Out Bad (23 page)

“There’s no way.  I can’t just sit here while she’s out
there.  I
gotta
do something.” 

Heath dropped his pencil on the table before leaning
forward, elbows on the table as he rubbed his eyes.  “Fine.  I’ve got
to run home real quick and change these damn contacts.  You can come with
me and then we’ll swing past your house and get you a change of clothes, then
we’ll see where they are and head out.”

Joe looked down.  He hadn’t paid attention to what he
threw on this morning as he ran out of the room to look for Gwen.  His
short sleeved shirt left his remaining club tattoos on full display. 

“That’ll take too long.  You go to your house and I’ll
go to mine.  I’ll meet you at your place when I’m done.”  He tugged
his keys out of his pocket.  Thank God he’d remembered to grab them as he
ran out of the room.

Heath shook his head.  “Not a good idea.  You’re
like a freaking beacon in that van.  It’s got your name on it for Christ's
sake.”

“Give me your car then.” 

Heath shook his head again, but didn’t say no meaning he was
mulling it over.  Joe decided to help the process along.  “If you
show up with me, Gabbi is going to go
bezerk
.”

Heath tossed his keys across the table.  “Just be
careful.  If anyone follows you call me and come right back here.  If
anything at your place looks the least little bit suspicious, leave and-"

“Come back here.  I got it.”  He grabbed the keys
off the table and turned to leave the room, stopping at the door to look back
at his best friend.  “Hey.  Thanks man.”

“Don’t thank me till we find her.”

If she couldn’t figure out a way to get away from these two,
she deserved to die.

“How ‘bout
you
stay here while
I
go?”
 Skrag was doing his best to stand up to his bigger cohort, but was
clearly out weighted, out heighted and out smarted.  Not that it would
take much.

“Cause you got a big
fuckin
’ mouth
and you’ll tell everybody you see what we got.”  Cooter waved his hand in
the corner of the barn where Joe had a makeshift gym set up.  “Maybe you
can get some
fuckin
’ cardio in.” 

He laughed as he walked to the opposite corner where they’d
propped Gwen in a corner after wrapping duct tape around her wrists and her ankles. 
He ran his fingers down her cheek before grabbing her hard by the hair and
yanking her face forward to plant a kiss across the swatch of tape they’d stuck
across her mouth. 

“You be good girl and when I get back I’ll show you what a
man I really am.”  He stood, hovering above her and used his grip on her
hair to hold her head as he thrust his crotch against the side of her
head.  He released her forcefully. 

Unable to use her hands, she toppled to her side, the rough
gravel of the floor digging into her temple.  He crouched beside her and
pressed the muzzle of a small revolver under her chin.  “If I get back and
you
ain’t
been good I’ll have to put a hole in
you
instead.”

Given the option, she would pick the hole over any part of
him in any part of her.  Good thing they’d taped her mouth shut or she
probably would have told him that. 

He pulled the gun away and tucked it into his waistband as
he walked away.

“Aren’t you
gonna
leave that
here?  What if she tries to get loose?”  Skrag looked her way.  “What
the hell am I
gonna
do then?

“That’s exactly why you
ain’t
got
a gun.  She’s taped up like a
freakin
’
hog.  That bitch
ain’t
goin
’
nowhere.”  Cooter headed to the front sliding door of the barn.  “If
you’re
gonna
be such a pussy about it, I’ll hook a
stick through the latch so that even if you fucking let her go she can't get
nowhere.”

“How in the hell am I
gonna
get
out then?”  Skrag kind of reminded her of a Chihuahua.  Buggy eyes,
scrawny body, and yappy.  Probably a biter too. 

“You don’t need to get out.  You just sit your ass down
right here and wait for me to get back.”  The big man grabbed the heavy
door and slid it open.  “Don’t fuck this up for me Skrag.”  He pulled
the door shut behind him.

Gwen listened as he barricaded the door.  Shit. 

Duct tape she knew she could get off.  The squirrely
driver, she could handle, especially now that she knew he was unarmed. 
But none of that mattered if she couldn’t get out of the damn barn.

The gravel grinding its way into her skull made it tempting
to try to sit back up, but she had much better access to her back pocket when
she wasn’t sitting on it.  She closed her eyes and tried to will away the
pain in her head so she could think clearly and figure out a way out of here.

“That’s a good idea.” 
Skrag's
footsteps were light as he crept across the barn. 

She opened her bottom eye just enough to see his boots as he
moved to the matted area where Joe had his workout equipment.  “We was up
all night
hopin
’ we’d see you.”

She lay as still as she could until the sound of heavy
snoring came from the direction of the mats.  Clearly he didn't consider
her a flight risk.  His mistake.

Gingerly, she
slid
her fingers
into the pocket holding the razor she’d snatched from the car, trying her best
to get it out without too much collateral damage.  At least she knew it
was sharp. 

Once it was free, she began twisting her hands around as
much as she could, trying to loosen the tape and un-stick it from her
skin.  She needed as much space as she could manage so she didn’t
accidentally slit her own wrists.

Slowly and carefully, she started to work her way up the
tape, the blade pinched firmly between her thumb and finger.  It was
easier to negotiate than she’d expected and in just a few minutes, her hands
were free.   

Keeping her ears on the snoring biker in the corner, she
leaned slowly up and worked the razor through the tape around her ankles. 
She scraped her fingernail under the corner of the tape across her mouth and
slowly pulled it off, feeling it take every little hair and the top layer of
her skin with it making her eyes water as she tried to rub away the
sting. 

She looked around.  There had to be something she could
use as a weapon around here.  Picking her way through toilets and
bathtubs, she snuck to Joe's makeshift storage area and started looking
around.   

A work bench across one wall looked promising.  Along
the back she found a blow torch.  Sitting next to it was a lighter. 
She grabbed the lighter and moved down to a large shelf filled with jars and cans
of random stuff with various oily rags that stunk of chemicals, stuffed between
the cans.  She carefully moved the cans and rags around reading the
labels.  She needed something that sprayed and was flammable.

Turns out she had plenty of options.  Spray paint,
Wd-40, brake cleaner, the shelf was stocked full of accelerants.  Joe's
homeowner's insurance wouldn't be too thrilled at his collection.

She pulled off a few cans of brake cleaner.  It seemed
to have the biggest warning about keeping it away from open flames. 
Choosing the heaviest one she started to move down the line to see what else
she could find.

The sound of a car door stopped her dead in her
tracks.  She could hear the blood rushing through her ears as she searched
for a place to hide. 

How was he back so soon?  She’d expected to have more
time.  She searched frantically, her heart pounding in her chest.

Getting up to the loft was out of the question, there would
be no way down.  It had to be down here.  And she had to get there
fast.  She could hear boots crunching up to the barn as she scrambled to
squeeze behind a large rack clutching the lighter and brake cleaner tightly to
her chest.

She held her breath as the barn door slid open.

“Skrag!  Where the fuck is she?” 

She listened for more footsteps, more voices.  If he’d
brought more men with him her odds went down significantly. 

Nothing.

So she only had to take on the two of them.  With an
aerosol can and a lighter.  Gwen suddenly felt much less confident in her
plan, but there was no going back.

She could hear the gravel flying around as the two men
darted around the barn.  She was tucked away in a spot that would be hard
to find.  Hard, but not impossible.  Eventually, they would find
her. 

She had to do something before that happened.  It would
probably take a couple tries to get the spray lit, so she would need to time it
perfectly.

Their voices were getting closer.

Just as she was about to slide out enough to get her
makeshift flamethrower going, another car door slammed outside.  Her
stomach dropped.  More bikers.  Tears filled her eyes as she tried to
think of something, anything that might help her get out of this alive.

“Who the fuck is that?”  She peeked through a slit in
the boards that made up her hiding spot and caught a glimpse of Cooter peeking
out a window.  “It’s him. 
Fuckin
’ hell,
it’s the motherfucker himself.”

“What are we
gonna
do?”
 Skrag ran up behind him, almost bouncing in place with excitement.

“We’re
gonna
let him come to
us.  Then we’re
gonna
have a two-
fer
.”  Cooter was giggling like a school girl.

“We
ain’t
got the girl though.”

“Oh she’s in here.  She’ll come out when we tell her
what we're
gonna
do to her man if she don’t.” 
Cooter shoved the skinnier man toward the side of the door and both hunkered
down together in wait.

It was Joe.  She bit her lip to keep from screaming for
him to run.  It was already too late.  He was too close.  She
could hear him just outside.  They could shoot him before he made it two
steps. 

Why didn't he call Heath when he saw the car and wait for
help?  Tears streamed down her cheeks.  She knew why.  Joe would
do whatever it took to save her even if it meant his life. 

She blinked, trying to keep her vision clear as she fought
the fear that could ruin everything.  She was the only thing that could
save him.  Save them.  She had to keep it together or everything that
was finally within her grasp would be gone.  She would never be a wife, a
mother, and Joe would never know how she felt about him.

Her eyes narrowed as her tears disappeared along with the
fear. 
Jarod
was wrong.  She could stop bad
things from happening.  Her second chance at happiness was not going to
die like the first.  Not today motherfuckers. 

Joe's footsteps stopped.  She held her breath.  If
he was looking in the window he wouldn't see anything.  Dumb and dumber
were tucked out of sight.  She listened as Joe slid open the door. 
“Gwen?” 

She wanted to call to him, tell him she was okay, everything
would be okay, but she couldn’t.  Not yet.

“You
talkin
’ about my new pretty
little girl Tarzan?”  Cooter was out of her line of sight through the
crack, but she could see Joe.  Slowly his hands went into the air. 
“We been
hopin
’ you’d show up.”

“I aim to please.”  Joe’s voice was calm and cool and
he looked relaxed even with his hands up facing down the barrel of a gun. 

“Fuck you Tarzan.  I always knew you was a
traitor.”  He stepped behind Joe. 

The sight of the gun pressed in between Joe's shoulder
blades made her heart skip a beat.  All it would take was one wrong move
and he’d have a bullet in his back. 

“Skrag, shut that door.”  Gwen heard the grating of the
door as it slid back closed.

Cooter shoved Joe forward with the muzzle of his gun and in
two steps the men were out of sight.  Panic swirled in her gut as she
strained to hear their movements, trying to make out what was happening.

“Girl!  You better come out now or I’m
gonna
put a bullet in your boyfriend’s head.”  The
biker's voice came from the far end of the barn.

“Gwen don’t.”  Joe’s voice was strong and confident, a
command.  “Do what you need to get out of here.”

“Shut the fuck up!” 

She heard a metallic thump and a soft thud.  No, no,
no.

“Get over here and help me get his big ass in the chair so
we can tie him up.  Them
boys’ll
be here soon.”

“What about the girl?” 
Skrag's
voice faded as he ran across the barn, a brief flash of his body all she was
able to see through her crack.

“She’ll come out when they start in on him.”

It was now or never.  She couldn’t risk more of these
pricks showing up. 

Gwen quietly slid out of her hiding spot and crouched low as
she looked for the men, finding them struggling to pick up Joe’s dead weight
off the floor at the far end of the barn.  There was about fifty feet
between where Joe lay and the spot where shit would be hitting the fan. 
She prayed it was enough.

Picking her way through the bathroom graveyard, stepping
around toilets and sink bases, she stopped beside an old cast iron bathtub
turned on its side. 

The two men were so focused on getting an unconscious Joe
into a beat up metal folding chair, they didn’t notice her standing watching as
the chair folded and all three men collapsed into a pile on the floor, the
pistol Cooter dropped during the struggle sitting about three feet away. 
Hopefully they would be caught off guard and forget it was there.  If not,
she was dead, but it was a chance she had no choice but to take.

 “Pussies.” 

Both men stood up and turned to face her, their cheeks
flushed with exertion.

“What’d you say bitch?”  Cooter took off running in her
direction.

Shit.
 She was hoping he’d be a little more
winded from the struggle with Joe.  His pace left her no room for
errors. 

Pointing the can of brake cleaner at the floor, she pressed
the nozzle and struck the lighter.  She almost pulled her finger off the
sprayer when a burst of flames shot from the can. 

Skrag was right on
Cooter’s
heels
and they were within ten feet of her when they saw the fire.  Pressing
firmly on the top, she slowly lifted her arm to point her
MacGivered
flame thrower their direction. 

Please don’t clog
.  Her whole plan rested on
this can.  If that flame went out, it was over.

The men stopped.  For a second.  Cooter started to
laugh.  “Bitch, that can’s
gonna
run out sooner
or later.”  He took a step closer.  “Then you’re fucked.”  He
took another step.

The men were just outside of the reach of her fire. 
She couldn’t get them any closer.  Hopefully they didn’t have time to run
far.

In one steady motion, she swung the flame to her left. 
Both men took a step closer until they realized what she had done.  She
stood for one last second, just to see the looks on their faces before they
tried to beat the explosion. 

She heard popping and hissing behind her as the clean-up
rags Joe had stuffed all over the shelf caught fire, the heat building
quickly.  There was time for one last look as the men tried to run for
their lives before she dropped to the ground and pulled the bathtub over her
body.  As can after can exploded, the roar behind her growing louder and
louder, she prayed.  Prayed that Joe was far enough away to be okay. 
Prayed that the tub was enough to protect her.  Prayed that those two
assholes were in no condition to go hurt Joe more.