Page 19 of Kidnapped

Luc stares at me for a moment before narrowing his eyes and saying, “Prove it.”

I was really hoping that one of them was going to ask me to do that because I’m pretty proud of how many knives I’ve managed to conceal on me, especially since Riot can only see three.

“Alright,” I reply, my smile widening.

I remove the more obvious ones first: two at my hips and a string of four throwing knives on the bottom of my back and concealed by my jacket. I then reach over my shoulders and pull two free from resting between my shoulder blades. I set them on the dresser that Trick’s mom has by the front door, along with the others.

“Okay, that’s eight,” Riot says, sounding impressed already.

I bend forward and take two knives out of each boot before remembering that I’ve actually got more on me than I thought. Before any of them can say anything, I take out the two that are in arm guards up my sleeves.

“That’s fourteen.” Trick says, staring at the pile of knives in front of him.

I smirk and admit, “Yeah, I forgot I had a couple of them on me.”

Rafe snorts and shakes his head in amusement.

Luc stares at me incredulously, “How the fuck do you forget that you have more knives on you?”

I shrug, “I don’t know.”

“Alright, that’s enough. I don’t see this conversation going anywhere, and we really do need to get going.” Trick interrupts before anyone can ask anything else, “Jensen, put all of your knives away; Mom will have a heart attack if she sees all these on the side.”

I roll my eyes, “Like I’d leave any of my babies behind.”

“Dude, that was weird,” Cash says, pulling a face that makes me laugh. He adds, “I’m going to get in the truck while you rearm yourself.”

The others laugh, and they all follow him out of the door to get into the truck.

I quickly start putting all of my knives back in the places that they belong. It doesn’t take me very long at all, and I’m soon following the others out of the door and into the truck.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I ask Trick as we set off.

He nods but replies, “I think so. I’m sure I’ve been to a couple of parties up there. it’s the one about three miles outside of town, right? Up a dirt track and completely surrounded by woods?”

I nod. “Yeah, that’s the one. Halfway up the track is a big stone and wood sign that goes over the top of the road that says Conmhaol, which is the name of the property, and his last name, at least I think it is; I’m not entirely sure. His is the only property on the lake since he owns it.”

“Whoa, seriously?” Luc asks.

“Yeah, it’s pretty impressive,” I reply. “That’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge about him and the property.”

“Well, you know more than anyone else,” Cash points out.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Serendipity is a small town, so it takes no time at all to get to the track that leads to the cabin that’s three miles out of the town limits. I’ve pretty much always been up here at night, so I’ve only seen the massive archway sign by headlights. I have to admit that I’ve been missing out. Trick even slows the car down so we can see it better. It’s huge. Massive stone pillars on either side of the road with huge tree trunks, with the bark still on them secured on top, and another humongous tree across the top, all with bark on except for a portion that’s been flattened and stripped in the middle with the word Conmhaol inscribed on it in big, bold letters.

The thing that makes it truly unique is that all over the massive trunks, carved seemingly randomly, and of different sizes, are woodland creatures; they’re done with so much detail that I swear if I watched them for long enough, one of them would move. If we had more time, I would insist that Trick stop the car so we could have a proper look at them.

“There’s something almost magical about them, isn’t there?” Rafe signs and Riot says out loud for him since we’re all staring at the archway.

Rafe absolutely loves reading, and I have to admit that this is definitely something that you’d expect to find in a book.

“Absolutely,” I reply honestly.

We finally go under the archway, and it fascinates me how many times I’ve gone under this, although I’ve always known it’s impressive, I’ve never realized just how impressive it is. I think my imagination is running wild with me a bit because as soon as we go under it, I swear I can feel eyes on us.

I suppose it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Knox has security equipment out here; if this was my place and I threw parties like he did, I know I would. The driveway is long, really long, and on either side of us is just forest, for as far as the eye can see. He really does live in a pretty perfect place, and I findmyself hoping that I will end up living somewhere like this in the future.

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