The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (252 page)

With the gun still pointed at him, I quickly searched him for any other weapons, but found none.

“Who are you? What do you want?” he repeated, scared out of his mind. His eyes flicked all over me, unsure of what was to happen next.

In my night vision goggles I must have looked like a real bad ass to him—prepared and ready. Good. Nothing worked better from the get go than the right image. I had skills to back up that image too.

I pressed the muzzle of my gun to the side of his skull and said, “Shh. You’re too loud.”

He didn’t know what to make of me, but he shut up.

“Good. What’s your name?” I asked quietly.

“Vince,” he squeaked, shaking.

“How many of you are here?” I asked.

His chin trembled, but he managed to say, “Eight.”

I hoped he wasn’t lying. I looked at his leg. The blood seeped through his pants fabric and glistened on his fingers. But it wasn’t an artery. He would live.

“Where are the rest of your
friends
?”

“What? I told you—everyone is here... the eight, including myself. We drove in two trucks. Left them by the road.” Vince was scared out of his mind.

I kept at it, “How did you know where to come?”

“I don’t know anything,” he cried.

“Shh,” I said in a soothing voice. “If you tell me all I need to know, I’ll let you live. If not... the choice is yours.” I wondered if this was the fucker that killed Lisbeth’s friend Helen. I could rip him apart with my bare hands.

Vince cowered away from me, but I grabbed his hair and pulled him back so his cheek touched the muzzle of my M9. “I’m a patient man, but even my patience has limits, and you’re testing them. I would be careful if I were you,” I whispered.

“Okay, okay... I know a little. Not much. They don’t tell me everything. I overheard Ed and Max talking. It’s about some girl. They said she has to be dealt with, this time for good. No more fuckups.”

“Who are Ed and Max exactly?”

“Ed runs the club. Max is his right hand.”

“The club, you say, eh? More like a gang, isn’t it? What do you do in your
club
?”

“We just... hang out.”

I hit Vince over the face with the back of my hand. His head bounced to the side, and he cried out in pain.

“I told you about certain limits to my patience?” I made a show of cocking the gun. “They are officially stretched. You talk, or I pull the trigger.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, wailing. “No, no, no! What do you want to know? Please!”

I pushed the gun into his cheek. “Where are you from?”

“Florida. Tampa.”

“When did you come here and why?”

“We’ve been in Portland for over a week. Ed’s contact gave him the location. We had everything arranged—a place to stay, the trucks, the weapons. Everything. I don’t know how. They don’t tell me nothing. I just hear it here and there. The other guys who work for them don’t know much either. We are just told what to do and we go in.”

“Go in and do what? Kill an innocent girl?” I hissed through clenched teeth. “What do you know? What happened in Portland?”

“The explosion? It was our job. We were told to blow that warehouse to bits, so we did. But then they told us to come here,” he gestured around, “and do it all over again.”

“Why? To blast something else?” Fuck, they
did
want to level Ryley’s cabin. Over my dead body. Dealing with my brother was worse than hell. And of course there was Lisbeth to consider. I told her to hide inside. I couldn’t let those monsters get to her.

“No, not here. Ed said it was more complicated now. We were to get inside the house and kill everyone there, then leave quickly,” Vince’s voice trembled as if he was about to cry.

“Is Ed here with you?”

“Yes. And Max is too.”

And five other criminals. That means four for each of us, Jack and myself. That was nothing, unless the other members of the
club,
as Vince cutely called it, were much better trained than he was. “Where are the others?”

“Back by the trucks, waiting for me.”

“Did they send you here for reconnaissance?”

“Yes.”

So if he didn’t come back soon, all hell would break lose faster. Or maybe it wouldn’t. I had a plan, but first there was something else I needed to ask Vince. “Who killed Helen?”

His eyes went huge, and his mouth opened in a silent “O”. I was done with playing nice. I stuffed the barrel of my pistol in his mouth, although I kept my finger off the trigger. He couldn’t see that though; it was too dark in the woods. “I’m gonna count to three and then I’ll remove the gun for exactly three seconds. If you don’t tell me the truth, I will kill you.”

He shook so badly that his teeth clattered on the metal of my M9. I pulled the pistol out of his mouth. “One. Two...Thr—”

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait.” Vince’s hands went up in a mollifying motion. “I wasn’t there. I swear to God. I wasn’t. But the guys talked... most of them are college kids, very rich, spoiled, dumb assholes. There was a party in some dormitory. They got totally messed up on booze and drugs. Some girls were there too, but they took off on them. So the guys went to look for more fun off campus. It was all over the news. Max didn’t go with them, but Ed did. Max got really pissed. He punched Ed in the face, broke his nose. They fought until we separated them. Ed yelled for everyone to fuck off. He said that his father would take care of everything.”

“Was it Ed who killed Helen?”

Vince shriveled and started to tremble again. “Yes,” he whispered. “He cut her throat after they raped her.”

I wanted to hit him so badly. I was both furious and repulsed. If I’ve ever had any faith in the goodness of the human race, it sure wasn’t now. I needed more information though. The crucial information. Besides, Vince wasn’t really involved in that nasty business with poor Helen. Unless the little fucker was lying.

“Who’s Ed’s father?”

“I... I can’t—”

“Who is he?” I roared, shoving my gun back in his mouth. “Should I say three? I’m about to, and then your pea-sized brain will get fucking blasted out the back of your scull, you worthless piece of shit.”

Tears ran down his cheeks. He nodded, and I withdrew the gun, but I kept it trained on his face.

“Speak!”

“Senator Kiersch.”

Great. Just fucking great. A politician... a
Senator
for fuck’s sake, involved in covering a murder, a gang rape, and other multiple murder attempts, plus destruction of federal property. Nice.

“How did Ed and Max get the location info? Who gave it to them?” I asked.

“The FBI. Senator Kiersch has someone in there... a snitch. That’s how we knew about the safe house in Portland, and about here.”

Just what Lisbeth suspected. One thought about Lisbeth alone in the house set my nerves back on edge. Jack was close by, but I didn’t know what exactly was happening inside. I had to get to her fast. I couldn’t let them beat me to it. Lisbeth needed me. And I needed her to stay alive. To stay...

“Turn onto your stomach,” I commanded.

“Why? What are you doing?”

“Saving your life.”

Vince lay down and obediently rolled over onto his stomach. I pulled the handcuffs from my pocket and yanked his arms back. When he protested, I told him to shut up. I secured his wrists with the handcuffs to the trunk of a nearby bush.

Next, I ripped a piece of his t-shirt, grasped his hair, and pulled his head back to gag him. He was squealing in a high-pitched voice, shaking his head.

“Stop that. It’s for your own protection. If your buddies find you, they won’t hesitate to end your pitiful existence. So shut up and lay still.”

That did him in. His eyes were huge. He was breathing shallow and fast through his nose.

I took off toward the cabin. About thirty yards away, I radioed Jack in. “Jack.”

“Yeah. Nothing new.”

“One secured.”

We didn’t elaborate, in case someone was using the same radio frequency as we were.

“Good. I feel sorry for the subject already.”

Jack’s sense of humor was ever-existing, even in times of high alert or otherwise fucked-up situations. I grinned to myself.

“I’m heading your way.”

“Okay. Over.”

I put the radio back in my pocket and secured the flap. I walked toward the cabin, my ears and the night-vision-enabled eyes focused on the surroundings. At the edge of the woods I paused, waiting and observing. Walking slowly out into the open didn’t appeal to me in case Vince’s buddies were here and not waiting by the truck, as he said they were. Running full-speed toward Jack wasn’t ideal, either. I couldn’t be sure where he was exactly and he didn’t know what direction I was coming from.

I whistled quietly—a long, single note. Jack whistled right back from the bushes somewhere by the water. I repeated the whistle, but this time twice. This was our code back from when we both served in the Marine Corps. It meant
don’t fucking shoot me. I’m moving toward you.

He answered with a single note. That meant he acknowledged. I slid my night goggles off, scanned the perimeter in front of me once again, and then, half-crouching, ran toward the spot where Jack was hidden. I found him behind some thick, flowering pink bush, squatting amidst the blossoms.

“Looking pretty in pink.” I grinned. There were little petals stuck to his short, spiky hair.

“Jealous?” He grinned back.

“How is she?” I nodded in the direction of the cabin.

“Quiet and still. Haven’t heard a thing. No movement either.”

I told Jack about Vince and what I learned from him. I watched the expression on my best friend’s face morph into that of loathing and anger. Our reactions were so similar.

“So there are seven of them left. We could use the element of surprise and quickly take care of them,” Jack deduced.

“Agreed. Let’s check on Vince on the way there. I want him alive for the investigation.”

––––––––

S
itting hidden in the cabin was unnerving. I had the gun, but I didn’t have the confidence to use it. There were too many bad experiences in my childhood; too many mistakes; too many horrors. I missed Jan and his gentle, sweet ways. He got me out of the shitty hole that life dropped me in. He was my God-sent savior. After Jan died, I suppressed most of the memories about him. They were too painful to relive. But I remembered one thing: the promise I made to him to never go back to my past and to make something of myself.

And now I held a gun in my hand, just the way I had so many times years ago. Back then, it seemed like a different life—like someone else’s life. Spending so much time around crime then desensitized me to it. I came to accept it as the most necessary part of my life, because that’s where my friends were, and that’s where the food money came from.

This time around, though, the big difference was that I wasn’t breaking the law; I wasn’t dealing drugs or hanging out on the streets with my teenage criminals friends. Now, I was just trying to stay alive. And my hands were much larger than before.

Ethan told me not to get close to the windows, but I had to see what was going on. I went to the second floor and locked myself inside one of the lush bedrooms. From there, I had a clear view of the backyard and the waterfront. Even though it was already dark outside, the lights around the cabin made it easy to see everything.

Every time the party boats shot a new firework, my eyes would follow it, captivated, and for a moment I would forget the present horrors. The people on these boats couldn’t have the slightest idea what was going on here. How strange it was for these two worlds to run parallel to one another—us, hunted and hunting, and them—enjoying life’s simple pleasures, completely oblivious to our life-and-death struggle.

I saw Jack running in the backyard and then squatting behind a short ornamental tree. Where was Ethan? Thinking of Ethan made my heart squeeze in pain. What if something happens to him? The emotion I felt at that thought was so strong, it scared and confused me. I cared for him! I truly did, and not in the “regular” way I would for another human being. It was much more. But before I could even try to understand it, Jack sprinted to the left and hid behind a large bush covered in pink blossoms. There was a gun in his hand. A sheathed knife hung from his belt, additionally strapped to his thigh. Ethan had a similar knife when he left the cabin.

No sign of Ethan. Where was he? Was he okay? I wanted at least to know he was okay. I needed to somehow dull my emotions or I was running the risk of another panic attack. Taking a few long, cleansing breaths, I thought about Jan and his wise, gentle way of life. He thought me to be a better person; he instilled the completely different values in me. I had to carry on his legacy. I had to stay focused, calm, and never let the evil back into my life. Would Jan approve of this gun in my hands now? Yes, but only because I would use it in self-defense.

I imagined Jan’s spirit close by, watching over me, calming me. Maybe he was. What would he want me to do now? Suddenly, a thought came to mind—the FBI cards! I had to call Special Agent Drasco or Special Agent Cornell! Ethan said the FBI already knew about us staying here because of my cell phone. But maybe they thought we were still at Ethan’s and not at Ryley’s cabin? I had to let them know, but then again—who was the snitch? One of them?

What should I do? I had to do something to bring some help. Maybe I should call the police? What would I tell them? Would they believe me? Or would they dismiss this as a prank call? No, they wouldn’t dismiss it. I didn’t think so, but they probably didn’t know about my case. It was classified by the FBI.

I paced around the room, the gun in my hand. This was probably the hardest decision I’d ever had to make because so many lives depended on it. Special Agent Drasco’s words reverberated in my mind to call him or Cornell at any time of the day or night. I ran downstairs to get the card out of my backpack. There it was, safely tucked in one of the smaller front pockets.

I looked around, trying to locate a landline phone. Ethan didn’t have one in his cabin. I guessed a cell phone was always enough for him. And his handheld two-way radio. But this luxurious place wouldn’t be complete without such a basic staple as a stationary phone. I could’ve used my cell phone, but with the FBI and who-knew-who-else tracing the calls, I felt safer using the landline. Although, did it really matter? Maybe they had this cabin tapped already too.