, she kicked out with all her renewed strength, sending him flying against the wall of the van.

She looked back at Travis to see him rub his hand under his nose again, his hand that held the seat for support now clutching a six-inch blade.

‘You want to play hard,’ he said. ‘Then this time I’ll play hard.’

The other was back on her, pinning her arms to the floor. Travis tore his T-shirt over his head, revealing the blatant tattoo of the naked woman spread across his sinewy muscular torso chest.

‘Now?’ the other con asked in disbelief as Travis struggled into position between Jessie’s legs. ‘Can’t you fucking wait?’

But Travis’s eyes had already glazed over in a way she had seen far too often, his fist tearing the button from her trousers before he tugged down his jeans.

Jessie clenched her teeth. She growled from the back of her throat, wrenched her arms free, slammed her fist hard into Travis’s jaw, knocking him clean off her.

But it was too late.

I
t was
the revving of bike engines that caught all their attentions simultaneously.

Eden saw Pummel’s eyes narrow as he stared down at the row, at the bike taking off, another flying out behind it from the now open garages opposite Pummel’s row.

Pummel and his crew immediately picked up pace, a con Eden didn’t recognise already heading up the street towards them.

‘Pummel,’ the con said, his breath ragged, ‘Jessie’s been taken. She’s been snatched.’

Like taking a blow to the stomach, Eden’s chest muscles tensed. His hands instinctively clenched into fists at his sides as he stared after the bikes that disappeared down the side alley that led to the lock-up, no doubt already in pursuit of her kidnappers.

The lock-up where he and Jessie had agreed to meet. Where she was on the cusp of agreeing to what he needed.

The place where
he
had agreed to meet her – the reason she would have been out there alone in the first place. His jaw locked against his gritted teeth.

Pummel’s scrunched-up face reddened into something almost unrecognisable as he marched to the garage opposite, the con by his side. ‘Who? Who are they?’ he demanded.

‘Definitely cons. But not from this row. One of ours heard a fight out by the lock-ups. We got there but they’d shoved her in the back of a van. They’re heading west. Dice is right behind them.’

‘Get the keys.’

But the con was one step ahead. He chucked them to Pummel who promptly distributed them out to Homer and Chemist as well as another con who had hurried to join them.

‘You take the car with Savage here,’ he said to Eden, chucking Savage the car keys.

‘I’m faster on a bike,’ Eden said.

‘You’ll take the car.’

But Eden wasn’t giving up that easily. He kept up with Pummel’s strides. ‘I drive like I negotiate. If you want her back, I’m not playing passenger.’

Pummel mounted his bike, Homer, Chemist and the other he didn’t recognise, doing the same.

‘I mean it, Pummel.’

Pummel’s attention snapped back to Eden. He held his gaze on him a second longer before he nodded to Savage. ‘Give him the keys and you take the bike. Chemist, ride with Eden.’

Without giving any room for the others to negotiate, Pummel revved up his engine, leaving tyre marks on concrete as he sped off into the night air.

‘You’d better know what you’re doing making a claim like that,’ Chemist warned, slipping into the passenger seat as Eden slammed the driver’s door.

‘I’ve been driving cars since I was twelve,’ Eden said, familiarising himself quickly with the power of the engine and the agility of the car as he swerved out of the knocked-through garages, promptly kicking up speed behind the others. ‘You just direct.’ He sent him a quick glance. ‘You’ve rally driven before, right?’

Chemist shrugged as he gripped onto the handle beside his head.

Eden refocused his attention on the road ahead as he slid the gear into fifth. He at least needed to pretend he hadn’t studied the area; that he didn’t already have a mental map of the first couple of miles. ‘You just yell left or right and I’ll do the rest. I suggest you belt up.’

The straight stretches were easy enough, some of the corners not so much so, and the obstacles even less. It would have been so much easier to navigate on one of the bikes – a ride he was equally familiar with. But then he wouldn’t have had the power behind him to run a van off the road, or at least corner it, the only reason he’d acquiesced in the first place. A van would plough willingly straight into a bike – a well-handled car as solid as the one in his hands was an entirely different story.

‘We’re following them and we’re cornering them off,’ Eden said. ‘From the front.’

‘From the front?’

Eden kept his eyes fixed firmly on the road as he ploughed down residential streets at a speed that blurred the surroundings. ‘My guess is they’re not going to be stupid enough to drive straight into us.’

‘But you’re stupid enough to drive straight into
them
?’

‘Strategic, Chemist, not stupid.’

‘Are you fucking insane? It’s a van!’

‘With passengers who’ll want to get out of this alive.’

‘So do I. And if you plan on surviving beyond this, you won’t risk damaging what they have in it.’

‘Why did they take her?’

Finally catching sight of the others, Eden notched up an additional ten miles per hour.

‘Like anyone needs a reason to snatch anyone around here,’ Chemist replied.

It was a deflection of the truth – even under stress. Pummel had them all well trained, it seemed.

‘The van – where is it likely to be heading?’ Eden persisted.

‘It could be anywhere. Now they know we’re in pursuit, they’ll want to throw us off the scent.’

Eden glanced left to see the parallel road beyond. He looked back ahead guessing they weren’t going to slow themselves by taking anything of that bulk down a left- or right-hand turn. Instead they’d plough on straight ahead – something that would help them maintain their speed at least.

Eden took the sharp left, Chemist slamming into the side of the car with the force.

‘What the
fuck
?’ Chemist hissed.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Eden replied, taking a sharp right so he was on the road parallel with the van’s.

He kept a watchful eye right, catching sight of the van as well as the bikes hot in pursuit. As his blood pumped, as the adrenaline kept his brain at optimum levels, he was not letting them get away, especially as the possibilities of what they were doing to her the longer it took him flooded his mind.

He slammed his foot down on the accelerator to get ahead of them all.

‘You
are
fucking insane,’ Chemist said, bracing himself as Eden drove at a speed the suicidal side of reckless until he finally lost sight of the van.

But he needed to have enough speed, get enough advantage to not allow the van to overtake. Eden clenched his jaw, part of his attention on the road he was on and part of it now on the road parallel as he hoped his road wouldn’t run out first.

‘Fucking building!’ Chemist all but yelled as the latter inevitably happened.

Eden yanked the wheel right, the back tyres skidding over concrete, the car narrowly missing the abandoned library before Eden slammed his foot back on the accelerator, racing ahead again, this time having taken the sharp right he’d been looking for.

He heard Chemist exhale a curt, though relieved, puff of air. ‘Since you were twelve, huh?’

‘Eight heaps of junk written off in the first six months. You’ve got to make mistakes to learn.’

He could feel Chemist’s panicked eyes burning into him to the point he almost smiled as a result. Instead, he took another sharp right. He quickly managed to square the car up with a familiar control.

‘This is a
bad
fucking idea,’ Chemist said as they both stared at the van now hurtling towards them.

‘Anyone ever tell you that you swear too much?’ Eden asked, and slammed his foot on the accelerator again.

They were
not
going to take her.

Not now.

Just as they were
not
going to play chicken and win.

He’d played that game
way
too many times.

‘You ever write one of those heaps of junk off doing
this
?’ Chemist asked.

Eden exhaled tersely as he smirked. ‘Hell, yeah.’

He slammed his foot down on the accelerator. They sped forward.

And then he heard the scream – Chemist’s scream as they were seconds away from impact.

The explosion came from nowhere. The crunch of metal and the shattering of glass reverberated back to them with a breath-stopping, thunderous bang.

Eden yanked the steering wheel left, narrowly avoiding the onslaught, almost unable to believe what he was seeing. He spun one eighty before regaining control. Two bikes slammed into the back of the van, one igniting into flames. Two skidded to a controlled halt. One more lost its rider as it took on a life of its own, another doing the same with the rider still attached, flesh tearing against concrete until it came to a standstill beside the flames.

Eden stared through the smoke, his heart pounding.

He shoved open the car door and ran at the van at the same time as one of the others.

It was going to blow. An impact like that was guaranteed to cause an explosion.

Amidst smoke and debris, the van’s back doors opened and someone stumbled out past the flames.

But it wasn’t Jessie.

His stomach wrenched, the road swaying like some surreal dream.

The escaped assailant was taken out quickly by Homer, who’d cut in front of him. It distracted Homer enough for Eden to get to the van doors before him – to search for any sign of Jessie.

She was entangled amongst three unconscious bodies.

He clambered inside, his pulse flatlining as he pleaded to see her breathe. But she was already stirring. As she lifted her head, his heart lunged.

He shoved the others off her.

‘We’ve got to get out,’ he said softly against her ear, sweeping her up in his arms, her body against his more a relief than he would have thought possible.

The con beneath her moved his head, tried to ease up on his elbows, the vulgar tattoo on his chest glinting in the flames, his jeans almost around his knees.

Eden glanced back at Jessie’s unfastened trousers, then back at the con who now squinted up at him.

Fury-incited bile formed in the back of his throat. Removing the blade from his jeans, he flicked it open. Instead of slicing the con’s throat open, he needed to let him know it was personal. He rammed the blade down into the con’s groin, straight into an artery.

A second later, Jessie was being yanked from his arms.

At first he instinctively tightened his hold, but Homer’s gaze locked on his – a gaze that flitted down to the now dead tattooed con. As their eyes locked again, Homer pulled Jessie completely from his grasp, Eden reminding himself of why he was
really
there and however Jessie got away from the danger,
that
was the primary aim.

But to his added irritation, it wasn’t with a gentleness that Homer tugged and led her away. It wasn’t with a hint of compassion at what she’d just been through. He all but dragged her by the upper arm away from the flames.

Eden snatched back a breath, marching behind them, needing to take over.

But then the van exploded.

Eden fell forward onto his knees, Homer and Jessie, let alone the other survivors, all doing the same.

There were screams – male, gut-wrenching screams in the split-second gap between, no doubt from the last second of life of whoever had survived in the front seat.

When he looked back, Pummel was being dragged back from the smoke by Chemist and Savage. Dice was fast approaching Homer – Homer who still had a tight grip on Jessie. Jessie who was staring with glazed eyes and smoke-stained skin back at the van.

‘He’s in a bad way,’ Dice told Homer as Chemist and Savage dragged their unconscious leader over to join them.

Eden stared down at Pummel’s scathed face, the blood pouring down his head, his ripped jeans exposing red-raw wounds beneath.

‘Get him in the car,’ Homer said to Dice. He looked back at Eden. ‘You get his bike.’

‘I can watch the girl,’ Eden said.

‘You’ll fucking listen to me until Pummel’s back in charge,’ Homer declared.

Eden glared at him but knew he had no option – that he may have revealed too much already. He needed to remember that first night when he’d first turned up. When he’d barely looked at her. When he’d kept his attention purely on the endgame.

They’d come too far for him to blow it now.

Blow it for him and for Jessie who now yanked her arm free from Homer, taking her cue that she was to join the others in the car.

He needed to play the game as smartly as she did. He needed to get used to the routine.

As car doors slammed and bikes revved back into action, one by one the others swept back into the distance.

He marched over to Pummel’s bike, past the crew members who hadn’t made it.

He stared across at the front of the burning van. Confirmed he’d been right in what he thought he’d seen before skidding to a halt.

The front was smashed in as though it had plunged into an iron barrier or solid brick wall.

Only there was no wall there.

In fact, there had been absolutely nothing for it to hit at all.

Nothing but air.