“This is crazy, Chance,” Tank says, still gripping my arm real hard like he’s not planning on letting go.
But he’s gonna have to. Because this is the second time a person I care about got hurt because I didn’t listen to my gut. First was not preventing Hunter from going into that strip join and the second was letting Veronica talk me into going to that truck stop. There won’t be a third. I know I have to go after her now, tonight, I know it in every cell of my body. I won’t ignore it.
“Look, I got Veronica into this mess and I’m gonna get her out,” I tell him. “She means something to me.”
I have no idea what that something is. Half the time she’s making me angrier than anyone ever has or could, and the other half of the time I want to drop everything and make sure she has everything she needs. I suppose there’s yet another part that wants to grab her and take her to the nearest bedroom, which we don’t leave again for days.
Whatever all that means. But what I do know is that I can’t stop thinking about her. I also know that this will get a whole lot worse if she ends up dead when I could’ve saved her.
Tank shakes his head and lets go of my arm. “Fine, but I’m going with you. We’ll start with all the known places the Riders own and work outward.”
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this turn of events as I’m riding down the driveway beside my father, trailed by ten of the brothers, including Ruin, Edge and Ace.
This is it. This is what I always dreamed my life with the MC would me. Me and my father riding together on an important job, our brothers at our backs.
I just wish it could’ve come true under less grim circumstances.
* * *
Veronica
The van we’re in headed north along my street and then made a left. I tried to count all the turns after that, tried to picture where we might be going based on those turns. We were on the interstate for a while, and a winding road up and down a hill. The ride lasted twenty minutes at most. That focus of mine came in handy for that.
We’d already stopped at one place and I was pretty sure I knew where. But then the men started talking in shrill, scared muffled voices and a couple of moments later the van sped off again.
But we’re stopped again now and someone is opening the back of the van. Ariel squeezes my hand so hard the bones of my knuckles rub together, but I hardly feel the pain.
The back of the van was completely dark, and it’s not much better now that the doors are open. We’re in some sort of clearing with tall redwoods growing all around in the distance. The only light is coming from the interstate in the distance which is just about visible through a wall of trees, the headlights of the van and floodlights over what looks like a bunch of windowless shipping containers arranged like a sprawling one-story house. The air smells strongly of a fire, of wood burning, for some reason, but I can’t see anything that could be the source of it and apart from the interstate, there is absolutely nothing for me to get my bearings on.
The men are just standing there, staring at us and neither I nor my sister is moving.
“Out!” the man who shot my father barks, which makes Ariel scramble backwards.
The man curses, leaps into the van and drags me out by my arm. Ariel released my hand to prevent getting dragged out too, but it’s no use. Another guy jumps in and pulls her out as soon as I’m outside.
“What do you want with us?” I ask angrily. “Let us go. We didn’t do anything to you.”
The men all ignore me, don’t even look at me, aren’t even holding us. They’re just standing there looking at each other and shifting from one foot to the other, making the leather of their boots and jackets groan and creak.
“What do we do with them now?” one of them finally asks. “Just shoot them too?”
I was just about to demand they release us, but hearing that, the words jam in my throat painfully. My heart starts racing so hard I can feel the beats everywhere.
“Gazz will decide that,” the man who shot my father says. His eyes, still the only part of his face I can see, aren’t hard now. They’re scared. “Get them inside.”
Two men grab one of my arms each, the same happens to Ariel. She starts kicking and screaming again, but they just lift her up and carry her as though she weighs nothing, while they simply drag me across the dirt towards the containers.
When we reach the nearest one, they unbolt the door, shove us inside and slam it shut after us. The only light inside is coming from a single bulb hanging off the ceiling, casting a faint, dark yellow pool of light that doesn’t reach the edges of the container. There are dirty sheets and blankets strewn all over the floor and the room smells of urine, vomit and blood.
“The breaking room,” Ariel says in a hoarse, low voice that I don’t even recognize as hers. Though that’s how she did speak for the first year after she was returned to us.
“They’d lock us up in here when we didn’t behave,” she says. “And in the beginning, to break us. No food, no water, just fear. And…”
Her voice cracks and she can’t go on. But she’s not crying, she’s not shaking, she’s just standing there, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, her eyes dead. She’s wearing no shoes and only a thin, light blue t-shirt and cropped pajama pants.
“We’ll get out of here,” I tell her. “We’ll be fine. No one will hurt you.”
She scoffs. “They can’t hurt me more than they already have. It’s you I’m worried about. Because we won’t get out of here.”