Recalled (34 page)
Then from outside the car I heard a sound. A slam. Then the engine started and the car began to move. He was driving off, taking me somewhere he could probably kill me and then hide my body.
“Anger -
A strong feeling of displeasure or hostility.”
Dex
As soon as Piper’s building was out of sight, my cell phone rang. It was Storm. “Tell me you know where she is,” I said as soon as I answered the call.
“He stuffed her in the trunk of a white car,” he said. “He’s driving now.”
“Is she dead?” I asked, the words sticking in my throat. The vivid image of Charming shutting up her dead body in his trunk flashed before my eyes.
“No. Not yet. But he hit her in the head with his gun and knocked her out.”
“So G.R. has this rule about Escorts not fighting,” I said. “But does he have a rule about us killing each other?”
Storm made a sound on the other end of the line; it sounded like a laugh. “You want to find out the hard way?”
Maybe.
“Where are they?”
“He just pulled onto the street with the diner.”
“I’m on my way,” I said, hitting the gas and fishtailing a little on the ice. I didn’t slow down until I came to a red light and had to stop.
“Seriously, man, I know you’re pissed he would try to take out your Target, but killing Charming will only get him a new body and you recalled.”
I heard his words, but I didn’t say anything.
“Dex? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” This was the longest red light ever.
“He just parked. He’s right by the diner. He’s… wait, she’s just jumped out of the trunk. She’s running… You need to hurry!”
I threw the phone onto the seat next to me and pressed down on the gas, ignoring the red light.
“Escape - To break loose from confinement; get free.”
Piper
The car didn’t go very far before it came to a complete stop. I lay there for long moments with my heart pounding out of my chest, just listening, wondering if he was coming for me. Wondering where we were and if he was just going to open the trunk and shoot me.
Am I just going to lie here and let him come for me?
No.
I wasn’t.
My hand tightened around the trunk release and I pulled it. I didn’t know where we were, but I’d rather die trying to escape than doing nothing at all. I kicked the trunk lid up and leapt out of the back, landing on the hard pavement. I hit hard, but I ignored the screaming of my muscles and bones and stood looking wildly around. We were at the diner.
But going inside wouldn’t help me because they weren’t open. They closed early every Sunday night. I’d always liked that. Until now.
“Hey!” shouted the man who kidnapped me when he climbed out of the car and saw me standing there in the street.
I took off running, my feet slipping a little in the snow and ice. But I kept running, running away from the diner and down the street toward another business.
But he caught me.
He caught my arm and spun me around, laughing and pulling me in for a hug. He was trying to make it look like we’d been playing around. That I really hadn’t been running for my life.
I felt the hard metal of the gun ram into my rib cage and I wanted to shake with defeat.
But I wouldn’t.
“Let’s go. We’re going inside,” he said into my ear and then pulled me along beside him to the entrance of the diner.
“It’s closed. The door’s locked,” I told him, hoping to fluster him for a brief second to get away again.
It didn’t work.
He laughed low. “Do you think I hadn’t thought of that?” He reached out and pulled the door handle. It opened with ease. “They don’t call me Charming for nothing.”
“People think you’re charming?” I scoffed.
“The waitress here tonight certainly thought so.” He was so smug I wanted to kick him.
So I did. Right in the shin.
He hissed a breath between his teeth. “Careful, you don’t want me to knock you out again. Then you’ll miss all the fun.”
The diner was darkened, with only a few lights on close to the back and one near the cook’s line. As we moved farther into the diner, he shoved me away and I ran behind the counter
and grabbed a steak knife in one hand and a heavy glass sugar shaker in the other.
He actually set the gun on a nearby table and smiled. “This is going to be fun.”
And then he was leaping over the counter at me and I struck out with the knife. It caught his arm but did nothing other than damage the fine wool of his coat. He shouted in outrage and grabbed my arm, twisting so that the knife fell out of my grip and clattered on the floor. I slung the sugar shaker at him, catching him in the temple and snapping his head back. He let go as he stumbled and I stumbled too, stepping on the knife and slipping.
I landed on my butt, my tailbone stinging as I scrambled back up, still clutching my weapon. The man jumped right back up, blood gushing down the side of his face and into his mouth. It outlined all those perfect teeth and made him look like a rabid monster. He began unbuttoning his coat with slow, deliberate movements, but I wasn’t transfixed. I grabbed up a glass bottle of ketchup and threw it at the floor by his feet. It burst open, splattering everything with red sauce. Then I rushed to the line and reached through the opening, feeling around for a heavy pan I could knock him out with.
He came forward, slipping in the ketchup and falling over, taking me with him. He landed heavy and hard on top of me and sat up, his legs straddling my middle, and then he smiled that maniacal smile and wrapped his hands around my throat.
He didn’t squeeze at first, but applied enough pressure that I had to work a little harder to breathe, and it was just enough to make me start panicking. I tried to kick him off, to shift his weight, but it was no use. He outweighed me by a good eighty pounds.
“Your ability will be mine,” he said, tightening his grip a little bit more, and I choked.
Was that what this was about? My ability to have visions?
“Dex was supposed to kill you, but he didn’t, and I’m tired of waiting. So I’m going to kill you, collect my prize, and he will be recalled. Forever lost in damned eternity.”
Black spots began swimming in front of me and I was pretty sure he was going to crush my windpipe. His words echoed through my head over and over and over.
Dex was supposed to kill you…
With one last burst of energy, I threw my hand out, wrapping it around something beneath the counter, and brought it up between our faces. I placed my finger where I knew the trigger was and pressed. I held that button down with everything inside me as Lysol rushed out of the can and into the eyes of my attacker.
He began screaming and released me to wipe at his face. He was stupid because wiping it only made it worse and pushed it deeper into his eyes.
I hoped it burned like hell.
He rolled off me, squirming and screaming curses at me as I gasped for breath and made it to my hands and knees. I was beyond dizzy. My throat hurt so badly I would’ve cried if I was able, and it was hard to see.
But none of that mattered. All that mattered was surviving.
I began to crawl away, still clutching the aerosol can in my hand, desperately trying to move quickly when something latched onto my ankle. I shook my leg, trying to get free, but I was towed backward, behind the counter…
Toward my death.
I rolled onto my back and, taking aim with the disinfectant, pressed the button. This time only a small cloud released because in my haste earlier I’d used what was left in the can. I threw it at him in frustration, hitting him square in the face.
I hoped his nose swelled up like the rest of his face.
If I was going to die on the floor of some crappy diner, I was at least going to inflict as much damage as possible to the man who murdered me.
I began looking for something else I could use to fend him off when I felt warm hands come around my back and lift me up away from the floor. I used my feet to push myself up until the person behind me swung me up completely and into his arms.
I blinked. My vision was blurred, but I caught the outline of black-rimmed glasses.
Dex.
Considering that this other guy just told me Dex wanted me dead too, I wasn’t sure I was any safer than moments before.
But the way he held me tight made me doubt what I’d heard. I was so relieved to see him that my cheek fell against his chest and my eyes closed.
“Hang on, Piper. Don’t pass out on me,” he said, low, into my ear then he shifted my weight so he held me even closer against him.
“I thought I told you to stay away from
my
Target,” Dex growled in menacing tones. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Charming?”
“I’m doing what you haven’t and taking my reward.”
Dex stepped closer to the killer and I stiffened. He was supposed to be stepping away…
“I’ll do
my
job on
my
own time. If you don’t like it, then you take that up with me or G.R.”
His words made ice form in my belly, but then he was stepping away, heading toward the door of the diner and out into the cold.
Dex didn’t say anything as he walked to his car, parked halfway on the sidewalk, and leaned down to open the passenger-side door. He sat me onto the warm leather and shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over my body, tucking it around me. Tears sprang to my eyes for so many reasons I couldn’t even name them all, and I turned my face away from him.
The car door shut softly behind me and then he was climbing into the driver’s seat, revving the engine and aiming all the heating vents at me as he pulled away from the curb.
I didn’t bother to turn away from him again. I was too stiff and sore and I wanted to watch his expressions when I asked him the question I had to ask.
I opened my lips, but my voice came out as a strained whisper. He glanced at me sharply and reached out to pull the coat closer around me.
“Don’t talk. You might make it worse. I’m taking you to the clinic.”
When he pulled his hand back, it stopped and hovered beside my face. I watched his jaw clench as I felt his fingers brush over my cheek and stroke downward. My eyes closed at the contact. So rarely did he touch me like this.
God help me, I craved it.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I managed to rasp once he pulled his hand away.
The silence in the car was so absolute I was beginning to think he hadn’t heard, but then he glanced at me. His eyes were all the answer I needed.
