Slowly, I lowered the gun to the ground and laid it by my feet.
“Kick it away.”
Gritting my teeth, I did as he asked, pissed that this was happening. I could barely think because fear coated my insides, slowly spreading like some kind of contagious disease. I’d seen men killed right in front of me. Men I considered my friends. It haunted me to this day, but I survived.
Something told me if I watched Charlotte die before me, I wouldn’t survive it.
“Give it to me, bitch,” the man growled in her ear.
She recoiled. “No.”
He smacked her with the end of the gun, rocking her head on her shoulders. I leapt forward, and the gun turned on me.
I saw his finger on the trigger twitch.
“Here!” Charlotte cried, holding up the small black drive. “Take it!”
The distant sounds of sirens reached my ears. It was about damn time.
Garlic Breath ripped the drive out of her hand and then shoved her roughly to the ground. She fell on hands and knees, gasping for breath.
He leveled the gun at her back, a sadistic grin on his pallid face.
“No!” I roared as the bullet discharged, and I threw myself at her.
I plowed into her and the bullet plowed into me. Razor-sharp pain ricocheted through my entire body and I felt like someone had lit me on fire. With a deep grunt, I landed on top of her, crushing her against the pavement, wrapping my arms over her head to protect her further.
I felt blood begin to ooze out of my body, but I couldn’t tell where I’d been hit. I hurt everywhere.
“Tucker!” Charlotte yelled, trying to wiggle out from beneath me, but I wouldn’t let her.
“Hold still,” I ordered as I reached for the shotgun lying just a few feet away. At the curb, a dark-colored sedan came to a screeching halt and the door opened. I saw one extremely polished black dress shoe step out onto the street.
The shotgun disappeared.
Hands reached for me, yanking me off Charlotte. She began to yell and I began to fight. Adrenaline helped me move; fear for Charlotte kept me upright.
I landed a couple punches to the men who were trying to pull Charlotte and me apart, and then someone pinned me from behind, holding my arms, twisting them behind my back. Another man, one of the men from the alley, approached holding a small device.
A taser.
I started to struggle anew, but it was no use.
He hit me in the center of my chest, sending sparks of hot electricity jolting through my body and making me twitch. I spun, falling toward the ground, but hands caught me.
The last thing I saw was Charlotte being forced into the back of the car, and the last thing I heard was her screaming my name.
26
Charlotte
They were just letting him bleed.
The red soaked his shirt, saturating the fabric of the white button-up he was wearing. His skin, which usually held a golden tone, was now pasty, and every time I looked at him, the stain was wider than before. It was an all too grim reminder that time wasn’t on our side. If we didn’t get out of here soon, he was going to die.
I can’t lose them both.
The thought had me sitting up a little straighter. Max was gone, his life cut entirely too short. But Tucker was still here and he had come to mean a lot to me in such a short amount of time. I knew that we likely would go our separate ways and that was fine, but the thought of him not being out there at all… it hurt me.
“You got what you wanted. Please just let us go,” I begged for like the fiftieth time since the men who took us hauled us into this abandoned building and tied our bodies to chairs.
I glanced at Tucker again, noting the way his chin lolled against his chest and how his breathing grew shallow. The way they harshly tied his hands behind his back only exaggerated the bleeding in his side, and I couldn’t stop picturing the way the wound was being pulled farther open by his forced position.
“So you can run right to the cops? Ain’t gonna happen,” one of the men said from across the room.
There were four of them. They were all sitting around a table with a laptop in the center. I could see the flash drive I surrendered to keep Tucker from being shot lying beside it (Fat lot of good that did me). Also sitting on the table were various paper sacks of fast food. The greasy, heavy smell literally made me want to gag. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could eat at a time like this.
I guess kidnapping and attempted murder was a real appetite stimulant for those guys.
I couldn’t help but think of all the charges that could be brought against these men when they got caught. Harassment. Stalking. Destruction of property, kidnapping, attempted murder, and those were just for starters. Oh, how I would love to get them in court and nail their French-fry-eating, bad-breath, Tucker-shooting asses to the wall.