Page 70 of Eden's Joker

If she gets away, I’ll never get her back.

I don’t know which of those two things is worse.

“Which way did she run?” I ask.

“Out back of the house, they think,” Cherry says. “She didn’t come through town or down the main road.”

Forget running back to the Devils. She’ll never get that far. These hills are riddled with rattlesnakes, big cats and who knows what else.

And if the wrong Lost Sons members find her tonight, there might not be much of her left... I don’t want to think about any of those things, but it’s all playing on a terribly loud loop in my head.

I get back on my bike and race up to the house, Scorpio right behind me. Once we reach the house, I only stop long enough to check that my gun is loaded and I have my knife. For once, Scorpio doesn’t have any schooling words for me. He just checks his weapons too and follows me into the darkness beyond the house.

For the first time since I can remember, the darkness frightens me. Used to be I loved it, because you can do anything you want in the dark.

But now it might’ve taken the thing I want the most.

37

Eden

The dark seas that promised escape and peace didn’t hold me long. I wake up from being jostled about, my head banging against something leathery and hard, making my headache worse. Something is also sticking into my stomach, something hard as bone. Someone is breathing hard around me. Wheezing. Several someones. And the only light I see are the yellow beams of flashlights illuminating the harsh desert ground and prickly shrubs that grow there.

My mind clears and I realize I’m being carried. Slung over a shoulder like I’m a piece of meat. By the men who stopped me from escaping. Carried who knows where. I doubt it’s back to the small library in the house. I doubt it’s anywhere I want to go.

I twist and push off the guy carryingme. He wasn’t expecting it, and he wasn’t holding me very tightly because I managed to break free. Only to land on another sharp rock. But at least this one only hits my thigh and not my head again.

“You slimy bitch,” the guy who was carrying me yells.

The flashlight is now pointing straight into my eyes, searing my brain, intensifying my headache. And making it impossible to know where I am.

“I should kill you right here,” he says as he comes towards me. “And I think I will.”

“Fuck, Brick, don’t be crazy,” another guy says. “We need her alive.”

“Shut up, you coward,” Brick says. “What we need is to get what was promised. And I’m gonna start taking my cut right now. I need some rest anyway.”

He pulls on the end of his belt and unbuckles it. My heart is racing a million miles a second and every beat is like a hammer strike to the head.

I scramble back on the desert ground, my hand getting cut up by the rocks and thorny shrubs. But I hardly feel any of that. I’m sure it’ll be a lot worse once this guy reaches me. I have to get away. But I can’t.

The other two guys seem to like where this is going, since they’re all coming towards me. I can’t even stand up, can barely crawl. I’m actually wishing to find a rattlesnake with my hands, so I could fling it at them. But snakes are smart. They hide from people.

Brick reaches me, his pants are undone, his cock in his hand.

“Don’t come any closer,” I warn him, my nails bending and snapping as I dig around for a rock I can use as a weapon. None of them are coming loose. “I’ll fight you.”

That makes them laugh.

“I’ll like that,” Brick assures me.

He’s towering over me now. The shadows cast by the flashlight he’s still pointing at me are twisting his face into a grotesque mask and I’m sure he’s telling me the truth. He will like this. Very much.

“But you won’t like it from me, Brick,” Tyler says out of the darkness, using that same commanding voice he chased them away with the first time. “Step away from her, Brick.”

It’s like the darkness itself is speaking in his voice. I’m sure I’m just imagining it. The way The Little Match Girl imagined seeing her grandmother in the flames of her match as she slowly died in the cold. Death isn’t even something I can look forward to. Not until after a lot of pain first.

“Why don’t you make me?” Brick says, flashing his light all around.

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