Page 42 of For the Birds

Chapter9

“Doas I say and you won’t get hurt,” a man said behindme.

“I only have twenty dollars.” I slowly pulled out the folded-up bill I’d stuffed into my pocket and held it up to showhim.

The man behind me jabbed the gun harder into my back. “Put your handsdown.”

He wasn’t here to rob me. The thought sent a wave of panic through my head. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding, so how about I head over to the carnival, and we’ll forget this ever happened?”

“There’s been no misunderstanding.” He jabbed me again. “Lady.”

A cold sweat broke out over my body. He knew I was the Lady in Black. This wasbad.

I cast a glance toward the carnival. Most of the crowd had dispersed, and the parking lot was nearly empty. I hadn’t seen Brett since we’d gotten in line at the tilt-a-whirl, and I’d been looking. Had I been right about him being sent to watch me? Either way, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to save me—if Jed were watching me, he probably would have tackled the guy behind me by now—which meant I needed to save myself.

“I’m not sure what you want, but I’m not the person to help you.” As I scrambled for a plan, I realized my pepper spray and Taser were in my purse in Levi’s truck.

The suspicious car that I’d seen parked outside my childhood home was approaching from my right, and there was a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I took a step forward to make a run for it, risky since the kidnapper had a gun pointed at my back, but the man grabbed my upper arm and tugged me back and into his chest, dragging me behind a van. It did a great job of hiding us from the bus of teenagers and the other people walking to their cars. “Oh, no, sweetheart. You’re not goin’ anywhere.”

I opened my mouth to scream, but his grimy hand clamped over my mouth and nose, cutting off my air supply.

Terror shot through me, and I reacted out of instinct, chomping down on his meaty palm with my teeth. He cursed but didn’t let go, instead tightening his grip over myface.

I swung my heel backward into his shin as I reached up for his arm, but other than releasing a new wave of curses, that didn’t seem to faze him either.

Struggling to take a breath, I dug my nails into his arm, frantically pulling down as my vision began to fade. The sedan had pulled to a stop in front of us, and a man hopped out and opened the trunk.

There was no way I was getting in there without a fight.

I reached up toward my captor’s face, digging my nails into whatever parts I could reach. He cursed again and released me. Gasping for breath, I was faint enough I nearly fell to my knees, but I knew if I did that I’d be a goner. I got two steps before the driver of the car blocked my path. By the time I saw his fist, it was too late to react. He swung into the side of my head, and after the initial burst of pain, everything went black.

* * *

When I came to,I was lying on my side with my hands bound in front of me at the wrists and my ankles secured together with duct tape. Something nasty was stuffed in my mouth, and a cloth had been tied around my face, holding it in place. My head pounded on the left side, and I struggled not to panic as I tried to figure out where I’d been taken.

Then I remembered. I was in some kidnapper’s trunk.

Why had they taken me? What did they plan to do withme?

They knew I was Lady. Had the guys who’d taken Scooter kidnapped me too as part of a revenge scheme against James? I tried not to let my imagination run wild, but I was terrified. I suspected Brett had no idea I’d been taken, and it would likely be hours before anyone knew I was missing.

The car came to a stop and the brake lights lit up the interior of the trunk right before the car engine turned off. We’d reached our destination, which meant I needed to come up with some kind of plan to get out of this. Only, my brain wasn’t cooperating.

The car engine turned off, and my breath stuck in my chest with anticipation andfear.

Breathe, Rose.Now was not the time to lose it. Think.

The trunk lid opened, and the sudden transition from the pitch-black trunk to the bright fluorescent lights of wherever they’d brought me made me squint. Two sets of hands grabbed my upper arms and pulled me out, scraping my legs on the lip of the trunk. One of them was the man who had hit me, and I presumed the other one, a guy with a tattooed arm, was my initial kidnapper based on the scratch marks on his face. I suspected he was going to hold that againstme.

They set me down on my now shoeless feet, but the way I was bound made it impossible to stand. They hooked hands around my upper arms and started to drag me across the concrete floor of what I realized was an empty warehouse.

I forced myself to stay calm. I needed to keep my wits about me, and the first order of business was to figure out where I was. If I found a way to make a break for it, I needed to know where to go. But there was nothing around that hinted at our location, and even if I broke free from their hold, there was no way I could run with my legs taped together.

I was in deepcrap.

They stopped in front of a door next to a dark room with a window facing toward us, then opened the door and shoved me inside. I fell to the floor face first. My bound hands broke my fall, and I rolled to the side, my shoulder hitting a sharp piece of metal. I released a cry through the fabric in my mouth, but the door had already been shut behindme.

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