He storms over and kicks me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me and bruising a couple ribs. “This doesn’t exactly feel like a legal search and seizure,” I groan, rolling part way onto my side. “We don’t get those Miranda rights?” Hicks spots my revolver and yanks it out from under my cut.
“Fucking old-school,” he says, appreciating my dad’s revolver. “You got a license for this? Nah, don’t answer. It won’t matter in a minute, anyway.” He gives Beast a quick pat-down, taking his pistol and giving him a swift kick to the stomach, just for good measure.
He circles around us to his car and tosses something inside. The strobing red and blue stops abruptly, leaving just the light from his headlights to see by. There’s a click and the grating of metal on metal as he pulls the ramp down. Where the fuck is Reaper with the backup? It’s bad enough being the bait, but if they don’t get here soon, we’re fucked.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Youdohave apples,” Hicks drawls arrogantly. I roll my eyes. He’s such a douche. He grabs the crate in front, flipping it over. Apples roll across the floor of the truck and down the ramp, rolling right at us. “Told you so,” I call out, taunting him.
He moves a little deeper, tossing another crate. Apples go rolling, but along with the soft, fleshy sound is a sharp metallic crash.
“Well, well, well…” Hicks clicks his tongue like a disappointed parent as he stoops to pick up the AR-15 and one of many clips that went skittering with the apples. “This aint no honey crisp, boys.”
He shoves the clip into the gun, holding the thing up in the moonlight like some kind of evil villain who can’t stop the monologue. “Jesus Christ,” I whisper to Beast. “He’s going to drag this out all night.” Hicks turns, his expression twists with rage as he walks down the ramp with that rifle pointed right at my face.
“You better shut the fuck up!” He bellows in my face, poking the barrel of the gun into my cheek. “Mouthy, degenerate, flea bag.”
“Aw, don’t talk about your mother like that,” Beast chimes in. Hicks snarls, jabbing Beast in the back of his head hard enough for me to hear it. I tense, my muscles coiling to strike, but then shit goes off of the goddamn rails in a big way.
14
ELLE
Idon’t have much to go on, but the area Clint mentioned isn’t huge. I floor it down the highway to Robbinsville, and start searching back roads. I’m starting to panic when I finally see something. Flashing lights catch my eye up ahead. A highway patrol cruiser is parked behind an unmarked, white box truck.
I drive by without slowing, trying to avoid raising any suspicion. I spot Rattler in the driver’s seat, but the relief I feel is swiftly erased when I see who pulled them over. “No, no, noooo…” I moan. “Fuck.” It’s unmistakably Hicks, and he has his hand on the butt of his gun. The sick, twisting sensation in my stomach screams, “I told you so!” over and over.
“Oh, hell no,” I mutter, driving until I reach a bend in the road and I’m confident I’m out of sight. There’s an overgrown laneway on the right. I cut the headlights and take a sharp turn, praying I don’t fuck up Will’s ride in the brush.
I jump out of the SUV, pocket my phone, and tuck my butterfly knife up my sleeve, literally bringing a knife to what I can only assume is a gunfight. “Just don’t get shot,” I whisper to myself as I jog quietly back up the road. I’m only a quarter mile and there’s enough moonlight to keep me from tripping and killing myself, but I can’t shake the panic.
The truck’s headlights are out, creating enough of a shadow for me to creep up on it. I hear a crash and Hicks say something about apples, but I’m not close enough. Another crash, but this one sounds different. Metallic. I get closer, peeking around the edge of the truck, but the sight in front of me makes me want to scream bloody murder.
Rattler and Beast are both laying face down on the ground, their cheeks in the gravel. For one heart-stopping second, I think they’re dead. Bile rises in my throat, burning and choking me, while the rest of my body goes icy and numb. But then Beast lifts his head, eyes searching in my direction. There’s no way he can see me, but it feels like he’s staring right at me.
“Jesus Christ,” Rattler grumbles. “He’s going to drag this out all night.” Oh, yup. That’s my sexy-as-fuck smart ass alright, but what the fuck is he doing antagonizing Hicks while the two of them are on the ground?
Hicks stomps out of the truck and over toward Rattler. He rests the business end of the rifle against Rattler’s face and bends down to scream at him up close. “You better shut the fuck up! Mouthy, degenerate, flea bag.”
“Aw, don’t talk about your mother like that.”
Hicks rounds on Beast, shoving the barrel of his rifle in the back of Beast’s head. My big guy lets out a guttural curse and for a second, I’m sure I’m going to lose him. For the first time in my life, I know absolute, raw fear. I thought I was terrified of my father growing up, and I was, but nothing compares to the hopeless agony threatening to swallow me whole. But… nothing happens.
I’m frozen in place, adrenaline making me shake so violently, the zipper on my jacket starts to rattle. Fuck, I have to get them out of this. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do it, but it’s my fault they’re in the dirt with guns to their temples.
I guess I’m going to do whatever it takes. It’s not like I have a lot of options, and the only upper hand I have is the element of surprise. Squatting down, I tighten my shoelaces. Willow gave me a pair of sneakers she had in the back of her car. They’re at least a size too small, but it beats the fuck out of being barefoot.
I peek back around the side of the truck, trying to gauge the shortest path between my hiding spot and Hicks’ carotid artery, but… where the fuck is he? I lean out just a teeny bit further, but all I can see in the cruiser's light’s headlights are my guys.
They get to their feet silently, rising like mountains against the night sky. Just seeing them vertical again takes away a sliver of my fear, but it’s short-lived. An instant later, someone jams the barrel of a gun between my shoulder blades, and all I can think is,Really? Twice in one week?
15
BEAST
Even knowing what I know, the cold metal of the rifle against the back of my head is fucking me up. I blink rapidly, trying to erase the intrusive memories. Flashes of desert burning under a brutal sun. Sharp cracks; rifles firing all around me. The explosion, ringing ears, blood dripping from my nose, and then that eerie quiet in the moments after, where the world around me was only dust and smoke and heat and the sound of sand and dirt clods falling all around me with muffled thumps and a slow, steady hiss.
Then I’m back and Rattler is pinching the fuck out of my arm. “Don’t move a fucking muscle,” Hicks warns, his gun trained squarely on my head as he backs away, disappearing around the front of the truck.
“What the fuck?” Rattler mutters. What the fuck is right. Where the hell are the rest of the Sinners? They should have been here well before now, and there’s no way they left us hanging out to dry like this on purpose. Something happened to them.