Page 33 of Bound By Fate
“If he is out there when you leave, I will go to his car before you take off and talk to him so he cannot follow you. Know that we here at Quickie Stock take this very seriously, and it will be discussed and rectified.”
I really didn’t know what that meant. Fired? Hopefully. Maybe disappear.
Sure enough, Danny was still waiting in the parking lot. He'd pulled his beat-up old truck next to my Impala. “Great,” I muttered.
“You know the plan,” Ms. Brashers told me, and I nodded.
The tension was thick. I had no idea how Danny would react or what he would say, but I didn’t stick around to find out. I got in my car, started her up, and darted home. As soon as I was locked in my apartment tight, I called Ms. Brashers, and she told me that Danny wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week.
It was something, at least.
11
DRYERSON
It’d beena week too long since I’d seen Katie. Ravage business was still hot, but I wanted to see her. Hell, needed to see her. My mom always said that if you want to see someone, you find the time no matter when to see them. Never push them off. I took that to heart.
I'd texted her a few times, and it took her hours to respond. She probably didn’t even know how to respond, and it took her that long to type it in.
She was drifting away with each day. It was what she had done ever since I'd pulled her out of that dreadful place.
The sounds of crying could be heard from the tunnels as we moved quickly. My eyes went right to Katie as I hustled toward her naked body. The straps holding her down were biting into her skin, and blood was streaming down her arms.
Those fuckers.
I stood in front of her, my back to her as a shield. Not to mention I needed to scope out the damn room. In the blink of an eye, Ensley was behind me as well, and I could hear her undoing Katie’s straps.
“Where’s Micah!” I screamed as the men advanced on us. I had an extra clip in my back pocket, but even with it I couldn’t take them all out while keeping Ensley and Katie safe.
“Ahh…” I heard Katie scream behind me.
“What happened?” I asked, still trained on the room.
“She fell, but I’ve got her,” Ensley replied. I could hear her struggling, but the men were approaching fast.
The sounds of scraping on the floor behind me alerted me that she didn’t have her. Fuck.
“Down!” Micah yelled. I dropped just as gunshots rang out and fired off a few rounds.
Once the brothers came in and took over, I raced to the girls. Ensley was on top of Katie, protecting her, and Katie had tears running down her face.
“Let me have her,” I ordered Ensley who looked at me, terrified and worried about her sister too. “I’ve got her.”
Only then did she move off of a naked Katie. Her body was covered in blood, dirt, and bruises. Cradling her in my arms, I held her face to my chest. She sobbed the entire way out of that damn place.
Getting to the light, Katie curled tighter into me.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
My words didn’t seem to help because she sobbed harder.
In the truck that day was the last time I’d held her in my arms, until Remy’s birthday.
Entering the store, I didn’t see Katie right away. It was set up to come in on one side, then had a large barrier, making you walk around it to the cashiers.
As soon as I made it around the corner, Katie’s back came into view. Her silky brown locks hung low in a ponytail down her back. She turned around, her hands moving slowly as she scanned each item. She hadn’t looked up to see me yet.
I got in her line and waited as she rang up the two peoples’ groceries ahead of me, greeting them by name. Ms. Gomez and Ms. Smith. How she remembered their names, I had no clue.
