Page 39 of The Queen of Nightmares

His usual devil-may-care grin dropped, and that familiar look of sadness that everyone seemed to be wearing lately crossed his features. "Sally…"

I turned away, not wanting to hear it again. No one believed in him, and that pissed me off. If anyone could survive the Boogeymen, it was my Jack.

ChapterTwenty-Nine

THE QUEEN OF NIGHTMARES

“Can someone get the body out of the President’s office? Jack’s not going to want him there when he returns.”

I could see the men eyeing each other warily before a couple of them stepped toward the body.

“Wait!” I called out. “Get a trash bag to cover his head and tape it closed. I don’t want his blood to get all over the clubhouse.” I sat back down in Jack’s chair and picked up the pen I had been holding before Dr. Stein snuck into the office. I stared down at the columns of numbers, not seeing them but needing to dosomethingas I waited. With my left hand, I absently ran my fingers over my slightly swelling baby bump, mentally apologizing for all of the violence our little boy had been subjected to recently.

“We searched the entire compound. Every building. He was gone.” Barrel muttered at the floor as his heavy boots shifted where he stood. I ignored him. I knew they had searched for Jack after I killed Oogie. But just because they didn’t find his body didn’t mean he was dead. Quite the opposite.

I looked back up when I heard footsteps returning to see the office had cleared out of bikers except for Barrel and Shock. Two walked back in carrying a plastic bag and a roll of tape and quickly got to work while Jack’s right-hand men sat gingerly on the couch, staring at me as if I were a bomb that might explode at any moment. I ignored them and the two guys who made quick work of securing the body and carrying it out between them. I had no idea what they would do with it, but I had no doubts that there would be no evidence that he had ever been here. I knew I would never be blamed for his death. Frankly, I couldn’t care less that I had killed two men. They had both been evil and had done so many terrible things to innocent people. They deserved far worse than a bullet.

Zero suddenly jumped to his feet and started barking like mad. For the first time since Oogie had tossed Jack’s bloody leather vest in the dirt at my feet, my heart began to race. Adrenaline spiked through my system, and I flew out of the chair and raced over to the window, ignoring the way the sticky wetness oozed between my toes.

I couldn’t see anything through the window but the long stretch of road leading to mine and Jack’s house. I spun around, nearly slipping in the blood as Zero turned and raced out the open doorway. Barrel and Shock jumped up to follow me as I raced after Zero.

“Red, wait!” I could hear Barrel calling after me, but there was no way I was stopping.

Zero was far ahead of me but was stopped by the closed main door. He was jumping against it, trying to push his way through the heavy door. I pulled it open, hard, and he flew through it like a shot, heading straight for the gate. A car was idling just outside the gate as the Nightmare manning it held a gun at the driver.

“Open the gate!” I screamed as I ran forward, ignoring the stares of the gathering crowd and the rocks that bit into the bare soles of my feet. “Open the fucking gate,now!” I screamed again, my throat feeling raw at the intensity of my cries.

The man looked startled, staring at me in disbelief, but ultimately, he turned and did what I said without question. Barrel and Shock caught up with me, and someone, I wasn’t sure which, put a hand on my shoulder to hold me back. I turned without looking and punched whoever it was right in the jaw, making him stumble back as the car rolled forward, coming to a stop a few feet away from me.

Zero ran to the back door of the car and barked furiously. His barks intermingled with whines as he jumped and pawed at the door. Daisy jumped out of the driver’s side and looked at me with tears flowing down her battered face.

“He saved me, Sal. He saved me again. I couldn’t leave him there. Even if you hadn’t sent me for him, I wouldn’t have left him.”

“Daisy,” I breathed as I looked her over. Her clothes were dirty and torn. She looked as if she’d been through hell and back. I didn’t want to imagine what had been done to her on her brother’s compound with him knowing she had betrayed him.

“It’s okay, Sally. I’m okay.” She stepped back and then reached for the door behind her. I held my breath as Zero stepped back, allowing her to open the back door of the small sedan. As soon as the door was open, he charged forward, making Daisy stumble back. His barks turned to nothing but high-pitched whines as he jumped inside the car.

It wasn’t until I heard a low groan coming from the back seat that my breathing sped up. Suddenly, I was breathing so fast, too fast, and the world began to spin around me. Shock ran forward to the car, looking inside. I could barely see what was happening. Tears were clouding my vision, which was already turning dark around the edges as I fought to take in enough oxygen.

“He’s here! He’s alive!” Shock’s shouts brought everyone back to life. Every man that had been brought out to the yard because of my screaming and Zero’s barking ran forward as I stood there in shock, my knees trembling until they started to collapse underneath. As I fell to my knees on the cold ground, Shock shoved the door closed again with Zero still inside.

The last thing I saw before everything around me faded was the sight of the car that Jack was in being backed through the gate and out of the compound.

ChapterThirty

JACK

“Idon’t understand, Prez. We searched that whole fucking compound for you for two days! You’re telling me you were there the whole time?” Barrel was pacing the hospital room from end to end, relentlessly, making the headache from hell throb even worse until I finally snapped.

“Sit the fuck down,” I roared, immediately regretting it as the sharp pain at the back of my skull felt like an ice pick was drilling for brain matter. I was fucking pissed that I was in this god-forsaken hospital room instead of at home. And if I had a gun handy, every single one of my men would have been nothing but puddles of blood on the floor.

They’d left my woman behind at the compound. Someone was going to pay for that. Depending on what kind of condition she was in once I caught sight of her, it might be with a bullet through the skull instead of just through the leg. Or arm. Or both.

As Barrel collapsed into the chair, he immediately began drumming his fingers. I wanted to yell at him again, but if I did, my brain could possibly start leaking from my ears.

“The shed they use for their prisoners has a pit underneath. When I managed to break out of the cage they had me in, Daisy came in,” I snorted as I remembered the shock of seeing her cracking open the door I had been working on unlocking. We’d both stared in disbelief at one another. I had been angry enough at the sight of her to start reaching for her neck, ready to squeeze, until she whispered those little words that had me freezing in place.

“Sally sent me.”

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