Page 140 of Happily Never After

“He’s in the last row. Pull him out,” an oily voice commanded. “Do it now. The boss will tell us what to do with him.”

Footsteps retreated.

Claire pulled out her phone, ears ringing in panic. She dialed his number. It rang three times, then went to voicemail. It wasn’t like him to not answer. She dialed again, free hand twisting in the wig that was bobby-pinned to her real hair. The phone rang and rang, mocking her. Back to voicemail. She should have brought her anti-anxiety medication.

There were voices in the hallway. The sound of a struggle.

“Where do we put him?”

There was a pause.

“The pigpen. We don’t wanna be disturbed.”

Her heart rate spiked again. A pigpen? Shit, they must mean the women’s restroom. She threw herself across the room and darted into the handicapped stall. The lock on the door clicked as she crouched on the toilet. The seat wobbled and slid beneath her. One bolt was gone entirely, and the other was almost out. She felt underneath the seat and twisted at the nut that barely held it in place. It rotated three times and fell out in her hand. Itwas better to have another blunt weapon, even if it was a super gross one.

The door to the bathroom banged open. A shuffling ensued.

“You’re going to regret this.” That was Luke’s voice.

She peeked through the crack between the door and the stall, heart hammering in her throat. Two men had Luke’s arms pinned behind his back. Veins stood out in his neck from the grimace on his face. He twisted violently and nearly dislodged both of them.

Her hand froze on the door lock.

“We need another. Get Barnes. Come here,” the portly captor on the left said. A sheen of sweat glistened in the fluorescent lighting. The portly one and his greasy-haired colleague marched Luke to the end of the bathroom. They pinned him to the floral wallpaper directly outside Claire’s stall.

Panic flared anew in her stomach. They had him. She needed to do something. Her free hand snaked into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out the first of three Tasers. Alice would be upset about Claire going to the convention, but she would have been furious if she had gone unarmed.

Two more men entered the bathroom. Through the crack in the door, she could only just see Luke’s Mountain Dew T-shirt. She ached to touch him, to comfort him. To defend him. Labored breathing came from outside, and it was impossible to tell if it was Luke or one of the men holding him back.

“We can’t hold him,” the gravelly voice from before grunted. “What does the boss say?”

A blow landed, and there was a grunt of pain.

“He said to take care of it,” the oily-voiced man announced. His voice was eerily calm, like he was making a To Do list. What did he mean by “take care of it”?

An unseen gun cocked. Her heart leapt into her throat. Every muscle in her body tensed. Tunnel vision struck, and beforeshe could consciously decide what she was doing, Claire jumped down from the toilet seat and kicked the stall open.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

To Do:

- Save Luke

- Kick some ass

Everything moved in slow motion.Luke’s eyes widened as Claire emerged from the stall, Taser and toilet seat blazing. Claire swiveled, taking in the scene, barely registering the five other men, until she zeroed in on the one with a gun. Surprisingly good-looking, dressed in a three-piece charcoal suit. She swung the Taser up just as he aimed his gun.

She squeezed the trigger, and electricity crackled as prongs traveled the length of the narrow bathroom. They bit into his chest. He collapsed to his knees and seized. The gun fired with an ear-shatteringbang.

Claire screamed and ducked. Her ears rang, vision still fuzzy. She waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. She turned, quickly scanning the length of Luke’s body. He wasn’t hurt. She breathed a sigh of relief, then someone grabbed her shoulder.

“Aaahhh,” she screamed. She used the attacker’s momentum and flipped him up and over her body. He crashed through a stall door and cracked his spine over a toilet. He lay on the floor, unmoving. She chucked the toilet seat at him for good measure.

The floor was wet. Like, way wetter than a normal bathroom floor. Her damaged ears caught the sound of a rush behind her. The stray bullet had shattered a sink and lodged itself in a pipe. Water gushed out like a geyser.

She turned back to the men who held Luke, but he had freed himself and was already fighting one of them.

“It’s her,” one of the men behind her grunted. She whirled, mustache dangling over her upper lip.

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