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It’s dark.
Really damn dark.
The only thing that I’m thankful for right about now is that I’m not alone. Tatum is sitting beside me, beaten half to death, his hands shackled in front of him, his feet tied with an old, thick rope that’s attached to the wall, giving just enough for him to scoot around a tiny bit. Every now and then, he winces, letting me know the pain he’s feeling is beyond even words. Mostly, though, he’s quiet. He’s resting, trying to find peace in the chaos of his mind.
He blames himself.
Everything that went wrong he thinks is on him.
I can understand that guilt, but it’s not on him. It’s on all of us. Our plan ... It wasn’t well thought out. We were so desperate just to end this, to move on with our lives, to make all the bad go away, that we didn’t cross all our Ts and dot all our Is. In doing that, we ended up here.
In a basement, not sure of our fate, having no idea what will happen next.
Callie and Tanner are out there, no doubt having figured out we haven’t returned yet. They’ll be worried something is wrong, they’ll be trying to figure out what happened and where we are. I’m scared they won’t find us—hell, I don’t even know where they took us. All I know is that we were given the shock of our lives when we were followed after everything went down.
One minute we’re driving, feeling the relief as the cops took away those drug runners, the men who ruined so many lives, and the next we were being chased down by a damn mad man. When we stopped the car to see what was going on, that was the end of us. They came on us without warning, guns loaded. They beat Tatum so bad I can still hear my desperate screams at them to stop, to just stop.
They didn’t.
They wouldn’t.
Now, here we are.
We missed one, you see. We thought we had it all planned out, that the police would take down their entire operation and we could walk away clean. What we didn’t know is that one of them was ahead of the game and got out before the cops could take him. He gathered more of his men and made sure we knew that messing with them would be the worst thing we could ever do.
They’ve certainly made sure of that.
I twist to the side, trying to stretch out my aching back. The wall is cold behind me, like hard stone against my already bruised and battered body. My feet are also tied together at the ankles and I’m bound to a wall, but my hands aren’t cuffed. I guess they figured I’d be too weak to go anywhere; besides, where would I go? Even if I got free in here, I’d have no way out. My face is bruised from the few hits I took, but mostly they took it out on Chase and Tatum.
Chase, mostly.
I don’t even know if he’ll make it through, and that thought is terrifying.
He’s done a lot of wrong, but he doesn’t deserve to die.
“You awake?” Tatum’s husky voice penetrates through the darkness.
Most of the time, we can’t see each other, it’s that dark down here. Occasionally, the sun hits the small window just right and we can see, but other than that we’re surrendered fully to darkness. They have only come down once since they beat the two guys and put us all down here. They’ve told us only one thing: we’ll wish we never messed with them.
I believe them.
I really do.
“Yeah,” I whisper into the darkness. “Are you okay?”
“Feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” he winces, “but I’ll live. Got a few things broken, by the feels, but I’m still alive so that has to count for something.”
I exhale with a shaky breath. “What about Chase?”
“Tried to rouse him when you were sleepin’ before, but he didn’t move. Don’t even fuckin’ know if he’s alive.”
“I am,” Chase croaks from the darkness, his voice so low and so weak that my heart sinks. He doesn’t sound good.
He needs medical attention, urgently.
“What’re you feelin’?” Tatum asks, his voice as concerned as I’m feeling.
“Like I’d rather fucking die than feel this pain for a second longer,” Chase rasps.
“We’re goin’ to get out of here, brother. Just keep breathin’. If you can focus on anythin', keep focusin’ on that.”
Chase doesn’t answer.
I’m scared.
So damned afraid.
I think about Pat, and I wonder if he’s even noticed I’m gone.
Does he even care?
Probably not.
I wonder if Callie and Tanner have found any leads, I wonder what their plans are, I wonder if they’ve even noticed yet.
I don’t want to die here.
Not here.
Anywhere else but here.
“You good, Jo?” Tatum asks me, his voice tired and ragged.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Sorry we put you in this mess.”
I press my legs together, swallowing to try and remove the hard, dry lump that seems to be lodged in my throat. “It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “I wanted to do this, too.”
“It was a stupid fuckin’ plan. Should have known we couldn’t outsmart someone that fuckin’ powerful.”
I don’t say anything, because he’s right, it was a stupid plan. A really dumb one. But at the time we thought it would work. We truly thought it would work.
I think about Callie and the moment that bullet connected with her. The terrifying moment I thought I’d lost my best friend. She’s strong, so damned incredibly strong, I know that she would have found a way through it, I just know it. Ethan would have never let anything happen to her. Yet our last words were heated, and that kills me, it kills me because we never fight, we never disagree to the point it bothers us, and the moment she was shot, that’s exactly what we were doing.
“Do you think they’ll find us?”
“I think Tanner will find a way, yeah,” Tatum mutters.
“Do you think Callie is okay?”
“She’s strong, she’ll be okay.”
“Even if they do find us,” I whisper, more to myself than Tatum, “are we ever going to truly be free of this nightmare? People like that don’t just go away. They will haunt us forever.”
Tatum is silent for a few beats, and then he says into the darkness, his voice low, “Don’t you worry about them, you just worry about gettin’ through this. We’ll make sure they never touch you, Jo. I promise you that.”
I don’t even want to know how he’ll do that.
I’d rather live in ignorant bliss.
For the moment, anyway.
~*~*~*~
THE DOOR SWINGS OPEN and a bright light shines into our faces, nearly blinding me for a few seconds. When you’ve been sitting in the dark for a few days, seeing light is like staring straight into the sun, and it hurts like hell. I blink, unable to rub my eyes, until the light becomes a little less painful.
Two men are standing at the entrance, holding huge assault rifles and two flashlights. One of them is the man that beat Tatum. The other I don’t recognize. I’m fairly certain the first guy is running the show, and we just so happened to let him get away. Anyone else and we might not be in this mess. If you don’t take the leader down, then he’ll just keep building his pack.
“A little bright, is it?” he murmurs, his voice thick, laced with an evil edge that makes my skin prickle.
“What the fuck do you want with us?” Tatum growls. “Whatever it is, just get it over with.”
The man smiles, baring white, straight teeth. His teeth are a lie; they are perfect, yet the rest of him is so ragged and terrifying. They’re a trick, a nasty little surprise to confuse you and throw you off your game. Because beneath the messy brown hair, the stale blue eyes, and the rubbery skin, he’s nothing but evil. Perfect teeth or not.
“It’s not you I want, it’s your pal Tanner, but I took what I could get at the time. One way or another, he’ll make his way here, and I’ll end you all.”
Tatum’s face tightens, and now he’s in the light, I can see the bruising is getting deeper, a purple color, black in places. His lip is busted, one of his eyes is swollen shut, and he looks ... well ... horrible. My eyes swing to Chase, who is shackled to the wall, his eyes closed, his head dropped forward. There is dried blood all over his skin, up his arms, on his face, soaking his shirt. They did a good job of him.
My heart aches for him. I’m not a monster, I don’t want to see anyone in that state, even if part of me believes he probably deserves it.
What he let happen to Celia still makes my stomach twist and my skin prickle, it still makes my breath shorten and my palms sweat with horror. Nobody, not a single person in this world, should ever have to endure what Celia Yates went through at the hands of these men.
My eyes go back to the monster standing in the doorway.
Was he one of them?
Does he know who was part of it?
The exact men who played a part?
“Tanner won’t find us,” Tatum rasps. “He won’t fall into your little trap.”
The man laughs. I wonder what his name is? I try to picture a name that would suit such an evil face. I can’t think of one right now.
“Won’t he?” He grins. “I have left just enough to make sure he does find you, and when he does, he’ll walk right into my hands, and I’ll make sure he never walks out again.”
“He’s not stupid,” Tatum hisses. “He knows you’re planning something like this.”
“Does he now? Far as he knows, I’m locked away. After all, he doesn’t know I figured out your little plan and got out of there, does he?”
Tatum’s jaw tics.
The man grins, and he looks to his friend. “Let’s go, they’ve had enough light for one day.” His eyes meet Tatum’s again. “We’ll be back for you soon when your friend arrives to save the day. Don’t worry, I’ll make it a good show. I have to outdo your attempts at taking me down, after all. Good plan, just poorly executed, but what would we expect from a bunch of amateurs?”
He laughs and turns, walking out of the basement and slamming the door closed, plunging us back into darkness again. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, falling back into the depths of silence.
“I’ve got a plan,” Tatum says into the darkness. “We’re getting out of here.”
Oh, god.
The last plan nearly got us killed.
I hope this one is a little better.