Spider. I knew that bitch of yours would be trouble. You’d better make her suffer for this, or I’ll kill her myself.”
I can hear what he isn’t saying as much as what he is. Emma is pussy, nothing more, and the last thing he needs is to go chasing after my plaything with those guns in tow.
In the few minutes we were dealing with Briggs and his flunkies, how far has Emma managed to get in that fucking van? A few miles? Headed in any direction, in a sprawling desert?
“Trust me, Prez. I’ll deal with her,” I growl. “But there’s no need for all of you to go after her.” Especially not with those guns. “I’ll take Striker and Rat with me, and we’ll meet you at Pops’.”
Striker and Rat both nod letting me know they’re in.
Pops’ Place, the bar that serves as our chapter in White Springs, is another hour away, and in the opposite direction that van took off in. It makes more sense to get the guns into hiding while I chase down what’s mine.
Dragon nods and he and the others roll out, headed east, up toward White Springs, while Striker, Rat and I head west, tearing up the road in the direction that van went.
When I find that woman, she’ll pay for trying to get away from me, but Dragon won’t have to do anything to her. By the time I’m through with my Little Thief, she’ll wish I’d killed her.
2
Retribution
Blackness.
Again.
Awareness pulls me slowly up from the depths of unconsciousness, and a horrendous noise reaches my ears. It’s a loud rumbling, growing louder the further I drift from sleep.
I blink, half expecting to find myself surrounded with familiar motorcycles parked out back of Casper’s, engines revving. Instead, I’m looking at two small, square windows in what appears to be double doors. The glass is tinted, but I can tell its daylight outside. The sun’s rays illuminate the black steel walls that surround me with a cold and muted light.
Where in God’s name am I?
I try to look around me, but my arms won’t move. Chains clink softly, and steel bites into my wrists.
My head swivels from right to left. My wrists are cuffed in steel shackles that are attached to the steel wall at my back. I’m sitting on a hard, metallic floor. My head feels foggy, my thoughts forming at half speed.
I’m chained up again? For real?
At least I’m not naked, but I am gagged, a cloth tied around my head with some kind of rag stuffed into my mouth.
I groan. Spider’s done it again, chained me up somewhere alone and in the dark. Except, what is that god-awful rumbling noise?
I grope for the memory of what brought me here, wherever here is, but only a blank void fills my head where the memories should be.
Then, slowly, images fill the empty void.
A man in a black mask. The barrel of a gun under my chin.
Icy dread clenches my gut. Spider didn’t do this. Whomever that man in the mask was, he’s kidnapped me.
Panic wells up, and I glance frantically around. The walls and ceiling are solid black-painted steel, and in front of me, I can make out the closed doors of a large vehicle—a truck or a van, with small tinted windows.
I’m sitting in the back of the vehicle, chained to its back wall. The rumbling is the vehicle’s engine.
Then, the full memory of what brought me here slams home.
Spider and the rest of the Devil’s Outlaws had gone into a truck stop to fuel up. I’d gone to the bathroom. When I’d come out of the stall, the man in the mask had put his hand over my mouth and his pistol under my chin.
“Scream and you’re dead.” His voice is a low rasp, muffled by the mask. I don’t recognize the voice at all.
My heartbeat fills my ears, and I stare at the man, panic and confusion warring for headspace. I try to see something in him that I recognize, something that identifies him, but the mask leaves only his eyes visible. He wears a black tee and dark tattoos cover his arms, but the bathroom is not well lit, so to me they just look like smears of black ink.
The moment he puts his hand over my mouth, my first thought is that someone from the Colony has found me. Except that doesn’t make sense. Guards employed by the leaders of His Holy Peace would use deadly force if they had to,