He purses his lips. “She’s not going to run her mouth, Drex. You can trust her.”
I grab my keys and helmet, and we load up on our bikes.
“That’s not what I want to talk about. Pretty sure she needs to be doing more than manicures.”
I don’t give a damn about how much Sarah knows as long as she finds Eve.
Chapter 19
EVE
The music shuts off, at least I think it does. Either that or someone has finally blessed me with the gift of deafness.
My ears are ringing, and my head is too heavy to lift. My mouth is so dry that it would just absorb anything I tried to drink before it even made it to my throat. I stopped sweating at some point, and now salt has gathered on my body as though there’s nothing left to secrete.
My eyes flutter shut, feeling the desperate need for sleep, but the music cuts back on, blasting through the basement and jarring me awake. When the music doesn’t work, they have sirens that wail and something that sounds like cymbals crashing again and again. It’s miserable, and I should be used to it by now. I should stop giving him the satisfaction of watching my eyes close, only to be brutally jerked open again by the surprise that shouldn’t be a surprise.
But that’s not how the body works. The mind has pride. The body just has needs.
The rainbows that I see in the basement probably aren’t real. In fact, I’m almost positive that this hot basement does not have rainbows or swirling cyclones of color either. When did the lights come on? I don’t remember that. I thought they were off.
It’s hard to keep up with the lights going on and off.
I’d kill for a gallon of water and a pizza. Mmmm. Pizza. Do they have pizza near here? I think I smell pizza.
When the music shuts off again, I try to slow my random thoughts, but it’s getting harder and harder to maintain control of my mind. This shit is a little more intense than I thought it would be. I’m not even sure how many hours I’ve been awake, but I had to have slept at least a little. At some point, they put an IV needle in my hand. Why? The hell if I know.
I still can’t lift my head. All I can see is what my eyes and knees allow me to. Yeah. I can see my knees really well.
“I’ll give you an hour of sleep, Eve. Just for an answer. Just one answer. Tell me how Drex is getting the vehicles out of the warehouse. Or is he keeping them somewhere else? All I need is one or two to inspect. I can figure it out from there. It’d save me the trouble of having to split the profits with someone who will have to get me the information after the feds close in on them. They will, Eve. It’s just a matter of time. Tell me where he keeps them.”
Either he’s repeating himself over and over, or I’m just hearing things on a loop. I try to lift my head, but I can’t. My mouth hurts, but the gag is gone. When did he take my gag off again? I know he put it back on after the last time he tried to ask me questions.
Ugh. He touched me? I didn’t feel him touch me, but he had to touch me to take my gag off.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” he tells me as my hair moves.
I’m speaking? I don’t know what I’m saying. There’s a strange tickling in my throat. Maybe I am speaking.
“Eve, you’re not making sense. What are you mumbling?”
Summoning up all the strength I have, I finally make a coherent word. Or two. “Fuck. You.”
I cough while laughing hysterically, and the laughter lashes out and burns my throat, ripping across the dryness like jagged nails. But it’s worth the pain and endless string of coughing that comes with it.
“She’s going crazy. This is backfiring. You deprive someone from sleep for four days and they can’t even make sense.”
I try to look up to see who that voice belongs to. It’s not Baldy. Not unless Baldy got a new voice. That makes me laugh again. I wish I didn’t have to cough when I laughed.
“Damn it,” Ben hisses, jerking back. “She’s bleeding. Why the fuck is she bleeding?”
“You’re so stupid,” I giggle, coughing harder as something coppery fills up in my mouth. It feels good, so good to have something wet in my mouth.
“Shit. Get her some water. It’s too hot down here. It’s drying her out quicker and she’s fucking delirious, you dumbass. This entire thing is pointless. Just split it with him the way we planned. Stick to the fucking plan. This is too risky!”
“If I don’t have to split it with him, then I don’t want to. He’ll hold it over our heads for who knows how long. He still hasn’t put Herrin and Drex away, which was his end of the bargain.”
“He’s not the only one working with them,” the guy points out. “He has to do this with finesse, jackass. He’s the reason the feds are even sniffing around like bloodhounds on the trail. He’s the reason we even thought to lean on Cecil. Stop trying to cut him out. Call the guys who are loyal to you and prepare them for the hell you’re going to have raining down on them. Gator went missing the other day. That means Drex is already going after your crew. I told you starting a war between them was fucking stupid! The plan! We had a fucking brilliant plan!”
“Only part of them are my fucking crew. The others are still loyal to Dad. And if he’s going after them, then it’s already working, you stupid fuck. This is better than his plan. It was never my plan to do this all peacefully and quietly.”
“This is stupid to even be going on about. You need to get out of here before your Dad starts wondering where you are. You need to be planting the seed they took Gator. You need to fucking do something other than play house with her. Now go do the other shit. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“You better not—”
“Fuck you. Go.”
I try to follow the cryptic conversation, but I’m more focused on counting the dots that bloom across my vision as my eyes flutter shut once again. The arguing is less intrusive than the music… That immediately starts blaring again.
My eyes jerk awake, but my head stays down. I wish it wasn’t so heavy. Heavy. Everything is so, so heavy.
Chapter 20
DREX
“Give me something, Sarah. Please fucking give me something. Anything,” I beg, gripping my head while sitting in front of another house we’ve torn apart while searching for my girl.
We’ve been on the road since yesterday, driving all over the lower half of Texas to search the addresses of Larry’s friends and family. Axle has just met back up with me, and Rush isn’t far away. Snake is still a few hours away. Dash too. It’s been nothing but dead ends and bullshit.
“Okay,” she says on the phone. “It’s a long shot. Larry worked for another guy about seven years ago. He lives about twenty minutes down the road from where you are now. Can’t hurt to look into it. I can’t find any affiliation to the Hell Breathers though.”
I hang up, and she sends the text almost immediately.
“What’s up?” Axle asks me. We’ve both lost the rest of our teams. Well, Axle sent them on to rest. I don’t give a fuck if they’re tired.
“Sarah sent me the address of a guy Larry used to work for. It’s basically a last ditch effort.”
I try not to crush my phone. Four days. There’s no telling what has happened to her, and I can’t do a motherfucking thing about it.
“Drake still not awake?” I ask as I get back on my bike.
“He woke up today, but he’s not alert enough to answer any questions. They’re keeping him sedated for the pain. He did have major surgery to keep him from bleeding to death, in case you’ve forgotten. And he has numerous broken bones. His side absorbed the brunt of the impact.”
I start to crank my bike, but Drake’s conversation comes back to me.
“After my place got shot up, Drake said the Hell Breathers were asking questions about us. You and Rush worked Gator over, yet he swears they don’t give a fuck about our business. Even said Benny would fucking kill us when he found out we had him and making up bullshit.”
“Yeah. And?”
“Drake wouldn’t have lied,” I say more to myself than him. “What if the Hell Breathers are splitting into factions? What if a mutiny is being plotted? It’d explain why Larry has a place in this. If they’re trying to start a war to take Benny out—”
“Then they’d be able to step in and take over once their own club lost its president and his loyalists. But who would be leading a mutiny?”
A sick feeling assaults me quickly, and I want to slam my head against a wall for being so fucking stupid. Juggling my phone out, I dial Sarah immediately.
“Anything?” she asks.
Rush drives up, but I cover my free ear so I can hear her over the loud ride.
“Look into Ben Highland. Tell me if he owns a house off books. Can you do that?”
“If you give me a few minutes, I can probably come up with something. I’m not a hacker, Drex. I’m just good with computers.”
“Send me anything you find. We’ll go track down this last lead.”
As soon as I hang up, Axle pounces. “Ben? The fucking weasel you punched out that didn’t even take a swing at you?”
“He told Eve we killed her father. He got rough with her in that diner. And I passed it all off as petty jealousy. I didn’t even think of the fact it might have been him stirring shit up.”