Shucked (21 page)

“Are you the same one who broke into
my bedroom? Flipping pervert. I’m going to kick your ass.”

A low laugh permeated the air. He
didn’t move, not even a millimeter, but his laugh gave him away. Good, let him
think I was a helpless baby, ready for the taking. Maybe it would give me the
chance I needed.

All I had to do was escape. Get back
to the locker room. That was it. I could do it. I kept repeating that in my
head, trying to convince myself.

I would come out of this alive.

I hoped.

I stood still, mirroring him. Martial
arts were like chess. A well-calculated move could win a fight before it even
started. Knowing the tiniest thing about an opponent made the difference. I
knew nothing about the figure in front of me. Chances were he knew everything
about me.

It was over before it started. So I
had to think differently. Be someone else. Be unpredictable.

Slowly I lifted my hands in the air. “I’m
unarmed. Ask me anything and I swear I’ll tell you the truth. Don’t hurt me.
Please.”

The ninja remained a statue. Unmoving.
Not even a twitch. What was he waiting for?

A sweet smell entered my nose. I
hadn’t even looked behind me when I jumped out of the stall.

Chapter Thirty-One

I woke up in a dark room. I didn’t
recognize it at all. I could have been anywhere. The school basement. A safe
house. Paris. It was impossible to know. I lay on a cot in a room with cement
walls. A metal door stood guard over me on one wall. A thin blanket covered my
body.

I couldn’t have been there long. I
still had to pee. If I’d been out longer, I probably would have wet myself. A
bucket sat alone in the corner of the room. Kicking off the blanket, and knowing
I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I used the bucket. I’d lived in plenty of
villages without modern plumbing. Peeing in a bucket was the least of my
concerns.

Pounding on the door with my fist, I screamed
at the top of my voice, “Let me out of here!”

“Stand back,” came a voice over a
hidden speaker.

I whipped around, looking for the
source.

“I said, stand back. Or my ninjas
will not hesitate to hurt you when the door is opened.”

“I don’t buy it. You need me alive
and unharmed or I’d already be dead.”

After a moment of silence, the voice
responded. “Alive, yes. Unharmed is debatable.”

I took five steps away from the door.

With a long, loud creak the door
swung open. A man walked in, one I knew well.

“Dad? Dad!” I screamed, running, and
jumped into his arms. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years. Probably not
since my mom reunited with my biological dad. This was the only father I’d ever
known. “Oh my God, what’s going on? How did you find me?”

He loosened his grip and I stepped
back. His curly black hair was disheveled, his eyes tired. “Tabitha, I’m so
sorry about this.”

“Do you work with my mom too?” He was
the man I’d called Dad until the day before. I hadn’t given it much thought,
until now, but it probably wasn’t right for me to call him Dad anymore. I
didn’t even know if he knew I wasn’t his daughter.

He shook his head, the curls falling
over his eyebrows. Women all over the world found him wildly attractive, just
like my mom had all those years. He could have been a leading man in any film,
a cross between George Clooney and Antonio Banderas.

“Are you comfortable?”

I looked around. “Um, no. Let’s get
out of here.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” His
thick British accent didn’t smooth over my fear, like it used to when I was a
little girl and he’d visit my mom and me.

“What do you mean? Aren’t you here to
rescue me?”

He took a step back toward the door.
Two ninjas filed in behind him. The origins of the ninja were shrouded in
mystery, but there was documented existence of elite bodyguards who protected some
of Japan’s elite. Clearly the feudal practice was still used, except the
British man I’d believed was my father employed them. “You have something I
need. Just tell me where it’s at and I can let you go.”

I looked at him, then back at the ninjas.
It wasn’t a secret that he dealt in antiquities, sometimes in shades of grey
where the law was concerned. But this was taking it too far.

“The dogu? You can have it. Just call
my mom.” He held my hands behind my back, not wanting him to see them shake. He’d
never seemed like he could harm anyone. I hoped he wouldn’t start now.

“Your mother would disagree. You know
she lied to you again? She stole the dogu before I could. She knew I wanted it.
It was personal. She wanted to ruin a business deal I had. I was simply going
to replace the dogu with a fake. The businessman who was borrowing it never
would have known the difference. I could trade it for something of far more
value.” He sighed. “Unfortunately I spilled the information to your mother in a
moment of passion. Using her connections at the museum, she managed to be there
when the transfer was to take place. Then she stole it. A treasured piece of
Japanese history gone because of her damn morals. She should have kept her nose
out of things that didn’t concern her.”

I regulated my breathing, practicing
just as I would before a sparring match. Breathe in. Breathe out. Stay calm.
Stay focused. He didn’t know she was working with the government or he would
have mentioned it. He was taking the entire theft personally. I also had to put
it out of my head that she’d been sleeping with him for information.

“So why am I here? Why don’t you just
contact her and make the trade? Why even take the time to lock me up?”

“I tried.”

My eyes grew wide.

“Your mother refused to deal. She
said I could have custody of you for a while. I’m going to take her up on that
until she returns my artifact.”

He turned on his heel, followed by
the ninjas, and slammed the door behind him, leaving me to contemplate my fate.
I laid in the dark, waiting for a sign, any sound, that indicated he’d be
letting me out soon.

Nothing came. It was hours before I
fell asleep.

Chapter
Thirty-Two

I woke up, not knowing how long I’d
been asleep. It could have been minutes or hours. If no one was coming to
rescue me, then I’d have to find my own way out.

My fingers grazed the walls, looking
for a seam or a crack. Anything I could exploit. The harsh light from earlier
had been doused while I was asleep, which meant either it was on a timer, or
they were watching me. Either way, I didn’t know how much time I had left.

I closed my eyes, reconstructing the
room in my head. The light had been
over the door, to the left of the bed. I reached down, grabbed the metal cot,
and dragged it over to where I thought the door was. The cool metal touched my
shoulder, acknowledging the door’s presence. I’d estimated well.

Climbing on the cot, I found the bulb
and unscrewed it. Laying it carefully on the bed, I moved the cot back to the wall.
I cracked the bulb on the wall. The glass shattered, leaving jagged edges.

Humans bled heavily from head wounds.
I’d seen it a hundred times in taekwondo. An opponent took a bad shot to the
head, and the blood flowed freely. I took a deep breath and dragged the sharp shards
across my forehead.

A burning sensation was followed by
warm moist blood, dripping down my head.

“Help!” I screamed. “I cut myself on
something. I’m bleeding! Oh my God, help me!” If that didn’t draw them, I
didn’t know what would.

The door flung open. My former
biological dad ran into the room. “Dammit, turn on the light!” But nothing
changed. One of the ninjas trailed him, holding up a flashlight. “Tabitha!” He
ran over to me and my bloody forehead. “What happened?”

“I was trying to turn on the light
and I fell. The bulb broke and cut me. Get me out of here, please.” I added a
whimper that was only half-faked. The cut hurt, but it was worth it. He seemed
to be buying the whole act. “I need to go to a hospital.”

He looked around the room. “Dammit, I
don’t have any first aid supplies. But I can’t take you to a hospital. I can’t
risk it. I need that dogu, Tabitha. You have to understand. My entire business is
about to collapse. Without a score like that, I’ll be penniless.”

“I could bleed to death,” I said
through clenched teeth. “Isn’t that more important than money?”

In my head, I thanked my mom a
million times for not telling him the truth. He probably would let me die if he
knew I wasn’t his daughter.

“This isn’t how I meant for this to
happen.” He stood up and paced the room.

I pulled my t-shirt over my head and
held it to the wound. It’s like I was the only responsible person in this world
of messed-up adults. I sat shivering in the tank top, offering thanks to the
fashion world for the layering fad, taking care of myself like I’d done my
whole life.

“Please, Daddy,” I whined. “I’m
starting to feel dizzy.” It was a lie, but the best I could come up with. I
just wanted out of there and I couldn’t fight three grown men, especially since
two of them were ninjas.

“Fine. But we’re going to a hospital
in a different town. And you have to swear not to tell anyone.” He turned to
one of the ninjas. “Get the car. We’ll meet you outside.” He kneeled on the
floor in front of me. “I never wanted you to get hurt. I swear that, Tabitha.”

I rolled my eyes around and slumped,
pretending to get dizzy. “Daddy…”

“Get her a glass of water,” he
shouted to the other ninja. The man bowed, then backed out of the room.

“Tabitha, I’m so sorry.” He wrapped
his arms around me. “I need the money or my entire business is gone. What else
was I supposed to do?”

I sat up straighter, pushing him
away. “For starters, you never should have messed with me and my mom.” I brought
my knee up, crushing his nuts. His eyes rolled in the back of his head, and he
fell backward, landing with a thump on the concrete floor. “One down, two to
go.”

Stepping around his body, I crept to
the door, listening. The ninja hadn’t come back with my water yet. I pressed my
t-shirt harder against my head. If I was going to get out of there, I had to keep
my head. Too much blood loss and I would pass out.

Silence except for the sound of a
cabinet door closing. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, thankfully. I crept out
the door, finding a rough, stone staircase carved into the earth. I glanced
back the metal door, seeing matching walls to either side. A fallout shelter. I
thanked whoever had been paranoid enough to build it into their property.

As quietly as I could, I clambered up the
stairs, eager to get out of the house. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to fight more
than one ninja, if I even had the skill to defeat them at all. Illinois Jon
showed me how fast I could be captured in the classroom. But I wasn’t prepared
that day. I was ready this time.

I snuck up and out the front door,
closing it behind me. I let out a long breath. I only had to get past the last ninja
and I’d be free to run. Somewhere. Anywhere. Not that I had any clue where I
was. All farms looked exactly alike to me. Luckily, in the flat Midwest
country, I could see for miles. All I had to do was get past the tree line and I’d
hopefully be able to see where Springdale was.

At least they hadn’t moved me from
the area or I’d really be screwed.

A car motor came to life. I jumped
behind a set of evergreens. The car crunched on the gravel drive, pulling up to
the house just as my ex-dad had instructed him. He slammed the door shut and
ran up the sidewalk.

He stopped only feet from me.

He bent over and muttered something
in Japanese. Swiping his finger on the concrete sidewalk, the ninja stood up
slowly and looked around. I felt a warm drop on my arm. Blood meandered down my
hair. My heart pounded. I was bleeding through the t-shirt. Some must have
dropped while I was escaping the house.

A crackle, like radio static, broke
the silence.

“I’ve got her!”

I looked around. It was a woman’s
voice. Certainly not the ninja’s or mine.

The ninja ran in my direction. He
jumped through the bushes, but I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding his
outstretched arms.

“Tabitha!”

There it was, that damn voice again. And
it was calling out my name. It sounded like it was coming from me too, letting
the ninja know exactly where I was. I took off running into the trees. The ninja
was probably right behind me, but his skill in silent movement kept me from
knowing for sure. Looking over my shoulder would have slowed me down, so I kept
running.

“Tabitha, can you hear me?”

The disembodied voice broke into my panicked
thoughts. Like a whisper coming from my chest. What the hell?

“Mom?” I yelled back, through labored
breaths.

“It’s me, baby. We’re coming. Keep
running.”