Losing Me, Finding You (33 page)

“I think you should be more concerned with what's going to happen to us,” she whispers as tears start to roll down her face. Mireya pulls back and slaps her hard, making me cringe. Again, I glance at the phone. Unfortunately, if Austin is in the process of robbing a bank, I can't exactly call 911 and tell them he's in trouble. If Austin were to get arrested and put away, I don't know what I'd do. I'm just starting to learn to lose myself, and he, he's just learning to find himself. We're not ready to be separated yet.
If we ever are.

“Kent wants to make more money, Mireya. He wants more things, better bikers, hotter women.” She spits this last bit out on the end of a harsh laugh. “And he isn't going to get that from running weed and robbing savings and loans.” She flicks some of her blonde hair behind her ear and looks for the briefest of moments like the Melissa I met a few days ago, flirty, arrogant, careless. That fades again as quickly as it comes. “So he made a deal with Walker.” Melissa shrugs and reaches down to her belt, undoing the clasp and sliding it out of the loops. For what reason, I'm not sure, but when Mireya sees this, she takes a step back and gets a little pale. “To run some high paying ventures and combine the two MCs.”

“Besides telling me what I already know, that your fucking husband is a piece of shit, what does this have to do with anything?”

“Can you see Austin running coke, Mireya? How about Kimmi luring girls into the sex trade?” She stares at Mireya's pursed lips and then glances over at me. I remain stone still, and I feel like the blood in my body is draining across the floor and leaving me dry. “Yeah,” she laughs. “Neither could Kent, so he arranged for Walker's boys to put Kimmi and Austin down. Beck and Gaine, too, probably, if they don't step in line.”

A knock sounds at the door, making Mireya and I jump.

Melissa doesn't seem surprised though. Instead, she grabs an ashtray and slips it in her pocket along with a handful of pens. She then backs up until she's got nothing but the wall behind her. I wince as she snaps the leather of her belt.

“Grab a weapon,” she whispers, and I notice that Mireya doesn't hesitate, reaching under the mattress and pulling out a knife. My head spins slowly, like I'm running in slow motion, my eyes drawn to a little, automated click as a key card is inserted into the door. And accepted. The handle twists down slowly.

“So they're here to kill us, too?” Mireya says, scaring the crap out of me because she sounds so resigned to it, like it's an inevitable conclusion for things to come to.

“No,” Melissa says, voice so low that she's almost impossible to hear. “They're here to do much, much worse.”

I realize as I'm fighting that this is all a trap, a setup if you will. Kent was playing us right from the very beginning, from the cops in Amy's hometown, to St. Marlin's, to this bullshit right here.
He's trying to get rid of us.
I duck another punch and try not to let that bother me. Hey, I was waiting for Kent to screw up all along and he goes and does it. I should be glad. But I'm not. Ten years of sharing the road with me and this is what I get: deceit and a bunch of backstabbing bullshit.

My fist moves up and slams into the jaw of another man, crumpling him to his knees next to the guy with the knife. I hope the son of a bitch isn't drowning in the muddy water, but I don't have time to check on his fucking ass. Somewhere to my left, I can hear Kimmi screaming.

I duck down to avoid another hit and go stumbling blindly forward, trying to follow the sound of her voice and separate her from the other shadows nearby. Losing Kimmi would be like losing my right arm. I might still be alive, but things wouldn't happen quite the same way anymore. It'd be like I was always off balance, always trying to feel with something that wasn't there. If I lose one of my best friends, somebody else is going to die tonight.

Shit, I wish I had a fucking gun,
I think as I smash into the back of one of the men and send him flying face first into the muck. But armed robbery and plain old robbery are completely different things. Kimmi and I have always agreed on that, so we never bring weapons. She'd kill me if she knew I even had that damn pocket knife.

I step to the side and narrowly miss being culled by a Goddamn baseball bat, stumbling into another pair of men who have the smarts to grab me on either side and pull my arms back. A third man comes out of the wet foggy air, materializing there like he's Kent's fucking twin or something. When he hits me, I see stars and it pulls enough of the fight out of me that the three men are able to put me right back where they want me: face down in the water.

“Amy,” Mireya says with a sigh, looking at me with eyes that are full of so many emotions that they look pitch black, like two orbs filled with the night sky herself. There's hate there and love, anger and acceptance. It's both beautiful and frightening. “Get in the bathroom and lock the door. Take my phone and call Gaine.” She tosses her cell to me and steps back, assuming a position similar to Melissa's. “Or Beck. Get someone over to the bank to help Austin and Kimmi.”

“Knock, knock.” It's Kent's voice, oozing in from the crack in the door. Only the chain is holding it in place now. “Melissa, honey, if you let me in, I might decide to go easy on you.”

“Easy on me?” she scoffs, puffing out her chest and taking a steadying breath. “Selling me off as a whore doesn't sound all that pleasant, so thank you, but I think I'll pass.” Kent laughs and the sound of his voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

“Why not? That's all you ever were anyway, a fucking whore. You think you could just sleep around behind my back, and I wouldn't notice?”

“That's just a fucking excuse for you to use to feel better about yourself, you spineless piece of shit.” This from Mireya who's throwing a death glare my way. “Get in the Goddamn bathroom and make the call,” she growls at me. “Now.”

“I'm sorry, but every business needs to start somewhere. I needed collateral and now I've got it. The three of you combined with Miss Margot should make a suitable down payment.”

“Rot in hell you sack of shit.”

“Mireya, is that you baby?” It's a different voice outside the door this time, one that has a deep, Southern drawl, dark as pitch.

“Walker,” she whispers and it's the fear in Mireya's face that finally gets me moving. I gather a vase and a lamp from a nearby table (they're the closest things to weapons that I can find), and retreat into the bathroom, dragging a chair behind me.

I'm not a moment too soon.

I get about fifteen seconds to pop the lock in and angle the chair in place before the sound of the hotel room door being kicked off the hinges echoes around the enclosed space like a gunshot.

My vision starts to go black and my lungs fill with water as I struggle the best damn way I know how, fighting for my life with every beat of my heart. I figure these guys must have pretty explicit instructions on me since they're trying too hard to drown me and not knife or shoot me. I guess maybe it has to do with the amount of evidence they're going to have to clean up when I'm gone.
Don't think that way Austin,
I tell myself as I feel the last bit of air in my lungs escaping, bubbling out of me and leaving my chest tight with water. I think a lot about Amy as I'm drowning, wishing for her with everything I have, realizing in that disgusting, miserable moment that Kimmi is right.

I have all six senses.

And I love her.

Austin Sparks loves a girl he just met.

Kimmi's right – that would make one pretty incredible fucking book. Just wish I knew how it ended.

My mind starts to get spotty then, and I'm saying my last prayers to God when the pressure on me subsides and my head comes up out of the water, drug by an unseen hand that's shouting and slapping me and calling my name.

“Austin, you fucking idiot. Wake the hell up!” It's Gaine. He lets go of me to deal with another one of Walker's bitches and I end up collapsing to my knees, coughing and choking and gasping. I suck as much sweet, sweet air into me as I can before I lift my head up and try to pretend that I don't see Beck slitting a man's throat with his knife.

Blood is everywhere now, a whole bath of it, staining the water around my knees and stinking up the place with the scent of hot copper.

“Kimmi?” I gasp as I blink stars from my vision and let Gaine help me to my feet.

“I'm right here, Sparks,” she says, stumbling forward and pausing next to Beck who's covered in sticky red but smilin' anyway. Beck says that when it comes to the bad guys, he doesn't mind taking out the trash. I can't say that I entirely agree with that, but it works. Especially since I'm still a-fucking-live.

“What the fuck is going on?” Gaine demands, pausing when he hears his cell phone. His face blanches. “Mireya.” He rips it from his pocket and answers it with a shaking hand. “Mireya, are you alright?” Gaine pauses. “Amy?”

My heart stops beating while I wait for Gaine to say something, to tell me that she's okay and that she's just calling to check in.
On Mireya's phone?

“Kimmi and Austin are fine, but you girls hold tight and don't call the cops. We're on our way,” he says and then he's slipping the phone away and starting to run, slogging through the mud with all the power in his legs that he can muster. Nobody says a thing; we just follow after him and I pray to God that Amy Cross is still going to be alive when I get there.

I dial Gaine and luckily for me, I get an answer. He tells me to hold tight and hangs up, leaving me alone with the sound of screaming and crashing and banging.
I should open this door and fight,
I think to myself, wondering why Mireya gave me this spot, leaving herself out there to fight while I sit here in this tiled room that's no better than a cage.
I have to help.
I search quickly though the contacts list until I find Margot.

She answers on the first ring.

“What should I do?” I know she thinks it's Mireya that's calling her, but there's not enough time to explain, so I just blurt it all out.

“Bested by Crows is here looking for you. Get in the bathroom and take a chair, lock the door and bar it. Sit tight and we'll come get you when it's over.”
If it ends well that is.
I hang up before she can respond, setting the phone on the granite countertop next to the sink and pressing my ear to the door. There's a lot of grunting and cursing, but not as much shouting as there was a few seconds ago.
Please tell me they didn't take them down already?
Melissa and Mireya are both tough, a lot tougher than me, and I expected a good fight out of them. When I listen in though, I hear only harsh breathing and whimpers.