Wounded (Dogs of War MC Book One) (7 page)

Sidney’s drive home had actually been pretty pleasant. Since she had adopted the attitude of, ‘I may be nutso or I may not be, so screw it, I’ll just go with it’ she’d felt much better about things. She was even able to laugh when Pandora chose
Howl
by Florence and the Machine for her. Maybe she was also beginning to anticipate the night a little bit, she’d at least know, one way or another, whether or not the gorgeous man who’d been kissing her in her alcohol induced haze had been real or not. But she wasn’t sure which one she was hoping for. On the one hand he’s real and he’s drop dead gorgeous and he seemed to be interested in her but it also meant that everything she’s thought was a myth might actually be true… and he’d already seen her in every embarrassing position possible. Even sobbing like a heartbroken teenager after the phone call from David.  On the other hand he could be imaginary and she didn’t have to worry about werewolves in dark corners but she was crazy and had had an entire week filled with delusional apparitions due to the fact she really needed a BFF. It was win/lose either way.

Pulling into the driveway she leaned back against the seat for a moment before getting out. It was all downhill from here. All she had to do was get ready.

Which turned out to be harder than she had expected. The note had said not to dress up, but did that mean they were going to order pizza and eat in their pajama pants while watching movies or was she going to have to actually go out in public? She hovered around her closet, pulling out one thing and then another, finally settling on a long black and white striped maxi dress that she could couple with a sweater if they went out, since it was a little cool out. A summer dress was one of those things that could almost transcend all occasions.

Showering and primping wasn’t going to take her very long she decided and she hastily dried her hair, she was too pent up to worry about maximizing the highlights on her cheekbones anyway.

She stopped the hairdryer when she thought she heard a noise outside and checked the clock. Seven o’clock. Too early for him to be there yet, so she dismissed it as a raccoon or possum. Since it was a new subdivision that had clear cut a forest, there were a lot of those around. Sometimes they enjoyed wreaking havoc on her trash can, or scampering across the roof so she’d learned to dismiss noises pretty easily.

Then the doorbell rang. She looked down at the towel tucked snugly around her and cursed. If he was going to demand a date and give her a specific time to be ready, even going so far as to tell her what to wear, he could have the common decency not to show up early.

“Hold on just a minute,” she called out, hoping the sound would carry all the way through the door. She tugged her clothes on and spent no more than half a second checking the mirror, half wet hair, no make-up, and a wrinkled dress. Damn the man. Wolf.

She plastered a smile on her face and took a steadying breath before she opened the door, hoping there wouldn’t be anyone there and she could start planning her recovery… a week at a spa retreat might be in order. Maybe even two.

Two men she’d never seen before stood there, smiling back at her.

“Hello darlin’.”

“Hi, who are – “ one of them grabbed her and spun her around holding her hands behind her back and used a zip tie to keep them there, the other quickly tied a piece of fabric around her mouth, successfully cutting off any other questions she might have had.

They dragged her kicking to an old beat up blue van that was parked by the road, her screams muffled against the gag. She fought with everything she had, twisting and writhing, kicking out when she could, but it wasn’t much use. They opened the back sliding door and threw her in.

A third man was sitting there waiting to catch her. “Nice to meet you Sidney, my name is Checkers, we’re going to have a little talk. And he was the last thing she saw before a black fabric bag was shoved down over her face. 

Red walked up to Sidney’s front door and rang the doorbell. He knew she never used the front door and always went in through the side door, but he thought he’d be on his best behavior during their first date. He wanted her to know that he was a man, not just a dog pawing at the kitchen door to be let in.

No one came to the door. He waited a few more minutes and rang the doorbell again. Still no answer.

Maybe she hadn’t liked being told what to do. Maybe he should have called and asked instead. He wasn’t used to dating girls like her, he might have to change up his methods.

Still, she should be home. Her Jeep was parked in the driveway. He looked in the window beside the front door. Her purse was sitting in the chair, where she normally threw it when she came home.

Maybe she’d fallen asleep; he walked around to her bedroom window, still open so the breeze could blow through the screen. She wasn’t sleeping, but he could see clothes thrown on the floor, and a towel lying on her bed. That was weird, she was normally very neat, particularly about her clothes. Something wasn’t right.

He walked back around to the front door and tried the knob, it wasn’t locked. Something was definitely not right. He rushed through the house calling her name but she just wasn’t there.

She couldn’t have just disappeared. He started pulling his clothes off to shift when he saw the note he’d written her on her bedside table. She’d obviously started getting ready for him when something had happened. Hurrying now he shed the last of his clothes, shifting almost before he got his shirt completely off.

He smelled the clothes on the floor so that her scent would be fresh, but he would have known her scent anyway, before rushing outside and sniffing the air.

She had been at the door, but now with his heightened senses he caught the scent of other people lingering there too. The hair on the scruff of his neck stood on end, every muscle in his body tensed, and he let out a howl of rage, fear, and frustrations. The Hellhounds had taken Sidney. 

The plastic bands that bound Sidney dug painfully into her wrists as she tried to stretch them without being noticed by the couple in the room. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The woman put her hand on her hip and stared the man down. He looked grimy and worn, not the kind of man Sidney would have talked to that way.

“Listen, you’ve got to take care of her and I don’t have time for any of your bullshit about it,” he brushed the oily brown hair out of his face. Sidney had been previously unaware that mullets were still in style in certain pockets of the country.

“I’ve got shit to do today, I can’t stay out here in this… shack and babysit this bitch just cause someone had the bright idea to steal her. Does Lynard even know about all this?” she waved her hand around the little ramshackle building, looking pointedly at their incapacitated guest. Sidney hoped Lynard didn’t know and that he was going to be pissed, maybe even pissed enough to make them let her go.

“You don’t need to worry about club business, you just worry about keeping her here,” the man’s voice raised on edge. Lynard, whoever he was, obviously did
not
know about this insane bullshit.

“You can take your ‘club business’ and shove it right up your ass. Since I ain’t in your precious club I don’t have to take orders from nobody in it.” She reached out a hand with long, perfectly manicured and airbrushed acrylic fingernails and grasped the doorknob, “and, just so you know, I’m going out with Frankie tonight.”

The woman attempted a graceful exit, which Sidney was sure would have been nicely punctuated with a slammed door, but was cut short when the man grabbed her arm, spinning her around with one hand, the other already raised and waiting for his target.

Sidney winced as the woman hit the floor hard. She’d already been on the receiving end of a couple of those smacks. The whole right side of her face felt swollen and bruised. But she was alive and relatively unharmed. She had every intention of staying that way.

When she’d first been taken all she had felt was panic and fear, combining inside her to almost render her completely incapable of thought. She’d fought, of course, but it had been on instinct, with no strategy behind it. Once they’d gotten her inside the van and she’d realized what was most likely happening she began thinking of possible ways to get herself out of the situation.  Her mind sifting through all the possible scenarios and what her reactions should be. She’d been so lost in thought that she’d almost missed the opportunity to bolt when they stopped at a convenience store to get gas, arguing about who hadn’t remembered to fill up the tank before they’d left, and paying little attention to her.  By the time she’d realized she had a chance to jump out of the van and find help she’d lost the minutes she’d needed to get away.

But at that point she was too scared not to take the chance, so tied and with a bag over her head she had kicked the guy beside her in what she hoped was his face and used her body to slide the door open. She almost got two steps away from the van before she was grabbed, slapped and thrown back into confinement.

Her next attempt at escape had been when they’d arrived at the little cabin. She had no clue where they were or how far away from civilization but she was sure she wanted to be as far from them as possible.

One of the hairy men had snatched the black sack off her head and mocked her, “Welcome home sweetheart.”

Sidney hadn’t paused to take in the scenery, she’d kneed him in the balls and took off at a dead run. A run that was far faster than she’d thought herself capable, but still nowhere near the speed she needed to have outrun them. She was once again grabbed and dragged back to the man she’d kicked. He was holding his crotch, his face red, the anger radiating from him.

“I hoped you enjoyed that bitch,” and then he’d punched her.

She’d awoken inside, hands still tied in front of her, but her feet weren’t bound and she wasn’t gagged or blindfolded. She was thankful for that, at least until she realized it meant that they were probably so far out of town that no one would hear her if she decided to scream.

She’d been working the ties around her wrists the whole time and gritting her teeth through the pain. The constant rubbing had broken through the skin in places, red angry welts and blood were clearly visible, but she almost had enough room to slip one hand out.

The argument between the man and woman didn’t bother her at all. Let them fight, let them do whatever it was they wanted to as long as they weren’t paying attention to her.

“You fucking sack of shit, I’ll kill you for this!” the woman screamed, watching her attacker walk out the door. “Pussy ass, didn’t have no right to hit me, no right at all. I’m going to burn his ass for this.”

The woman eyed Sidney, wiping the blood off her mouth where her lip had split. “And don’t you give me no problems. My shitty ass day doesn’t need to get any shittier.”

Sidney shook her head, trying to look scared and cowed, which she was, but she also had every intentions of making the woman’s day much shittier. If she could just get her damn hands free. Why wouldn’t they just
come out?
  It was never this hard in the movies.

The woman pulled out her phone and started jabbing it with her thumbs, probably angrily texting someone who’d help her kill Mr. Mullet. Sidney cheered her on
, kill him twice for me!
She really did hope everyone involved in this little debacle dropped dead of some sort of horrible disease that took days of painful diarrhea and vomiting before finishing them off. She contemplated other diseases that might be fun to inflict on them as she continued straining against her shackles.