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Authors: Ashley Elston

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The Rules for Breaking (10 page)

BOOK: The Rules for Breaking
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A strange look comes across his face. “Don’t mention the flowers or the journal again.” Then he turns to walk away.

“I have one last question.” I know I’m pushing my luck but I can’t stop. “What will stop Señor Vega from sending someone else after us?”

“Once I put a bullet through his head, it will be difficult for him to give any more orders.”

Oh. My. God.

Thomas moves away and I quickly undo my jeans to take care of business. I can see Thomas haul Ethan off the ground and lead him in the opposite direction. I want to believe he won’t hurt us, but everything Thomas has ever told me has been a lie. Why should I trust what he says now? I race back to the van, trip on a tree root, and go flying, landing head first in the dirt. My face will not survive this.

“Are you okay?” Vader calls out to me. It’s the first time I’ve heard his voice and it’s not what I expect. Deep, but not too deep—and somewhat familiar.

Yes, asshole, I’m just great. I brace my hands on the ground, ready to heave myself up, when my palm scrapes over something hard. I pull it back and a small trickle of blood runs down the inside of my hand. On the ground is a thick wedge of green glass with a little piece of label on it. Maybe it’s a broken beer bottle. The edges are pretty dull, but it’s better than nothing. I quickly scan the ground around me to see if there is anything else I can maybe use as a weapon.

“Do you need help getting up?” Vader asks as he moves toward me. His tone is nice, not like the mechanical sounds that come from Thomas. Then he seems to check himself before continuing in a harsh voice, “Get up and get back to the van.”

“I’m trying.”

There’s nothing else, so I grab the green piece of glass and shove it in my pocket as I rise from the ground. I try not to cry out as it digs into the tender part of my hip.

Ethan and Thomas are back by the time I make it to the van.

I step toward Ethan. I’m scared and all I can think of is being near him, but Vader stops me by grabbing my arm.

“Let her go!” Ethan yells, trying to shake free from Thomas’s grasp.

Thomas hits him on the back of his head and Ethan falls to his knees. “Remove the agent.”

Again, Vader hesitates a moment before finally doing what he’s told. Agent Parker kicks his hands away, knocking him back. He climbs in and struggles to get her to the edge, but she fights him. Thomas, who looks frustrated, knocks Vader out of the way, then pulls her out himself. Agent Parker, either from fear or pain, screams the entire way out.

She’s like a wild animal, fighting with him, even with her hands tied.

Thomas knocks her to the ground and she crumples in a heap. I try to crawl to her but Vader steps in front of me, blocking my way.

Thomas heaves her over his shoulder, calling back to Vader, “Get them back in the van.” Then walks toward the wooded area.

“Put your hands back behind your back,” says Vader.

“No!” I hold my hands out in front. “Please don’t tie us back up that way. My arms hurt so bad.”

He’s silent a few seconds then pushes Ethan back into the van, climbing in behind him. He binds his hands together in front of him, then secures his wrists to a strap anchored high on the inside wall of the vehicle.

I’m not sure this will be better.

I crawl in and go to Teeny. I run my hands through her hair and down the side of her cheek. She looks so peaceful, sleeping curled up in a little ball. At least her hands are tied in front of her.

I nudge her softly. “Teeny.” Nothing. Then I shake her a little more. “Teeny. Wake up.”

She mumbles and rolls around a little but doesn’t open her eyes.

“What if she doesn’t wake up? How much tranquilizer did you use on her? She’s just a little girl!”

Vader grabs my hands together, securing them the same way he did Ethan’s, and doesn’t answer any of my questions.

Just as Vader turns to crawl out, Thomas appears outside the back of the van, the long blade in his hand. He runs it across the leg of his pants, leaving behind a dark red trail of blood. My thoughts fly back to the man in Arizona who got his neck slit open from one side to the other, and I wonder if this is the same knife.

“Where is Agent Parker?” Ethan says, just as I yell: “What’d you do to Agent Parker?”

He ignores us, instead speaking to Vader, “Notify Hammond it’s done. We’re far enough away that no one should stumble on that island.”

Hammond. One of the agents Agent Williams mentioned.

Vader nods then slams the back doors.

Tears racing down my face, I crumble to the floor as much as my pinned arms will allow. Ethan’s body does the same. Agent Parker is gone, along with any hope that we will get out of this alive.

Rules for disappearing
by Witness Protection prisoner #18A7R04M:

Always act like you know what you’re doing. Even if you have no idea what you’re doing.

New rule by Anna Boyd:

Sometimes freaking out is okay.

and I suck at lip reading. Twenty minutes later I’m still trying to mouth that I have a dull, broken piece of glass in a pocket I can’t reach. He’s repeating a sentence over and over to me, too, but all I’m getting is something about a cup and a banana. I’m sure I’m getting it wrong.

This position is really no better than when my hands were behind my back. Now my hands are eye level and the zip tie is really tight so they’re numb again. All the blood has drained from my arms.

I struggle to a kneeling position despite the van pitching me around. Ethan mouths, “What are you doing?” Ironically I can read that and nothing else, but I shake my head. There’s no way to explain. It takes some maneuvering but finally I’m half-standing and some of the blood rushes back to my fingers.

Glancing to the front of the van, I hope to see Vader without the mask on. Since Thomas told him to notify Agent Hammond, I know he’s not the mole. Unless there is more than one mole.

But no luck; he’s sitting low in the seat and I can’t make out anything about him. My eyes move across the front of the van until they collide with Thomas’s in the rearview mirror.

“What are you trying to do?” Thomas yells from the front. Even when he raises his voice, it sounds controlled.

“I couldn’t feel my hands,” I yell back, even though I know I probably shouldn’t talk to him like this.

The van swerves off the edge of the road before coming to a swift stop. Ethan and I fly around like rag dolls even though we’re anchored near the van’s ceiling. Teeny whimpers but doesn’t wake up.

The back door opens and Thomas climbs in the van again, the knife at his side. He cuts me down, but keeps my hands bound together. There’s a faint red streak of blood still on the blade.

He cuts Ethan down then looks around the interior of the van. He must be searching for another spot to attach us. The back of the van is sparse—no seats, nothing soft—just metal from top to bottom. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to tie us.

He brings our faces close to his and says, “Understand that I will not stand for any foolishness.” He looks directly at me and says, “Remember what I told you.”

And my heart sinks. He’ll use Teeny to keep me in line.

He shoves our heads down and we fall back to the floor of the van. Thomas hops out of the van and back in the driver’s seat.

Like magnets, we’re side by side before the van gets moving. I burrow into Ethan. He can’t put his arms around me since his hands are joined together in front of us, so he throws one leg over mine and pulls my lower body in close.

Ethan whispers, “What was he talking about?”

I tell Ethan everything I know, including Thomas using Teeny as extra incentive for my cooperation.

He tries to pull me in closer and whispers in my ear, “We’ll figure some way out of this. Plus, our parents have to know we’re gone by now. Agent Williams probably has people out looking for us.”

I shake my head. “No. They can’t call him. And they can’t leave the island.” I tell him about the video and the white box. “He killed Agent Parker. He’s going to use us, and then we’re dead. No way he’s letting us live when this is all over. And that’s assuming Mateo doesn’t get to us first.”

I think about my dad stuck on that island and my mom stuck in the treatment facility and I physically ache to see them both. Especially my mom. It sickens me to think the last time I may ever see her was the night she was taken away. I’m scared and hurt and I know Dad’s probably going out of his mind right now. And the poor Landrys, too. They sure didn’t ask for this, and now their only son is tied up in the back of a van driven by a madman.

They probably started looking for us shortly after Thomas took us off the island. Did they find the white box immediately?

Ethan brings his hands up and traces the side of my face with one finger. “How bad is your cheek?”

“It’s got to be cracked. Or broken. My whole head hurts. I probably look like you did the first time I saw you.” An image of the ugly brownish yellow bruise that stained Ethan’s cheek for weeks after his fight with Ben, Emma’s boyfriend, fills my head.

He chuckles softly. “Yeah, I forgot about that.”

We’re both silent for a while. Teeny continues to moan and mumble, but I can’t see her. She’s behind me, toward my feet. Ethan lifts his head every few minutes to look at her.

“I know you want her to wake up, but I hope she stays knocked out until we get to where we’re going. We can’t do anything for her back here like this,” he says.

I dig in deeper at his side. “We’re going to die,” I whisper.

“Shhh…don’t say that.”

I pull back and look at him. “I love you. More than anything. I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.”

“I love you, too, but don’t you dare say your good-byes and give up on me. We’re not going out like this,” Ethan says, kissing the temple that’s not hurt. We ride in silence for a while. I have no sense of time or direction and it’s confusing. My head spins with desperate plans to save us, but the pain radiating from the side of my face makes it hard to hold a thought for long.

I blink wildly at the bright lights that spill in from the front windows and realize I must have dozed off.

“I think we’re pulling into a gas station,” Ethan says in my ear.

The van stops and I hear a door open and close. I try to twist around to see if Teeny is all right, but my body has stopped cooperating. Every inch of me hurts.

“She’s still out, but I don’t think it’ll be long before she’s up. She’s been mumbling a lot.”

I nod and get as close to him as I can, putting my mouth right next to his ear. “I have a piece of broken glass in my pocket.” My words come out in a soft whisper since I’m assuming Vader is still in the van.

He shifts his head so his mouth is near my ear. “Which pocket?”

“Left.”

His hands move toward my left side. The way our hands are bound makes doing anything awkward, so I just try to relax. Ethan slowly rolls his hands around and then whispers, “Raise your left hip up a little.” Struggling, I manage to lift up just enough so he is able to get two fingers in my front pocket. I feel it when they wrap around the glass. Ethan slowly pulls it out and it scrapes along my hip every inch of the way. I bite my lip, trying not to think about how much it hurts.

Again, his mouth comes to my ear. “Do you want to try something?”

I shake my head and shift back to his ear. “No. I’m not sure I could even walk right now and Teeny’s not even awake yet. I just want you to have it in case something comes up.” I’m not sure I can physically lift my arms, much less do any good with a dull piece of glass.

We move around again, trying to get the glass into his front pocket. I glance at Vader and he seems oblivious to what’s going on back here. Ethan finally shoves the glass into his jeans.

“Do you know who the other guy is?” Ethan asks.

“No. I don’t think he’s Agent X since Thomas told him to call Hammond. Maybe there’s more than one mole. I keep thinking he looks like Darth Vader in all that black.”

“Do you recognize him?”

I shake my head. “No. And Thomas is freaking me out. He’s a total psychopath. I can’t believe how different he was in Natchitoches.”

The van door opens and the engine roars to life. Once we’re moving, Teeny starts moaning again. I hope she doesn’t hurt as bad as I do. The sounds from Teeny are the only noises that fill the van. Thinking back, I can’t remember a single exchange between Thomas and Vader since I got hit with that tranquilizer gun. When we were outside the van, he wasn’t very tall, maybe the same size as Ethan. I tick through my memories of all the different agents and it’s hard to remember details like their height. Looking through those slits in the mask, I couldn’t make out any of his features. But it’s his voice—I can’t shake the feeling that he’s familiar in some way.

A few miles down the road, Teeny’s moans turn into crying, soft sobs that hit you right in the gut.

The sound of that pitiful weeping washes over me and I feel even more broken. Why is this happening to us?

“We should have left her behind,” Vader says from the front seat.

Thomas answers him in rapid Spanish, his tone harsh.

Vader answers Thomas equally as fast. The two go back and forth in Spanish and the only thing I can make out is Teeny’s name, Vader saying it several times.

Why do they keep saying her name? Is Vader trying to talk him into getting rid of her? Will Thomas use the knife on her like he has so many others?

Images of the blood he wiped across his pants leg fill my head and my body starts shaking. Every inch of it. I try to relax so it will stop, but it only gets worse.

“Whoa, what’s happening?” Ethan asks. He pulls me in a little closer but it doesn’t stop my trembling. In fact, my body is shaking so hard it makes Ethan’s body shake.

I can’t form an answer so I just shrug.

Ethan holds me tight, trying to get me to stop shuddering but it doesn’t work. His face comes close and his cold cheek brushes up next to mine.

I can’t breathe…I can’t breathe…I can’t breathe…

“Anna, you’re sweating,” he whispers. His voice sounds panicked.

He buries his head into my neck, right near my pulse. He pulls back and yells to Thomas, “Hey! Pull over. Something’s wrong with Anna.”

No response.

“Pull over! She’s shaking and sweating and her pulse is going crazy.”

Thomas swerves to the side of the road but doesn’t get out of the van. “If this is some stupid trick…”

The interior light flips on and Vader says, “I don’t think he’s making this up. She looks terrible.”

Thomas and Vader both bolt out of the van and the back doors fly open within minutes.

Thomas cuts my hands loose with a few swipes of his knife.

“Make sure he stays in the van,” Thomas shouts to Vader.

I hear Ethan and Vader yelling at each other but it sounds like I’m underwater.

Thomas pulls me out and the cold night air washes over my sweat-streaked face. I try to stand but fall to the ground. The total blackness of the empty back road surrounds me, strangles me. I’ve got to get out of here. The desire to run is overwhelming. Thomas pulls me back up, sitting me on the rear bumper, and then pushes my head between my knees. Tremors rush through my body.

Thomas jumps back inside and I can hear sounds of Ethan struggling. I’m so dizzy I can’t lift my head to see if they’re hurting him. The clawing fear squeezes my neck. I try to suck in air but nothing happens. The fighting in the van seems to have stopped, but I’m frozen. Thomas jumps out of the van, dropping next to me on the ground.

My mouth is open but nothing goes in or out.

“Calm down,” he says. “Deep breaths, in and out.” His voice sounds weird, like he’s trying to be nice but it’s a completely foreign concept.

I try. I lower my head and for the first time, I’m able to draw in a deep breath.

“Relax.”

I throw my head up, head-butting Thomas by accident.

“Relax?” I manage to scream out between labored breaths.

He pushes my head back down then moves away, and I risk raising it slightly so I can see if Ethan is okay. Glancing inside the back of the van, I see Ethan pinned to the ground with Vader sitting on top of him, Ethan’s hands tied behind his back. A stream of blood oozes from his mouth. The broken piece of bottle is a few inches away. Teeny is curled into a ball and whimpering softly. I’m not sure if she is awake or still unconscious.

My throat feels like it wants to close up again, so I pull myself together and try to get my breathing under control.

In and out.

I clasp my hands together, trying to stop the shudders racking my body. I can’t think about where we are or what’s going to happen to us.

So I think about Ethan. I picture us on a blanket near Cane River in Natchitoches. Our favorite spot.

Deep breaths. Eyes closed.

Teeny’s there. She’s flying a kite down the bank, running around and laughing.

BOOK: The Rules for Breaking
6.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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