Sleeves (21 page)

She gasped for air, and her screams were choked off.

His hands lashed out, grabbed her skull on both sides and
craaaack
!

Her head was smashed into the edge of the filing cabinet, and she went lax in his hands.

He released her, and she puddled on the floor like a sack of wet clothes. Without thinking, he leaned over, snatched her ID badge and shoved it in his back pocket.

Guards with guns ran into the room, but instead of aiming at him, they were aiming inside the cage, expecting to find him there.

Casey had Johnathan’s dead body in front of her and Robbie as a shield. It confused the guards for a few seconds; enough time for Kel to pick up the weapon Hannah had wielded.

He shot off round after round, hitting the guards in the neck, in the hands and head. All four of them convulsed immediately and dropped to the ground.

Kel snarled at them, and then grabbed a set of keys from one of the downed guards.

He leapt at the cage and told Casey between rushing breaths, “Get him out of here. You two run! I’ll find you later.”

“No! You have to come with us!” Casey moved out from under Johnathan’s corpse.

Robbie rushed him and clung to his leg. “Daddy! Don’t leave us!”

“I know you’re scared, Peanut, but I have to get Nana Marie.” He gave Casey a pleading look.

“We’ll come back for her.” She managed to heave herself up to standing and winced in pain as soon as she was fully erect. “There’re tons of guards in that hallway, protecting her room. We won’t be able to do this tonight. We need to get help—tons of weapons to free her. If we leave now, we can do it successfully. If we stay, we all get caught.” Casey hobbled over to him and gripped his arm. “This is it, Kel. We leave now or stay forever. And we have to do it quick before every guard out there figures out what we’ve done.”

He swallowed and ignored the icy death grip on his heart over the idea of leaving his mother behind.

“They might kill her if we leave,” Kel said.

“They won’t. You don’t know why they have her here still, but I do.” She yanked on his arm, and something was different.

There was no sting or any kind of lashing sensation on his skin. His eyes flung to her hand. She was like him now. They’d done it to her, too.

He wrapped her up in his arms. “No, no, no! Tell me they didn’t!” But he knew already—deep inside he’d always known that was what they were doing to her while they’d been separated.

“We can’t do this now!” She ripped her body out of his grip, picked up Robbie and moved past him.

The way she moved, he knew with a surety. She was already healing. They’d definitely fucked her up like they had him.

She moved with the agility of a jungle cat, grabbing guards’ weapons and chucking a few at him. Her head jerked to a window, and she set Robbie on top of a desk.

She flinched a little when she wedged the window open. There was obviously some pain there, but still . . . The way she was moving—a person with recently broken ribs would not be capable of this. Chances were they were achy and bruised—not cracked.

He followed after her. How did she know where to go? Where had they taken her that she knew so much?

She moved a chair under the opened window, peered up into it and then motioned for him to give her a lift.

Her body slithered through the window, and then he helped Robbie get through it next. He poked his head through to see where they were going.

She caught his boy on the other side with ease, and even helped Kel when he snaked his way through the window, barely fitting through it.

They were in a dimly lit parking lot, and none of them had shoes on. This was going to make it difficult to run.

But Casey had other plans.

She motioned to the keys he’d stolen and then pointed at a big black van at the edge of the parking lot.

Unfortunately, it was directly under a parking lot light.

Fabulous. They’d head over there and be caught in an instant.

She yanked on his jeans, signaling for him to take them off.

He did, but gave her a questioning brow.

What was this woman doing?

She tucked her hair up into a knot while he stripped down to nothing but his boxer briefs, the same ones he’d been wearing for who knew how many days.

They probably smelled horrendous, and they had Johnathan’s blood on it.

She shrugged into his jeans, tucked her shirt in and then pushed Robbie over to Kel.

“What’s the plan?” he mouthed at her.

She put her finger to her lips and took the guard’s keys in her hands Kel had taken while inside.

With her shoulders pulled back and a gun tucked in her jeans pocket, she strolled casually through the parking lot over to the van.

Was she insane?

He put Robbie on his back in case he had to run after her and save her gorgeous, nutty ass.

But to his surprise, she unlocked the door, hopped right in like nothing was out of the ordinary, started the vehicle and drove off.

All he could do was anchor Robbie to his back and stand there gaping after the disappearing van.

Chapter 10

The searing pain from Casey’s ribs made her eyes water, and it made it that much more difficult to drive the van. She kept it steady somehow and found the two exits. She wasn’t about to have little Robbie in the car with her if they gunned her down. It was her job along with Kel’s to keep that little guy safe.

None of the guards seemed to take notice of her though as she gathered information.

She and Kel should be able to figure a way to get out of here if they could devise a plausible excuse for a woman driver with Kel and Robbie. Would they be dumb enough to listen to her?

And was she smart enough to find a convincing enough lie?

She parked the van and found another car to steal in case they were already looking for the van and had been informed of their jailbreak.

She jumped out of the van and her old days as a hell raiser came back to her.

Her fingers were deft as she broke into an old Toyota Camry, slipped inside and hot-wired it.

Hopefully the car would seem less suspicious.

She got the car started in no time, and as calmly as she could under the circumstances, drove back to the spot where she’d left Kel.

Only Kel was gone, and so was Robbie.

Shit! She pounded her palms on the steering wheel and turned around, but then she saw a flash of skin in the shadows a few feet ahead.

Of course he would’ve hid.

How stupid did she think he was?

She pulled up next to the bushes, rolled down the window and motioned for him to get in.

When nothing happened she whistled, “Pssst! Get in!” Her hissing breath sounded like a death threat.

He bounded out of the bushes, and all but ripped the door off, sliding Robbie into the back, then he got in the front, and put the car in park for her.

She opened her mouth to protest, but didn’t say anything because she was jarred about as he dragged her across the seat and then buckled her into the passenger’s side, switching places with her.

“Buckle up, Peanut,” he told Robbie without looking at him.

The little boy in back hopped in his seat and was getting himself secured when Kel rammed on the gas pedal, plunging all their backs into their seats.

“I’m gonna crash right through my mother’s wall to get her out. Where’s she at?” His eyes were icy and focused on the road.

Casey reached out and set a hand on his wrist. “You can’t do that, hon. I know you want to, but she’s not in a room that’s connected to an outer wall like where you were being held. I don’t think they ever intended for you to stay there permanently, but they were scrambling because your mom was creating problems for them. She went psycho when she found out you were here.” She stroked his wrist, hoping it would ease the testosterone charging his blood and fueling his lust for carnage.

“We have to get her out!”

“I want that, too, but we need time to organize this. Let’s just get out of this place. I’m sure we’ve got to get past some more security before we’re completely free. I only saw two guards at each exit when I went to go check it out.” She gazed out the front window and for some reason there weren’t any alarms going off, no cars chasing after them.

“That’s where you went?” Kel asked, his voice tight.

“Yeah—I wasn’t going to risk the peanut being hurt.” She looked around in the parking lot and behind the car.

Still no one was pursuing them.

Only silence and the stillness of an ordinary night.

How unnerving was this?

“Fuck that.” He gunned it even more, and before she could question him on what he intended to do, they were veering off to the left, running straight through an eight-foot hurricane fence with barbed wire on top of it and they were careening out onto a frontage road.

Casey bounced around as they went over the curb, finally putting them on the asphalt where Kel pushed harder on the gas pedal. About a mile later her eyes moved from the mirror; no one was following. She looked to Kel. “Do you know where we are? Because I have no idea.”

“I think so. Just relax. I have an idea.” He slowed the car down to about forty-five and took a corner sharply at the end of the block.

A few more sharp turns down dark streets, moving through back-roads and then they were in the middle of the barrio.

“Oh God, yes. This is my day!” Kel grinned.

Her stomach bent in half. How was this good—being in a scary as hell neighborhood in the middle of the night, him in his dirty underwear, her with busted up ribs and a toddler in the back? Was he high?

“We can’t stop here!” she barked when he stopped in front of a particularly dilapidated house.

“Yes, we can. It’s fine.” He turned off the car and shot her a warning look. “Stay here for a second. I’ll be right back.”

He rushed out of the car, ran up to the door and knocked.

It was a humid night, but still, a man roaming around the neighborhood in his boxers was suspect at best. Even if he was a meth-head, this was still unusual.

She cringed when the door opened and a woman stepped out.

The woman smiled and hugged him.

Casey’s fingers curled around the door handle and red hot jealousy lanced through her chest, making her heart and lungs stop. She attuned her senses so she could see and hear better.

What was that slut saying to him? The vibes of
horny woman
were rolling across the couple and filling the sultry air, choking off any sense in Casey’s brain.

She opened the car door and got out, approaching them, but Kel was already flying back to Casey, smiling.

“It’s all right. She’s gonna help us. She owes me one.” He clapped his hands, went after Robbie and took him out of the car, hugging him tight. What was he celebrating? The fact they swapped a cage for a rundown meth lab?

There was a hop in Kel’s step as he brought them inside.

Oddly enough, the house was clean, smelled good like cinnamon rolls or something homey, and there was a nice aura about the place.

The woman wrapped an arm around Casey’s shoulders, brought her to her room and offered her some clothes and shoes to wear, then left Casey standing there alone, dumbfounded.

When she was dressed and still trying to unscramble her brains, she went back into the living room.

Kel was swallowing down a sandwich whole, and Robbie was doing the same.

She was handed a soda and a sandwich then told to eat fast.

“They’ll be here in a moment.” The woman smiled and clasped her hands in front of her groin, standing a few feet off to the side, but clearly enjoying the sight of Kel.

“He’s hot, isn’t he?” Casey set the sandwich down on the couch.

“Yeah, he is.” The woman shrugged.

“Ladies, as much as I admire the jealousy standoff brewing here, I have to tell you to stop. Eat, Casey. We’ll be leaving in a few, and I don’t know when we’ll get to eat again.”

He was wearing a shirt.

The bastard had changed his clothes, too. In front of this woman ogling him?

He had on a pair of jeans that fit him with a nice leather belt included, some tennis shoes and he was even wearing a baseball cap.

What the hell was going on here?

“Have you two known each other long?” Casey refused to eat until she knew what their history was.

“Yeah, a few months.”

Kiiiitch.

Kel had opened her soda for her and forced it into her hands. “Drink.”

“Not yet.” She set it down on the coffee table next to her.

“You like my daddy?” Robbie asked the woman.

“Yeah, we’re good friends.” The woman’s eyes said they were a great deal more than friends.

“And why are you bothering to help us?” Casey stood a little taller.