Hidden (To Love A Killer #1) (11 page)

              Hunter realized the best she could do was lure him out of plain view so that no one driving by would see what she was about to do.

              Now he was tucked deep into the alley. They both were. Now was the time.

              The subtle taps of his boots against the pavement grew louder, closer with each step.

              Her gun wasn’t like Ash’s. There was no silencer. Hunter knew she shouldn’t even be thinking in these terms. She wasn’t supposed to fire her weapon unless her life was in danger. Ash had explained if she fired it, the sound would be so loud it would immediately draw attention, which would either alert Dale’s partners, like Travis, or alert a passerby who would surely call the police, neither of which Hunter wanted.

              But there was a reason she had come to the sugar factory. There was a reason she had disregarded Ash’s strict instructions to stay in the alley and wait for him. Hunter wanted to take Dale out herself. And though it hadn’t been a well thought out plan, she could still do what she wanted to do. She was alone with Dale in the alley. She needed to do this.

              Finally, Hunter turned.

              Dale stopped dead in his tracks the second she did. He wasn’t more than ten yards away. Even in the low light, she could see the darkness behind his eyes. It was the same darkness that had looked through her, never directly at her, when she had been a little girl. He had been a monster and still was.

              He smiled at her, his mouth twisting into a crooked grimace. He thought he had her, she could tell by the way he was stepping casually towards her, cocky that it was all over.

              He was enjoying this, but he didn’t know what Hunter had in mind for him.

              She braced the guardrail behind her with her left hand, and slid her right down the back of her jeans, wrapping her hand around the handle of her gun. It was hard to get a good grip. Her hand was almost numb with fear, oddly out of control, trembling, but with a quick tug she suddenly had the gun pointed straight ahead, aiming at Dale, with her elbows locked, her finger ready.

              “Whoa,” he said softly, as his hands raised.              

              It was an unlikely gesture for Dale. It seemed like a false surrender. Hunter reminded herself it wouldn’t be over until he was dead. Everything up until that point must be considered smoke and mirrors, tricks and illusions. Dale was not to be trusted.              

              “Don’t take another step,” she said in a firm tone that did little to stop him, though at first he seemed to slow his pace.

              “Why don’t we have a talk?” he suggested, shifting his weight forward from his right foot to his left.

              “I said, don’t move,” she said. She wanted to fire a warning shot. The sugar factory was full of kids. The second they heard a gunshot they would flee from every possible exit. Having a group of teenagers run through here would complicate matters so thoroughly that Hunter knew she would lose her chance. She held herself back from squeezing the trigger. Sweat began to bead and fall down her face.

              Dale obeyed, but only for a moment.

              “You sent someone to kill me,” she said.

              “No,” he said. “I sent someone to find you. And he did, didn’t he?”

              Hunter’s brow furrowed. She knew what Dale was trying to do by talking to her, by keeping a conversation going. He was trying to subdue her. This wasn’t the farmhouse, she reminded herself. He had no power over her out here on the streets.

              “He’s on my side,” she said, her voice cracking slightly in fear.

              “That’s only what you think, Hunter,” he said as the sick smile spread even wider across his face. “He still works for us. How do you think we knew where to find you? How do you think I knew about the sugar factory?”

              Hunter’s hands were shaking visibly.

              “You’re lying,” she said finally, but her voice broke down with a sob that burst from her throat so abruptly, it startled her.

              “He’s been informing us, keeping us posted, letting us know where you are, what you know.”

              “Shut up!” she shouted.

              She couldn’t let Dale in her head. She had to fight it. She refused to listen. She refused to give anything he was saying a second thought. Dale would say anything to weaken her. She knew that, but she also knew it was working. Hunter didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she couldn’t help but run through her racing thoughts, trying to organize where Ash had been at what times, when his opportunities to report back to Dale would have been. She hated that this was the direction her thoughts were traveling, but it had been so hard to trust Ash. Everything had been so confusing. What if Dale was right?

              “He killed Thomas,” said Hunter, her voice suddenly deep and in control. Whatever strength she had managed to pull together was showing up in her tone, thank God.

              “Thomas let you go,” said Dale. “Thomas could have stopped you, but he looked the other way. Ash was supposed to kill Thomas. Ash has been doing everything I tell him to, to the letter.”

              “I said don’t move!” shouted Hunter as soon as she realized Dale had advanced on her by quite a few feet.

              “Give me the gun, Hunter,” he said. “You can’t beat me, and you can’t shoot me. You know you can’t.”

              As Dale stepped in towards her, inch by inch, his hands stretched out, confident to receive her weapon, a memory came back to Hunter, rushing through her mind, flooding her with a reminder of her weakness, her deep despair.

              She had been no more than eight. Dale had taken her out back, deep into the woods. It had been only a few days after she had recovered from her turn in the barn. She had been at her lowest, a mere shell of a child, empty, raw, half dead. When they had reached a clearing, they stopped and that’s when Hunter noticed the target a good thirty yards ahead. He had brought her to an outdoor shooting range.

              Hunter had completely forgotten about the event. She must have repressed it along with so many unbearable memories from her time at the farmhouse. Remembering it now transported her. As she recalled every last detail, while standing there in the alley with the canal to her back, Hunter completely lost sight of Dale. She completely lost sight of the fact he was closing in on her so tightly that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted to.

              Dale had put a gun in her hands that day in the outdoor shooting range. He had told her to shoot and she had. She had discharged all the rounds in the gun. She remembered how strange it had felt when the gun kicked back, its barrel flying out the second the weapon had been emptied.

              It had been then that the mistake had happened. The critical error that had proved to both of them just exactly what Hunter was made of.

              Dale had reloaded the gun and put it in her hands. Then he realized the target down range had been shredded. He had walked down range with his back to Hunter to switch out the targets. Hunter had lifted the gun, raising it slowly, pointing it at Dale’s back. He would have never seen it coming. She could have killed him that day. She could have squeezed the trigger as many times as needed. She could have run away through the woods, found safety, gotten help for the rest of the girls.

              But that day in the woods, Hunter had known that even though she was broken, she would never let herself kill. She had hated Dale. But even so, she hadn’t had it in her to hurt him.

              Dale had stopped midway to the target, turning abruptly back to her. That had been the second he had realized his mistake. For Hunter, that had been the second she knew she was weak. She had never known Dale to make a mistake. They had stared into each other’s eyes. Hunter had seen the fear on his face. He had been certain she was going to pull the trigger, but she didn’t.

              Back at the farmhouse, Dale had walked all the way back to her and though Hunter hadn’t lowered the gun the entire time, she also hadn’t fired. When Dale had reached her, he took the gun out of her hands.

              It had been exactly like this moment here in the alley.

              Hunter focused her vision, coming out of the memory, and realized Dale was mere inches away. His hands were closing in on her own. If he wanted to, he could swipe the weapon from her just as he had done that day in the woods.

              “I should have done this a long time ago,” she whispered.

              Dale’s eyes grew wide.

              The report of the gun crashed and reverberated against the alley’s walls.

              The sight of Dale stumbling backwards, his chest black and smoking, turning crimson; the smell of gun powder in the air; her stinging hands, trembling in their shock from the gun’s kick.  They all seemed to happen in slow motion as a wave of relief and empowerment washed over Hunter.

              She wanted more.

*              *              *

              A gunshot rang out, echoing through the dark streets of Brooklyn as Ash rounded the corner of Presidents Street. Hunter was nowhere in sight. Ash jogged deeper into the alley until he reached the back of the building. The alley was empty. And that’s when the dread crept in, overtaking his sense of clarity, monopolizing his thoughts. The gunshot could have been from anyone. This was one of the worst parts of Brooklyn after all, but Ash knew better. He sensed the shot had something to do with Hunter. He was terrified that the girl he was falling in love with laid bleeding somewhere to the east.

              Without a moment’s hesitation, Ash began running in the direction of the echo. Soon he was sprinting towards the sugar factory, being careful to stay in the shadows, avoiding the more populated streets.

              The front of his shirt had been spattered with blood.

              He should’ve known Hunter wouldn’t stay in the alley. She had voiced her objections to his plan in the first place, and that should’ve tipped him off to pair her with another girl. She was so headstrong. She wasn’t one to listen, yet that’s what he liked about her. But it also worried him. If she couldn’t listen, then he couldn’t keep her safe. The risk implied a major problem.

              He didn’t need another major problem. He already had one on his hands, and its name was Travis.

              Ash had been faced with a choice in the warehouse. There hadn’t been enough time. Travis had fired at Ash, missing him. And Ash had fired back. The shrill cry of sirens had immediately followed. Ash had known Travis wasn’t dead. He had stumbled off and Ash would’ve gone after him to finish the job, but the girls needed to be unchained, rescued, before they all wound up in a precinct, tied up for days by police questioning.

              The sugar factory was swarming with kids, Ash realized as he approached it. The kids were running in all directions, trying to find people they knew, find their rides on the street, and get out of there as quickly as possible. That was Ash’s first indication that he had been right. The gun had gone off here. Someone, somewhere had been shot, and he prayed to God it wasn’t Hunter.

              As he crossed the street, Ash noticed that far up the avenue two police cruisers were headed his way. They would be here any minute. He picked up his pace and ran against the strong stream of teens through the steel entrance of the factory.

              “Hunter!” he called out, running deeper in, searching wildly through the crowd.

              The shot had been crisp. It had echoed loudly. Ash realized it couldn’t have gone off inside the factory. Immediately he raced through the side doors towards the back, hoping they would lead him outside. As soon as the doors slammed back against the wall, he discovered he was in a stairwell. He ran down the stairs, his gut telling him this was the only way. All he could do was pray that wherever Hunter was, in whatever condition, that he would find her, and find her fast.

              The stairwell deposited him in an alley with Water Street to his far right. The police sirens were wailing, as red and white lights flashed rhythmically down the alley. Ash turned to his left and jogged to the back of the building.

              The briny scent of dead fish filled the air as he rounded the back of the building. The canal wasn’t far off.

              There she was. He could recognize her shape anywhere. Her long limbs, the curves of her shoulders, hips, the wild mane of wavy brown hair, Hunter was standing at the guard rail, looking down at the water.

              “Hunter!” he called as he ran to her.

              She turned slowly. Ash could see her face glistened with tears that streaked down her cheeks. She was gripping the railing tightly, bracing it in fact, using it to hold herself up. She seemed out of breath, exhausted. Ash didn’t see the gun in her hand, and that’s when he realized why she had been looking down.

              “It fell in the water,” she whispered, repeating the statement, clearly shaken up, clearly hanging on by a thread. “My hands went numb. I dropped it. It fell in the water.”

              Ash scooped her in his arms and held her close. He gently began to rock her, swaying back and forth, forgetting about the cops, forgetting about everything but Hunter.