scuttle across the keyboard again.
I continue pacing, wondering where the hell she could be. If we had told her we were vampires, she might have stayed. She would have known Phil and his bodyguard were no match for us. She could have stopped running.
“Sweet!” Slash’s eyes widen. “I got a hit!”
Theo and I huddle around Slash, and a blue dot glides across a satellite map.
“Oh, shit.” Theo points to the screen. “She’s on the 10 Freeway headed out of town. She wouldn’t leave without Zoe.” He grabs his smartphone and blurs to the door. “Alex, come with me. We’re going after her.” He points at Slash. “I’ll call you from the car. Keep us posted on where she is.”
Theo and I take the stairs three at a time and dash to the parking lot for his Maserati.
Big Tony rummages in the trunk, and I peek over to the passenger seat in front. My phone is not there. Damnit.
He took the 210 Freeway to the 10 Freeway, where he exited after a long stretch of nothing. Once he turned down a secluded desert road, I gave up hope of getting anyone’s attention or escaping. He is going to get rid of me in the middle of nowhere, and there is nothing I can do about it.
But it doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for him.
Tony drove the car off the road for several yards, over a hill and low-growing brush, before he parked. The rental car is now facing the wide-open desert. The headlights are on, and lighting the path to where I guess my final resting place will be.
The door flies open and he shoves my face into the cushion of the backseat. I panic. Is he going to rape me right here in the car? Before I can get my bearings, he wrenches my hands behind my back and secures them with a zip-tie.
“Ah!” Son-of-a-bitch, that’s tight!
Yanking me from the car, he slams the door and tugs me along. He has that damn combat knife in his hand, and a blue tarp under his arm. Oh, fuck. That doesn’t bode well. Tony marches me through the mesquite and Seguro cacti. I can’t see the road we left behind us over the hill.
“Come on.” Tony shoves me forward, but I drag my feet, fighting him every step of the way. “Stop struggling, bitch!”
I give him all I’ve got, wriggling in his grasp, and he cracks the butt of his knife to my head. The world spins and I crash to the ground, a rock nailing my kneecap. I cry out, squirming in the dirt.
He hauls me to my feet and grabs my face, nose-to-nose with me. “The more you struggle, the longer I torture you.”
“Okay.” I pant, and nod my throbbing head. “Okay, I’ll cooperate.”
He laughs. “Too late for that, sweetheart.” Tony spins on his heel and continues toward a clearing about thirty yards ahead, where he begins to lay out the tarp.
I bolt.
Out of the path of the headlights, I can’t see a thing, and my knee hurts, but this is my last chance to either get away, or avoid a fate worse than death, which is getting raped by Tony while I choke on desert sand and scorpions.
Big Tony moves pretty fast for a man his size, and he is on my tail. With a bum knee, I can’t outrun him. We go down in a cloud of dirt and grunts. His full weight crushes me and knocks the wind from my lungs. I struggle for air, but come up empty.
Tony drags me by the scruff of my sweatshirt, choking me. “You fucking little cunt. You just made this the worst night of your fucking life, and the best night of mine.”
I grimace and try to cough, but I don’t have anything in my lungs to expel. He drops me and I finally suck hungry gulps of air, inhaling and coughing. My wrists are wet and sting, the zip-tie cutting into my flesh. My hands throb. For a blissful moment, I’m lying on the ground, the stars fading in and out of my blurry vision in the night sky. The air is cool.
Big Tony steps into my view, his bare-chested form standing over me. The evil grin on his face belongs to a supervillain in a comic book. And I realize…really understand, that this is my last night. That I’m going to die here in the desert. And I didn’t find out if Zoe was okay.