Silas (11 page)

She started walking down the
ramp outside the bar. “I don’t need to be into you for us to
fuck.”

I went after her. “Well, it
kind of helps, don’t you think?”

She laughed, and it came out
bitter. “I don’t think it makes a difference one way or the other,
actually.”

I caught up and peered into
the parking lot. “How’d you get here? Did you drive?”

She shook her head. “I
called a cab.” She wound an arm around my neck. “You drove, right?
You can take me back to your place?”

Her body was soft and warm
against me. She was acting like she wanted me. She was saying that
she did.

So why did I
feel—

A sharp pain in my neck.

My hand went there.

Christa backed away from me,
wrinkling her brow. “There’s something on your neck.”

I pulled it out. It was a
dart. A tranquilizer dart. The kind you’d use to take down animals.
Dewhurst-McFarland made a dart just like this.

Shit.

I stumbled.

Christa cried out.

A dart was in her shoulder. She grasped
at it, yanking on it.

My vision was blurring, going
hazy…

No. I needed to—

I fumbled for my cell phone.
If I could… call…

I couldn’t stand up anymore.
It was so hard to see.

Sloane. I…
needed…

CHAPTER SEVEN

I woke up to the sensation
of movement. I was in a moving vehicle of some kind. I opened my
eyes to see that I was in the back of a van. My hands and legs were
tied. Christa was lying in a heap next to me. She was tied up
too.

Derek Rolf crouched next to
me. He was smiling. “Hello again, Drake.”

I tested my bonds, trying to see how
strong they were.

They didn’t give
much.

“
It’s amazing that you’re
awake so quickly,” he said. “That tranquilizer dart is pretty heavy
duty. But then, you are extraordinary, aren’t you? You can jump out
a three-story window with a gunshot wound in your gut and recover
as if nothing happened.”

What was I supposed to say?
So, he’d figured out my secret. “How did you know I was still
alive? Have you been following me, waiting to pick me
up?”

He laughed. “No, it was
simply dumb luck. Someone saw you in that bar we picked you up
from. He called me. I came to get you.”

Good. That meant Sloane was
still safe. He didn’t know about her. He didn’t know where I
lived.

“
I know that someone helped
you escape from that hotel. I can only assume that was this little
thing here.” Rolf got up and went to Christa. He nudged her with
his foot.

“
Don’t touch her,” I said.
On the one hand, I was glad that he thought that Christa was the
person who’d been helping me, because it meant that Sloane was out
of it entirely. On the other hand, it wasn’t fair that he was going
to take out his anger on Christa. She was innocent. I had to
protect her from Rolf. I had to do whatever I could.

Rolf turned back to me, his
grin wider than ever. “Oh, you’re protective, are you? Well,
judging from the way she was ‘dancing’ with you at that bar, she’s
quite a little spitfire, isn’t she?” He knelt next to
her.

I made an attempt to get up.
I lost my balance and fell over. “Leave her out of this. She’s got
nothing to do with this.”

“
Really?” he said. “That’s
funny, if you’d asked me what I thought about you running your
mouth to Sylvia, I might have told you the same thing.”

“
You killed
Sylvia.”

“
Because I had to,” said
Rolf. “Because you ruined her. You tainted her. I couldn’t look at
her the same way after I knew she’d been spreading her legs for
you.”

“
That’s not a reason to kill
her,” I said.

“
You don’t know how it
feels.” He put his face next to Christa’s.

I struggled again, trying to
right myself. “She doesn’t know anything about any of this. Let her
go.”

Rolf licked her face, starting at the
bottom of her chin and going up to her eyebrow.

I felt a tight burst of rage run
through me, hot and flaming. I lunged for him.

But I was tied up, and I
didn’t make it very far.

My cheek slapped against the
floor of the van.

Rolf laughed. “You don’t
know how it feels. Not yet.” He slid a searching hand inside her
shirt.

“
Stop it.”

More laughter. “But you will
know.” His hand closed over one of her breasts.

The rage shot through me
again, settling in my belly, growing into a blaze.

He pulled his hand out. “Not
yet, though. I wouldn’t want to break her too quickly. If she
doesn’t have any fight, she’ll be no fun to chase.”

Chase?

Just like that, the fire in
my belly went out, extinguished by icy fear. He was going to hunt
us. He was going to hunt
Christa
. I couldn’t let that happen.
I had to do something about it.

I tried to think. There must be some
way to save her, to get her out of this situation.

This was my fault. She had nothing to
do with any of it.

“
So, first, Drake,
I’ll chase her. And then I’ll catch her. And I’ll have her every
way I can think of having her. Every way you had
my wife
.” He was next to
me, his mouth close to my ear.

I flinched. “This isn’t the
same, Rolf. She’s not mine. She’s not anything to me. Just let her
go.”

He chuckled in my ear. “And
then I’ll kill her. And you’ll watch all of it.”

I felt sick.

“
You’ll watch all of it,
because you’re special, Drake. I can kill you as many times as I
want, can’t I? And you’ll just come right back.” He shifted
position, pulling out a gun. He settled it against my forehead.
“What are you, Drake? You weren’t just my wife’s plaything, were
you? French had you doing something more than that. You’re a
weapon, aren’t you? An indestructible weapon.”

I didn’t say
anything.

“
What did Jolene French make
you into?” he said. “And what happens if I shoot you in the
head?”

I swallowed.

“
Let’s find out,” he
said.

The pain was like a water
main burst in my head, everything exploding and gushing and
pounding all at once. And then—

Darkness.

* * *

“
Interesting,” Rolf
whispered as I opened my eyes.

I looked around. I was still
in the van, but it wasn’t moving anymore. I was still tied up. But
Christa was awake. She was huddled in the corner, staring at me in
horror.

At first, I was afraid that
Rolf had done something to her while I was out, but then I realized
that I was covered in blood and gore—my own blood and gore—and I
probably looked pretty horrific.

“
So, I can kill you over and
over and over again,” said Rolf, laughing. He raised the gun to
Christa. “What about her? Can she do the same trick?”

“
No,” I said, struggling to
sit up. “No, she can’t. Please don’t.”

He grinned.
“Excellent.”

This wasn’t good. There was
nothing about this that was good. We were in deep
trouble.

“
Well, this is going to be
fun,” said Rolf. “I am going to have a lot of fun with you, Drake.
And when I’m sick of having fun with you, I’ll have fun with her.
And then I’ll some more fun with you.” He laughed again.

He opened the doors to the
van and hopped out, still chuckling.

Then he slammed the door on us, closing
us inside.

Christa spoke, her voice
quavering. “Why is he…?”

“
Well,” I said, “he’s
insane.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

They threw us in a dank,
cement hole in the ground, a cellar of some kind. The walls and the
ceiling were constructed out of concrete blocks. The floor was
poured concrete, with a drain in the center. There was a toilet
hanging off the wall in one corner. A rusty sink sat next to
it.

There were five other people in the
room, all of them male. They all looked fit and young. Early
twenties to mid thirties.

That was typical, from what
I remembered. Rolf liked to hunt prime specimens. He wanted them
young and strong.

Christa clung to me. She’d
been crying, and her face was red. I wished that I could do
something to make this better for her, but I couldn’t think of
anything. Patting her on the head and saying comforting things
wasn’t really going to help her either, so I hadn’t been doing
it.

“
Oh,” said one of the
people, a guy with greasy, sandy-colored hair. “Looks like we’ve
got fresh meat.”

“
A girl,” said another of
them, turning greedy eyes on Christa.

I pushed her behind me. “An
off-limits girl.”

She started crying
again.

“
Hey, hey, darlin’,” crooned
a voice from the darkness. “Why don’t you come over here, and I’ll
make you feel all better?”

It would be better if she’d
stop crying. A lot better.

As if she read my mind, I
heard her sniff behind me and quiet down. She drew herself up,
stepping away from me. “I’m fine.”

I looked at her. I felt
better if she was hanging onto me. But I wasn’t going to push it. I
didn’t want her to feel as if I was a possible threat. If she was
afraid of me, I couldn’t protect her. My instinct was to contain
her, but I needed to let her move on her own. I’d keep an eye on
her.

“
So,” said the first guy
who’d spoken, “what the fuck happened to you?”

I was still covered in blood
from when Rolf had shot me in the head, but I wasn’t going to go
into all of that. The best thing to do right now was to try not to
antagonize these guys. I was fairly sure that I knew what was going
on here, and if I was right, we were all on the same
side.

Well, we all had a common enemy,
anyway.

“
Same thing that happened to
you,” I said. I looked around at all of them. “Let me guess, you
were serving out the very end of your sentence on Death Row. Your
last appeal didn’t fly. Your execution date was set. At the last
minute, they tell you they’re transferring you to a different
facility to give you the needle. Next thing you know, you’re
here.”

Christa furrowed her brow, shooting a
confused glance at me.

“
We already know this about
each other,” said the sandy-haired man. “You want a medal for
figuring we’re all the same?”

“
That’s the thing,” I said.
“We’re not the same. My name’s Silas.” I pointed at Christa.
“That’s Christa. And I know why you’re here and not getting a
lethal injection someplace.”

The sandy-haired man raised
his eyebrows. “I’m Emmett.” He pointed around at the other men,
introducing each in turn. “That’s Milo, Brandon, Ken, and
Ross.”

Each of them looked at us. They were a
little intimidating.

“
What’s different about
you?” said Emmett. “Except that the fact that one of you is female,
that is.”

“
Rolf put me here for
personal reasons,” I said. “He’s got it in for me. He doesn’t have
anything personal against you guys. You’re just walking dead men to
him. He figures that if you’re gonna die anyway, he might as well
have a little bit of fun making sure it happens.”

“
So whoever’s taken us plans
to kill us?” said Emmett.

“
Fuck,” said
Milo.

“
We assumed that was the
case,” said Emmett to Milo.

“
Not just kill you,” I said.
“He’ll bring in two or three of his rich buddies. They’ll let us
all go free in the wilderness out here. And then they’ll hunt us
down. Like animals. They’ll be armed. We won’t. If any of us manage
to give them a good chase, so much the better. They like dragging
it out.”

Christa whimpered.
“No.”

I reached for her.

She let me tug her against
me, and I held her body against mine. She shook.

Emmett stood up. “I assume
you know this because of your personal connection with this man.
What did you call him? Rolf?”

I nodded. “That’s
right.”

“
And she’s here to further
torture you?” said Emmett. “He thinks watching her die will hurt
you?”

“
She’s not going to die,” I
said. “None of us have to. We have an advantage. We know what’s
going to happen to us. Usually, they let people free and start
shooting at them. We can make a plan. We can get out of
this.”

Milo narrowed his eyes. “And
why should we believe you? What if you’re just part of all of this?
What if we can’t trust a thing you say?”