Outlaw's Promise(78)

But it was useless. They were professionals. They were going to make sure. The flashlight stayed on the water and I felt myself weakening. Dying. My vision darkened. My lungs felt as if they were going to burst. My whole body strained to take a breath—

Something scraped the back of my hand. Something plastic and hard. It had to scrape twice more before I figured out what it was.

The straw. The straw I’d kept from that fucking milkshake at the diner. All my thrashing had shaken it half-out of the pocket of my cut and now it was catching on my thrashing hands.#p#分页标题#e#

My chest burning and aching, I thrashed and twisted to try to shake the straw fully out of my pocket. When it was mostly out, I managed to knock it with my cuffed hands and it floated free. But I still had no way to get it to my mouth.

I had to chase it down to the lake bottom, lunging for it with my jaws and taking in mouthfuls of lake water each time I missed. It bounced off my lips twice before I managed to crush it between my teeth, swim up and poke it above the surface.

Of course, the thing was full of water. Blowing it out was the hardest thing I’d ever done: I had no air left to use. But I finally blew the water free and then I had no choice but to inhale: a huge, deep lungful. If I’d gotten it wrong and the tip was still below the surface, I was about to drown myself….

Air. Cool, sweet air. It felt like my tortured lungs were sucking up all the air in the night sky. It filled me up right down to my toes. Then I slowly exhaled, trying not to move the water at all.

The flashlight beam swept over me. I hoped the straw looked like a reed in the darkness. If not, they’d know exactly where to put the bullet. I hung there almost motionless, toes just scraping the bottom, head craned back, straw just above the surface….

And eventually, the flashlight went out.

I forced myself to give it another few minutes before I surfaced. When I was sure there was no noise from the shore, I waded out.

Once the night air hit me, I started to shiver. My jeans and cut, saturated with water and mud, felt like they weighed about a thousand tons. All I wanted to do was get under a hot shower and put on something dry.

But I had to warn Mac and the others. My cell phone was dead, drowned by the lake. I’d need to climb the hill, get to my bike and do it in person.

But first I had to do something about the cuffs. I couldn’t do the climb without hands and I sure as hell couldn’t ride with my hands behind me.

I’d seen people in movies maneuver their cuffed hands around from behind them to in front of them. It didn’t look too difficult.

It fucking is. I’m not some lithe, ninja-trained, CIA contortionist. I’m built for strength, not gymnastics. I wound up on my back in the cold mud, trying to pass my tucked-up legs through my hands, and it took me at least ten minutes to pull it off. The whole time, I was picturing police kicking down the door of the clubhouse.

When my hands finally slipped over my boots, I let out a long sigh of relief and pushed myself to my feet. By now, so much black mud had been crushed into the back of my cut that the Hell’s Princes logo wasn’t even visible.

I struggled up the hill, grabbing onto roots and branches, straining to see through the gloom. There’s never been so welcome a sight as when I saw my Harley gleaming in the darkness. I climbed on and started her up. Riding in cuffs was going to be interesting: I couldn’t reach both clutch and throttle at the same time. But I’d make it work.

I rode for the clubhouse, pushing my bike as hard as she’d go. But halfway down Main Street, I could see the red and blue flashing lights.

I was too late.

I pulled into an alley across the street and watched, helpless, as Mac, Hunter, Viking and the others were led out in cuffs. They didn’t see me, but even from the alley I could hear my name, again and again. Irish.

He fucking sold us out.

He’s dead, if I ever see him again.

Volos had done it. My friends were heading to jail and they’d be there for years given the amount of coke involved. And they blamed me.

I slumped against the wall of the alley. The club was gone...and it was all my fault.





51

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Annabelle





We drove for hours on back roads, way out into the country. There wasn’t a street light or a lit-up house anywhere, just impenetrable blackness beyond the windows. I was too scared to cry, or ask where we were going, or do anything other than stare straight ahead.

After a while, he began to play with me.

I don’t mean sexually. I mean, he started to fiddle and toy with me, like a guy with a new gadget. He shoved a finger into my hair, just behind my temple, and plowed towards the back of my head, watching the way the strands moved. He looked down my tank top but not in the same, leering way a normal man would. He hooked his fingers in the front of it and hauled it away from my body, tugging me a little forward in my seat, not caring if a few threads snapped, and simply raised his head to look down at my breasts. It was as if he’d bought a doll and wanted to see what was under its clothes.