Big.
“I’m a klutz,” I announced.
“You’re maybe the only person I know who would say those three words looking like you just won the lottery,” Pepper noted.
I hadn’t won the lottery.
I’d worked long and hard.
And then I got my reward.
Because I wasn’t like other girls.
Including being a klutz.
And that landed me a commando.
I didn’t share this with Pepper, Hattie, or Axl, who was now standing with us.
I shrugged and said, “It’s me.”
I barely got out the “me” part when we all heard a chilling scream coming from outside.
Woodenly, we turned to look out the glass doors.
Well, Hattie and Pepper and I did.
Axl shoved through us, growling, “Do not leave this area.” He then pushed swiftly through the doors, finishing, “Call Mag.”
I had my phone out and turned on when Hattie whispered, “Oh my God. Someone’s got Ryn.”
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” I chanted, whisking my thumb over my screen to go to my calls and engage Mag.
I put it to my ear just as I let out a little scream, right along with Hattie, because we heard gunshots outside.
“What’s happening?” Pepper shouted.
I was stuck, frozen, unsure what to do when Mag’s voice came into my ear.
“Forget something, babe?”
“Someone has Ryn! And I think they’re shooting at—!”
I didn’t finish.
My phone was yanked viciously out of my hand.
I whirled on whoever did that just in time to hear both Hattie and Pepper make distinct noises that conveyed the same message.
Fear.
And panic.
My arm was seized, and I began struggling.
I stopped when my wrist was wrenched up my back and I had a different voice in my ear.
“You make trouble, she dies, he dies, you all die.”
I stopped struggling.Chapter Twenty-OneThe InitiationEvieThis just cut it.
I was tied to another chair.
Tied to another…fucking…chair!
Worse!
All my girlfriends were tied to chairs with me.
Like Steve and Robin from Stranger Things when the Soviets got ahold of them, but without being injected with truth serum that made us giggle and everything seem funny.
Tied to chairs, back to back.
I was attached to Ryn. Pepper at my side, Hattie to her back.
Ryn had been brought in later by a set of bad guys different than the three who took Pepper, Hattie and me.
And they didn’t handle her very gently.
Not like the guys who took me, Pepper and Hattie were gallant, but the ones who pulled in Ryn seemed pissed off and they were rough with her.
But she was alive, breathing, she didn’t appear injured, though she was obviously spitting mad.
Which was good (ish, though not the mad part).
However, this meant they had numbers.
Which was bad (totally).
We’d been kidnapped.
Fucking kidnapped.
All of us.
Me and my friends.
Kidnapped and tied to chairs.
I got my friends kidnapped and tied to chairs.
No.
My brother did.
And due to the decree of the meathead who was guarding us that we couldn’t talk, I hadn’t been able to ask Ryn about Axl.
God, if I was still talking to Mick, I’d quit talking to him. I’d then cut him out of every picture I had that he was in. After that, I didn’t know. Possibly sew a voodoo doll of him and stick pins in it. Or perhaps burn him in effigy.
Something.
On this thought, the meathead who kept telling us to shut up if we tried to speak got a call. Since I had a view to the door, I watched as he looked at the screen on his phone and then moved out of the room.
A desolate room, by the way.
Four walls.
Wood floor.
No windows.
And four chairs with our asses tied to them.
Oh, and there wasn’t a lot of heat, something I was learning was de rigueur with kidnappings.
It wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t toasty warm either.
In fact, my fingers were getting numb from the cold.
They’d put us in hoods after they stuffed us in their cars, so I had no idea where we were.
That was fun.
Not.
I watched him go, and the instant the door closed behind him, I twisted my neck and asked Ryn, “You okay?”
“I take kickboxing. I got a good one to the balls of one of them. So now we can say he’s not my biggest fan,” she replied.
“But otherwise, you’re okay?” I pushed.
“Well, if being tied to a chair but doing it breathing and without any broken bones is okay, then yeah. I’m okay,” she said.
Yes.
That was our new definition of okay.
“Axl?” I went on.
There was a beat of silence.
My heart thumped hard.
“Ryn!” I hissed, returning my attention to the door.
“There was a firefight. I mean, like, lots of bullets were exchanged. I think he worried I would get caught in the crossfire. And, you know, I was worried too. He stopped shooting, shouted ‘cease fire’ about a million times, and showed himself, lifting his hands. My guess, he thought, since we were in freaking Cherry Creek mall’s parking garage and someone had to have called the cops, seeing as there were people shooting at each other and hitting cars and windows were exploding and such, those assholes might feel in the mood to negotiate before the cops got there. But when Axl showed himself, he didn’t have his gun. They opened fire on him and, and…”