Stay alive. Stay alive.
My heart hammers against my chest. It’s hard to breathe. Walls close in and I can’t seem to find enough space for my legs.
“We are going so fast. They keep turning left and right. I can’t get my bearings.”
The roar of Wolfe’s motorcycle is deafening but I use it as an anchor.
Beside me Polaris breathes heavily. I grab for her hand and lock my fingers with hers.
Sweat breaks out over my face and arms. I clutch the single life line I have at a rescue to my chest. Thank God Wolfe had the foresight to give it to me. No amount of screaming and banging on the truck door is resulting in anything. I wish I could remember how all those MacGyver types in all the action shows the guys watch break out of trunks. I can’t remember for the life of me and it might actually cost me my life.
Polaris and I hang onto each other. The car swerves right, and I can feel the wheel turning as the car gains speed.
“Who are these people?”
I swallow the knot in my throat and finally face the truth. Telling one person will make telling everyone else if we survive this easier. I hope, at least.
“My mother.”
I can’t see her wide eyes or see the drop dead surprise on her face, but I can feel it between us.
“Your mother.” Polaris trembles and I recognize the haunt look in her eyes. I get that way too every time I think about what my mother did. My time with the Society. But right now, being scared will not help us.
I take both sides of her face in my hands. “I know you can’t see me, but I want you to know that you are not alone this time. I’m sorry about that. I truly am. You’re only in this situation because of me. But you can’t be scared. Harlon and the guys need you to be a fighter. Are you with me?”
“Your mother is behind the Society?”
It’s like I didn’t say a damn thing.
I nod, but quickly add a shaky, gut-wrenching, “Yes,” when I remember she can’t see my face in the blackness of the trunk. “But don’t focus on that. We need to have a plan. When this car stops, they are going to move fast. We have to be faster.”
The driver breaks quickly and Polaris can’t brace fast enough. She flies into me. I drop the phone, but that is the least of my concerns.
The man smelling like three-day-old cigarette smoke and vodka pulling Polaris off me has one hundred percent of my focus.
I move in a blur of motion, grab the gun from the holster on the side of his leg and put bullets in his feet. He throws Polaris to the ground and I take the shot. Blood blooms a fat red circle in the middle of his chest.
Instead of feeling nauseated, I only feel cold. Emotionless. Blood no longer sends me to my knees with the need to empty my stomach. Resolve pins my chin high.
Breathing heavily, I pull Polaris off the ground and she grabs the now dead guy’s other gun.
“Thank you.”
The crack of a gun going off and soaring metal burying into the ground at our feet spins us around.
“Nice try.” Mother snaps her fingers and enforcers strip us of our weapons. “It’s a shame you killed him. I liked him. He was good for a quick fuck in a pinch.”
“Such crass language, Mother. You’ve changed.” I say flatly and keep my eyes on her as she slithers between her enforcers to get to me.
Her slap stings, but I don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing tears. She doesn’t get that from me ever again.
My laser focus shifts from her to everything else. A Cessna, an empty landing strip and not a single badge in sight. She’s paid good money to be so invisible. We are truly alone. Wolfe will never find us in time. If she gets us on that plane, no one will ever see us again. She won’t make the same mistake twice by leaving me out for all the members to see. She’ll either kill me or put me in a dungeon for some damn snuff film.
Brutus’ replacement wraps fat fingers around my arm. The nameless enforcer grips the back of my head with his other. He’s not worried about keeping his gun trained on me. Not when he has twenty men already doing the same.
They force Polaris and I onto the plane. Inside, they shove Polaris into the nearest seat, but I get the back of the plane where large chairs take up one side and a plush built-in sofa takes up the other side.
I hear the whimpering before I see the tear-stained face. Behind an older woman holding a blue bundle in her arms, is a little girl sniffling through her tears.