Badlands: The Lion’s Den(35)

“Or…” Flora couldn’t finish her sentence, but she felt ill with worry.





Chapter Seventeen




Flora, Finn, and Krystle were headed back to the warehouse at 9:30 a.m. when Jose came trotting up to them. “Got room for one more?” he asked, glancing at Krystle.

“Maybe.” Krystle managed a smile as they walked. “If it’s a sexy-ass wolf shifter with a huge dick and a forgiving disposition.”

“Hmm, let me think about that,” Jose said, returning her smile. “If I meet anyone like that, I’ll be sure to hook you up.”

“Language, Krystle,” Flora chided her cousin. “Good Lord.”

“What?” Krystle gave her a stare of wide-eyed confusion. “He does have an enormous schlong. You think I love him for his personality?”

“Did you just say you loved me?” Jose crowed with delight. “You did! You said it! No takey-backsies!”

“Hell no, I did not,” Krystle said quickly.

But Jose sang, “She loves me, she loves me,” over and over again, just to annoy her, until they were close to bear territory and Finn told him to shut up so they could listen for Ruben’s men.

Unfortunately, the results were the same as the day before. Flora and her friends waited for an hour, and nobody showed up. Flora was so worried she could barely concentrate at work. Finn was being the perfect gentleman – attentive, talkative, everything she’d asked for – and she struggled to show her appreciation and worried that she was being a sourpuss. She threw herself into work, and tried not to think about all the terrible things that could have happened to Madison and her friends.

When they failed to show up for a third day, Flora made a decision. She was going to go, by herself, to the alternative meeting place that Madison had suggested – the one in bear territory. She knew Finn would flip his lid if she told him, so she waited until he left to go on a collection run, and then wrote a note, which she put in an envelope and handed to Blair. She told Blair to give the note to Finn when he got back.

“I’m going to look for Madison at a building on 45th and Chellis,” she wrote in the note. “If I’m not back in a couple of hours, it means something’s happened to me.”

The building was an old brownstone. Most of its windows were smashed, and the walls were sprayed with graffiti.

Sarah and Sam were waiting for her in the dark, moldy-smelling basement, sitting on an old mattress in the corner. They leaped to their feet when Flora rushed in.

Sam looked at Sarah as Flora hurried over to them. “Told you she’d come,” he said to her.

“He took Madison!” Sarah said frantically, ignoring Sam.

Flora’s heart leaped to her throat.

“Ruben has her! What are we going to do? How do we get her back?”

“Okay, slow down,” Flora said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Two days ago we were going to the warehouse to meet you, but Ruben’s patrols were everywhere. They totally cut us off. We ran into one of our friends, and she said that Ruben was looking for Madison specifically. He’d decided he wanted her to be one of his girls. So we were hiding out in an empty building, and this morning the patrol was right outside the building and they started beating on the door. She just ran out front so they’d take her and give us a chance to get away. So me and Sam came here to meet you.” Sarah said all that so fast that Flora could barely understand her, then paused to take a gulp of breath. “We couldn’t make it into your territory today – his men are everywhere – so we just came here to wait.”

“Why would Ruben suddenly want Madison so badly?” Flora asked.

“I don’t know!” Sarah threw her hands up in despair. “We were so careful. She doesn’t look anything like the kind of girl he goes for. He likes pretty girls with tons of makeup and flashy clothes. But what can we do now? Madison told me just to take Sam to Cottonwood, but…”

“I’m not going without my sister. I’ll…I’ll get her back myself!” Sam said through gritted teeth. He clenched his fists and glowered. Flora looked at the skinny, pale boy. He wouldn’t last ten seconds against one of Ruben’s men.

“Where is she?” Flora asked.

“He took her back to his house,” Sarah said. “But no one can get in there. So now what?”

Finn had already made it clear that the Hudson crew didn’t interfere with what happened in bear territory. There would be no help for Madison.

Flora knew she had just about zero chance of rescuing Madison, but she had to try anyway.