I gathered up the girls and Axl herded us to the exit.
Ryn was leading.
Pepper, Hattie and me were following, with me walking in the middle.
Axl was at the rear.
“Was that Mag on the phone?” Pepper asked.
“Yeah, he calls at least once a day,” I answered.
“Sweet,” Hattie whispered.
She didn’t know the half of it.
“Do you call him?” she asked.
Oh no.
I looked at her. “No. Should I?”
“No,” Pepper answered, and I turned my head her way.
“You sure?” I pressed.
“Yes,” she answered.
“I mean, I don’t want it to be one-sided,” I went on. “I want him to know I like him as much as he likes me.”
“Babe, those shoes say that and then some,” she replied. “You can coast on those shoes for at least six months.”
“Then you’ll have to buy another pair,” Hattie said.
“Yeah, if you buy another pair, and then another one, and so on, you’ll never have to be the one to call him for the rest of your life,” Pepper added.
Normally, I would balk at owning shoes that, Axl was right, it was unlikely I’d ever wear out of the house.
But if it got me my way with the spices…
“I remember those days, the first blush, when you can’t be apart, and when you have to, you connect,” Pepper mused, turning her gaze wistfully toward Ryn, who clearly wanted a coffee as badly as I did, because she’d pulled well ahead.
“You can have that too,” I pointed out while we made the turn to go down the short hall to the doors to the parking garage.
Pepper said nothing.
I studied her profile.
It looked sad.
Shit.
I turned to Hattie.
She was watching her feet move.
She looked sad too.
Shit!
I turned to glare at Axl.
He caught my glare and lifted his brows.
He then started and clipped, “Evie!”
This was right when I walked into the door.
Bah!
“God! Are you okay?” Hattie asked, her hand on my shoulder, leaning in to look at my face as I swayed back and blinked.
I might have just slammed into the door and cracked my head, but I started smiling.
Big.
“I’m a klutz,” I announced.
“You’re maybe the only person I know who would say those three words looking like you just won the lottery,” Pepper noted.
I hadn’t won the lottery.
I’d worked long and hard.
And then I got my reward.
Because I wasn’t like other girls.
Including being a klutz.
And that landed me a commando.
I didn’t share this with Pepper, Hattie, or Axl, who was now standing with us.
I shrugged and said, “It’s me.”
I barely got out the “me” part when we all heard a chilling scream coming from outside.
Woodenly, we turned to look out the glass doors.
Well, Hattie and Pepper and I did.
Axl shoved through us, growling, “Do not leave this area.” He then pushed swiftly through the doors, finishing, “Call Mag.”
I had my phone out and turned on when Hattie whispered, “Oh my God. Someone’s got Ryn.”
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” I chanted, whisking my thumb over my screen to go to my calls and engage Mag.
I put it to my ear just as I let out a little scream, right along with Hattie, because we heard gunshots outside.
“What’s happening?” Pepper shouted.
I was stuck, frozen, unsure what to do when Mag’s voice came into my ear.
“Forget something, babe?”
“Someone has Ryn! And I think they’re shooting at—!”
I didn’t finish.
My phone was yanked viciously out of my hand.
I whirled on whoever did that just in time to hear both Hattie and Pepper make distinct noises that conveyed the same message.
Fear.
And panic.
My arm was seized, and I began struggling.
I stopped when my wrist was wrenched up my back and I had a different voice in my ear.
“You make trouble, she dies, he dies, you all die.”
I stopped struggling.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Initiation
Evie
This just cut it.
I was tied to another chair.
Tied to another…fucking…chair!
Worse!
All my girlfriends were tied to chairs with me.
Like Steve and Robin from Stranger Things when the Soviets got ahold of them, but without being injected with truth serum that made us giggle and everything seem funny.
Tied to chairs, back to back.
I was attached to Ryn. Pepper at my side, Hattie to her back.
Ryn had been brought in later by a set of bad guys different than the three who took Pepper, Hattie and me.
And they didn’t handle her very gently.
Not like the guys who took me, Pepper and Hattie were gallant, but the ones who pulled in Ryn seemed pissed off and they were rough with her.
But she was alive, breathing, she didn’t appear injured, though she was obviously spitting mad.