The Rules for Breaking (9 page)

Rules for disappearing
by Witness Protection prisoner #18A7R04M:

Know what you’re getting into before you get into it.

New rule by Anna Boyd:

You can’t always know what you’re getting into, but you can sure as hell find out as much as you can once you’re there.

I hear my name but I can’t lift my head. There’s no feeling in my arms—the only thing I’m sure of is they’re stuck behind my back.

The ground bounces. My face slams down hard and my cheek explodes in agony.

“Anna, open your eyes,” a voice whispers.

I can’t. They’re so heavy. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth and it’s hard to swallow.

“Anna.”

My face hurts. I try to open my mouth and pain slices through my cheek. Something taps my knee. It won’t stop.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I shake it off but it just comes right back.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I peel one eye open. It’s dark.

Slam. My head hits the ground again. I moan but I’m not sure if the sound actually leaves my lips.

The tapping turns into a kick.

“Anna.” The whispering gets louder. Ethan. A wave crashes over me—scenes of Ethan and Teeny dropping to the ground surge through my brain. Oh God. And Thomas.

He’s back.

I try to roll over but my arms are dead behind me. Twitching my head, the damp hair covering my face falls to the side, and I try to focus on where I am. I’m inside the back of a truck or van. My clothes are wet and I’m cold. Really cold.

Slam. Again my head nails the floor. Tears burn my eyes and I’m afraid my cheekbone may be broken.

“Anna.”

I tilt my head up and find Ethan’s face a few feet from mine. He’s stuck in the same position—he’s on his stomach, hands bound behind his back.

“Are you okay?”

I pry my tongue loose and croak out, “No. I hurt.”

I run through a mental inventory of my body. Not only is the pain in my cheek excruciating, but it surges through my shoulders, hip bones, and knees as well. Every time this truck hits a bump or hole in the road, my entire body slams down on the metal surface.

Teeny! Where is Teeny? I rotate my head around until I get a glimpse of the top of her head. She’s on my other side, but I can’t make out if she’s tied up or not.

I swivel back around to Ethan.

“Where…” It hurts so bad to talk.

Ethan inches toward me; it takes forever, but finally he gets close enough that our foreheads barely touch. The contact with him overwhelms me and I start to cry.

“What happened? And Teeny…?” he asks.

I swallow the dry lump in my throat. I mouth the word
Thomas
. This is bad. Oh. My. God. This is so friggin’ bad.

“I figured.” Ethan propels himself another few inches closer until his mouth is near my ear. “Do you know where we’re going?”

I shake my head just enough to answer. Every movement sends waves of pain through my entire body.

“There’s some other person back here,” he whispers. “Besides the two people up front. I don’t know who it is, but he’s passed out in the front corner.”

I lift my shoulders to see who it could be and wince from the pain. There’re a hundred things I want to say to Ethan right now, but my body won’t cooperate. My eyelids droop. They’re too heavy to remain open for even a second longer.

Slam! My head smashes the floor again, and once again the blackness washes over me.

The fog clouding my brain seems a little thinner when I finally open my eyes again. It’s still dark. I’m still tied up. And my entire body still hurts.

The hollow sound inside the moving vehicle roars through my ears. I lift my head, slowly, testing to make sure the entire van doesn’t start spinning, and check on Teeny. She’s still knocked out behind me.

And then I hear Ethan. He’s whispering but it’s loud enough that I recognize his voice. The lower half of his body is still close enough to me that I can feel him, but his head and torso are bent away.

He’s talking to the other person who’s in the back of the van with us.

I nudge Ethan’s leg and he slowly twists around to me. “Anna, you’re up. You’ll never believe who’s back here with us…. Agent Parker.”

What? Agent Parker. What is happening?

“She’s beat up pretty bad,” he says.

“I want to talk to her.” I start moving in her direction and it’s tough. When I get close enough to see her, I’m shocked by her appearance. One eye is almost swollen shut and her lip is busted. Her clothes are torn and the closer I get, the more I can smell her, and it’s really not good. Seeing her here like this devastates me.

“Agent Parker, what’s happening?”

“Thomas,” she says then stops to use her shoulder to wipe a trail of saliva that escaped along the corner of her mouth. “I was instructed to stay in Natchitoches while Agent Williams went after Daniel Sanders.” It’s hard for her to talk, her top lip is so swollen it barely moves. “Your father gave us permission to use your home as a base. One minute I’m going over your case file at your kitchen table and the next I’m in the back of this van.”

She’s whispering although the road noise makes it near impossible to hear her. “He made me give up your location.” She breaks down and cries, “I’m so sorry, Anna.”

“Where’s Agent Williams?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” The van hits a bump and we’re all bounced against the metal floor. Agent Parker lets out a moan while tears spring to my eyes. We all need this van to stop moving. “The last time I spoke to him was yesterday morning.”

Ethan rolls around until he gets a little closer to Agent Parker and asks, “Who is the other guy? Is it the mole?”

She shrugs and I can tell even that small movement is excruciating. “He hasn’t taken the mask off.” Her eyes move to mine and she says, “I’m so sorry.”

Another bump makes us shuffle around the space.

Neither of us asks her anything else, mainly because it looks so painful for Agent Parker to move her jaw when she talks.

The van slows and then swerves off the road before coming to a stop.

There are a few tense seconds before the back doors open, then I’m being dragged out. My arms burn as hands yank me out of the van by my underarms and the pain radiates all the way to my fingers.

“You’re hurting her,” Ethan yells.

The hands let go and I flop outside the van onto the hard concrete road. It’s cold and my partially wet clothes are not helping.

And I’ve got to pee. Bad.

Ethan is pulled out after me, then dumped on the ground a few feet away from the van. His expression is hard to read as his eyes move between Thomas and Agent Parker, who is still inside the van. I can’t see her but I hear her moaning. Teeny hasn’t moved.

“Why isn’t she awake yet?” My throat burns. Did they shoot her with the tranq gun, too, or a regular gun? What if they gave her too much?

Thomas pulls a knife from his back pocket, flipping it open in front of me. Before the fear in my brain can travel to the rest of my body, he tosses me over and cuts the zip ties loose.

Blood rushes through my limbs and I fall over from the burn of it, hitting the already abused side of my face. After a minute or so, the scorching in my arms lessens to pins and needles. I try to lift myself back up but my arms give way every time I put any pressure on them. Thomas grabs me, hoisting me to a standing position.

He hands me a bottle of water and I drink so fast water dribbles out of the side of my mouth. I drain half the bottle then limp to Ethan, holding it up for him to have the rest. Once the bottle is empty, Thomas pulls me away from him.

It looks like we’ve made a pit stop on some deserted section of road in the middle of nowhere.

“I assume you need to take care of some personal matters?”

I guess this is Thomas’s way of asking me if I have to pee.

I nod and he drags me away from the van. My feet stumble around, trying to keep up. We get several yards away from the road until we’re just inside the tree line. Ethan is still on the ground, watching us.

I need to get him talking. Find out whatever I can. “What’s your real name? I know it’s not Thomas.”

“Thomas is the only name you need to know. You have three minutes. And this will be the one and only bathroom break.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” I croak out. “Where are we going?”

“No more questions.” He starts walking away.

“You won’t get away with this,” I say quietly. They have Daniel Sanders in custody and hopefully it won’t be long before they identify who Thomas really is.

He stops and pivots around, his hands behind his back. He’s taller than I remember and much more intimidating. His eyes and hair seem darker against his black clothing. He watches me a moment and it’s hard to hold his gaze with that intense look in his eye.

“How long did you wonder why I let you live in Scottsdale?” He closes in and begins circling around me, whispering in my ear. His breath puffs out in small clouds and the dead leaves and brittle sticks break at every step. “How many nights did you lie in your bed and worry I was outside the window?” He moves around until we’re face-to-face again. “How many times did your father or sister leave the house and you had a sinking feeling that they wouldn’t return alive?”

I hug myself hard, trying to get my shivering body under control. My teeth chatter and I’m hoping that he doesn’t actually require an answer because there is no way I could form a single word and expel it from my mouth. A thousand times in the last week I thought those things. It’s like he opened my head and pulled every fear I had right out. On the outside I was a girl embracing her new life and her new freedom, but on the inside I was preparing myself for the day something bad would happen to my family.

“I plucked you right off of that little island and no one even saw me coming. I’m sure your father is still scratching his head, trying to understand what just happened.”

It’s more like Dad is probably going nuts right now. The Landrys, too.

“You better hope I get away with this, since I am the only chance you have in surviving this. I have worked for the Vega family all my life. Señor Vega does not tolerate mistakes and this new turn…with the journal proves to him that it was a mistake that I didn’t kill you in Arizona.”

None of this makes sense. Why did he give the journal back if he knew it would cause so much trouble? There’s something missing….

Thomas circles me again. “But now Señor Vega is the one who made a mistake—turning against me after so many years of faithful service. There is also the added insult of sending an amateur after me—and you—an assassin named Mateo. He is trying desperately to make a name for himself, so you will find him quite eager to finish this job.”

“B-b-b-but I don’t understand. He’ll come after you no matter what happens to us? Why would you risk coming for me and Ethan? And why bring my sister?” My voice cracks at the mention of her.

He takes a small step closer. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The only reason I didn’t kill you in Arizona is because I gave my word to someone that you would not die by my hand.”

What? “Who?” I ask. My mind races trying to figure out who in the world he could be talking about.

“And the only thing keeping you and your boyfriend alive right now is the fact I don’t want the person who replaced me on this job to fulfill any part of the contract. It’s my pride that saves you now. So make sure you understand your place. This is not about you, or really ever has been. You just found yourself in the middle of a very dangerous power struggle. Mateo wants you, but he’ll have to get through me first. You and Ethan are going to help me lure a killer.”

He backs up and slowly picks a stray dead leaf from his sleeve. “Teeny…that’s what you call her, isn’t it? Teeny turned out to be a nice surprise. I may need a little extra incentive for you and Ethan to cooperate.” He crushes the dead leaf as his gaze zeros in on me. It’s as if the temperature drops the closer he gets to me.

“Were you the one who left the journal in my pocket?”
SHUT UP, ANNA!
my mind screams, but I can’t stand not knowing what is really going on. Now that I see what he really is, I don’t think it could have been him—but who else could it have been?