Slow Burn: Bleed, Book 6 Page 6

  Steph shouted, “You assholes.”

  A man shouted, “Quiet!”

  Everything on the top deck stopped.

  Seething with fury, I looked up the barrel of the gun that was pressed into my cheek beside my nose. I memorized the face of the dark haired, mustached man who was using the weapon to hold me still.

  “Don’t move,” he warned me.

  Not yet. But one day.

  The voice in charge said, “Take her down.”

  Steph struggled. Feet moved. In my peripheral vision I saw her being manhandled toward the stairs.

  “Get him up,” the voice ordered.

  The man with the gun leaned close. “If it was up to me, you’d be dead already.”

  Interesting that he and I were both thinking the same thing.

  He got off of my chest. I was rolled over and dragged to my feet. There were four of them up there with me, two handling me, the guy who’d been on my chest, and the last—who I guessed was in charge—a dumpy, older man with white hair and glasses with thick, black frames.

  At the spiral stairs that led down to the main deck, one of my keepers led the way. The other held my bound wrists behind me. As we rounded the descent into the houseboat’s main salon, Steph was being seated on a couch beside Dalhover. Rachel and Paul were on the same couch. Gretchen was in a chair at the end of the couch. Murphy was standing with his back to the wall at one end of the rectangular room with his hands bound behind him—apparently Whites like me and Murphy needed to be tied up. A man with a pistol stood a pace in front of Murphy, keeping the weapon pointed at Murphy’s chest. I was urged to move in that direction.

  Eight men and one woman all had weapons—several handguns, a couple of shotguns, some rifles, and mine and Murphy’s M4s. The two guys that we’d rescued with Rachel were among them. That pissed me all the way off and then some, but rather than indulge the anger, I caught Murphy’s eye. We were on the same page: escape.

  The older guy who’d been giving orders up on the roof went to stand next to another dumpy, white-haired man that looked just like him, but with different glasses.

  Gretchen was the first to speak. To her credit, she didn’t sound angry. “What are you doing, Jay?”

  Jay—apparently the twin with the different glasses—began to speak. “This has all got to stop, Gretchen.” Jay’s tone wasn’t bellicose, not angry. He was just a nice old man talking to the grandkids.

  With anger starting to show on her face, but calm still in her voice, Gretchen said, “We all talked. We all agreed. But you weren’t happy with the majority decision, and now you’re going to get your way by force, is that it?”

  Jay stepped to the center of the room and looked down at Gretchen. “You think that because you pushed everyone to agree with you, they all did.”

  “They agreed with me.”

  Shaking his head, Jay said, “You bullied them.”

  “That’s not true,” Paul disagreed, loudly.

  In the same loud tone, Jay’s twin told Paul, “You don’t see it, Paul, because you’ve been pussy-whipped your whole life.”

  Jay turned to his twin and raised a hand to calm him. “Jerry.”

  Jerry made a show of glaring once more at Paul before he looked back at Jay. And that was the pecking order. Jay was in charge. Jerry was the lackey.

  “I don’t do that,” said Gretchen.

  Jay dismissed Gretchen’s argument with a wave of his gun. “We voted again after you came out here to camp with your new friends. And now you’re out.”

  Gretchen shook her head. She was disgusted.

  “Just like last time,” Paul shouted. “Everybody knows that you just want to be in charge.” Paul looked around the room for support. “That’s all this is. Little Jay Booth trying to feel important.”

  Not one of Jay’s armed men gave any hint that they’d heard Paul speak.

  Not good.

  Slowly, so as not to attract any attention, I wiggled my wrists and turned my arms to see if there was any way I might get my hands free. The guy next to me had a pump action shotgun. All I needed to do was get that in my hands. On the coffee table in front of the couch lay my Hello Kitty bag next to Murphy’s bag. If we could get a grenade or two out, we could make our escape, just as we’d gotten out of that dorm when dipshit-crazy Mark was threatening us. Only this time we wouldn’t leave anyone behind with the whack jobs.

  It felt like some kind of wire wrapped around my wrists. It was tight, but had been tied in a hurry. I felt it give ever so slightly as I twisted my wrists.

  Looking at Paul, Jay asked, “Finished?”

  Rachel sat forward and calmly said, “Jay, let’s—”

  “Not a word from you,” Jay snapped.

  Rachel froze and I thought Murphy was going to explode with anger and kill him, wrists bound or not.

  “You’re just Gretchen’s silky-tongued lawyer mouthpiece.” Jay pointed his pistol at Rachel’s forehead. “Just say something else.”

  Murphy started to lean away from the wall. Jay turned to him. Back in the kindly grandpa voice, he said, “Go ahead.”

  Murphy was ready to kill, but chose wisely to do nothing.

  Gretchen pulled Jay’s attention back to herself. “What exactly is happening here? Why all the guns? What are you going to do with us?”

  “You ask that like you expect me to say I’m going to kill you. You’ve watched too many movies. You need to go, that’s all. You need to take your white monster friends and go away. They aren’t coming to our island and you’re not staying.”

  “Fine. Paul and I don’t want to stay.” Gretchen looked around at Murphy and then at me. “If you’re just going to banish us then why are Murphy and Zed tied up?”

  It was kindly Jay who spoke. “They’re monsters.”

  “We shouldn’t let any of them go.” Jerry was agitated. “We should kill them all right now.”

  That sent a ripple through the room and it became apparent that most of them didn’t mind participating in the coup. But they weren’t up for murder, at least not the murder of Gretchen and Paul.

  Jay read it all. He was smart enough to see exactly what I was seeing. He and Jerry both wanted me and Murphy dead, at least, but he didn’t have the political support to have all of us killed. He said, “We’ll put them in a boat and drop them off on the shore.”

  “Just drop us off?” Gretchen spat.

  “Yes,” Jay answered.

  “Where?”

  “Wherever you like.”

  “When?”

  “Right now,” said Jay.

  “In the middle of the night?” asked Gretchen.

  “Right now.”

  “Can we get our things from the island?” she asked.

  “No,” Jay told her. “Those things belong to the community now.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “And what can we take with us?”

  “Nothing.”

  I looked at Murphy. He was still angry but keeping it to himself. I was still having no luck with the wires on my wrists.

  “You’re going to put us ashore with nothing,” said Gretchen, “but you’re not killing us?”

  “What a load of shit.” Paul didn’t care about the risks of showing his derision.

  “If you don’t like it, you can leave anytime you want,” said Jay.

  “Leave?” Paul asked.

  “Jump off the boat and swim to wherever you like.” Jay smiled insincerely.

  Jerry laughed out loud. He, and no one else, found Jay’s little joke funny.

  Paul glared at Jay, revealing all the hate he was feeling.

  Freitag opened a side door and stepped in, a gun in her hand.

  Fucking bitch.

  I hadn’t even realized she was missing from the group of prisoners.

  “Let’s not lollygag anymore.” Jay turned to Freitag. “Is the boat ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered.

  Chapter 12

  A thirty-foot cabin cruiser was
tied alongside the houseboat. One of the men and the tough-faced woman from inside were already on the cruiser’s deck, holding weapons at the ready. Jerry, with my machete in his hand, joined them. The rest of us were motioned to get aboard. Paul led the way, followed by Rachel, Murphy, and Dalhover. Accepting the situation as just another reset, with wrists still bound, I climbed onto the deck of the cruiser.

  “You first.” Gretchen motioned to Steph, then turned to Jay and asked, “What about Amy and Megan? Are you evicting them with us, or are you going to throw them ashore somewhere else where they can get killed?”

  Jerry started to laugh again. Something wasn’t right in that guy’s head. I wanted to cross the four or five steps between us and shoulder him over the side. But that would probably get me shot by one of Jay’s assholes, not to mention losing my machete on the bottom of the lake.

  “Amy and Megan are staying with us,” Jay told Gretchen. “Now get in the boat.”

  A bearded man with a big gut and a sleeveless t-shirt pushed the barrel of his shotgun into Gretchen’s back. “Move, Queen Gretch.”

  Gretchen shot him a dirty look and stepped over the gunwale to get into the cabin cruiser. “Let’s go, Steph.”

  Steph turned on Jay. “You’re telling me that they decided to stay with you. Do they even know what you’re doing here?” It was clear that Steph didn’t believe Jay.

  “Ask her yourself,” Jay answered.

  The man with the beard pushed Gretchen and she tumbled into the boat, falling at my feet.

  “Asshole.” I stepped toward the bearded dude.

  He pointed the shotgun at my chest. “Uh-huh.” He smiled. “It’s a gun.”

  I wanted so badly to kick in his perfectly white, good dental plan teeth.

  “What do you mean, ‘ask her myself’?” Steph wasn’t moving. She got up in Jay’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jay nodded and a couple of his men took hold of Steph’s arms. “You’re staying with us, honey.”

  “Fuck you!” I shouted.

  Something, a gun butt maybe, pounded me on the head, and I collapsed to the deck, seeing nothing but stars. Gretchen was on her feet and raising her voice angrily at Jay. “What do you mean she’s staying? Jay, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Amy and Steph are nurses.” Jay wasn’t the least bit ruffled by Gretchen’s yelling. “They’re the first two medically trained people we’ve come across. We need a doctor, but short of that, a couple of nurses will do.”

  “If you think I’m going to treat you when you get hurt, you’re crazy.” Steph left no doubt that she was serious. “I’m not about to help a bunch of kidnappers.”

  Jay shrugged and looked at her with sad, kind eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I’m the guilty one here. I don’t expect you to care for me when I’m sick. But those other folks on the island, they’re good people. They don’t have any guilt in this. You’ll help them. That’s all that matters.”

  Jerry giggled away, like this was just the funniest thing he’d seen in years.

  I tried to get up to my knees, but the barrel of a gun kept me down.

  “You cannot be serious about this.” Gretchen’s voice was back to a diplomatic level. “These people are together. You’re just going to tear them apart to further your own goals?”

  “You know the people on the island as well as I do, Gretchen,” Jay said. “You know they could use a nurse to treat them when they are injured or sick. Do you think sending Steph out into the world with these yahoos is going to be best for her or us? She’ll just get killed. We’re going to value her, give her a safe place.”

  “You’re a lunatic.” Steph told him.

  “Maybe,” Jay answered. “But that’s irrelevant. Take her back inside.”

  The two men holding Steph pulled. She struggled, but couldn’t break away. She cursed at Jay, her captors, and everybody else. I was seething with anger and thirsting for revenge even before the door shut. But revenge would come later. First, I needed to be free.

  Chapter 13

  We prisoners were crammed in below decks on the cabin cruiser. A padded bench wrapped around inside the bow, and it was clearly designed to convert to a bed. The space was cozy for a couple looking for romance out on a weekend cruise. For us, it was tight.

  On the fourth highest of five steps leading down from the outside deck, Freitag stood with a rifle in her hand pointed tensely at where we were seated on the benches. Jerry and two others were up on deck. A few small lights illuminated the darkness in the back of the boat, and I saw Jerry standing in the stern. One of the three was just outside the open door and one was at the helm.

  What were they going to do with us, I wondered. Were they really just going to free us? Run along now. Shoo. Don’t come back. It didn’t make sense. If they planned to let us go, really, why not just give us a boat and tell us to hit the road? There were plenty of boats moored around the island. They wouldn’t miss one.

  If they feared that giving us a boat would only give us a way to return to extract revenge for their kidnapping of Steph and Amy, then how would they keep us from finding one of the thousands of boats tied off around the lake and doing just that?

  The look in Jerry’s crazy eyes told me all I needed to know about what he wanted to do. He wanted to kill me and everybody else with me. Jay couldn’t do that with everyone looking on. But he could pretend to let us go, only to have us killed somewhere out of sight by his most loyal of thugs.

  That did make sense.

  The cabin cruiser bounced over a wave, and Freitag, in adjusting her balance, stepped down to the third step up from the bottom. I glared at her, telling myself for the hundredth time that I should have killed her when I had the chance. There was no depth to which she wouldn’t sink.

  For no apparent reason, Freitag slowly stepped down one more step closer to us.

  From the back of the boat, Jerry leaned over for a better angle into the cabin and called, “You all right there?”

  “Yes, sir.” Freitag called back without turning.

  Jerry stepped out of view toward the back corner of the boat.

  Freitag glanced back over her shoulder and quickly moved down to the last step.

  Being that close, she wasn’t far from where I sat on the end of one of the padded benches. I thought through a scenario to free us. I could wait until we hit the next big wave. Like all of us sitters did each time we hit a wave, I’d bounce up a bit. My motion would be natural, expected. But instead of being a victim of gravity and momentum, I’d use it to my advantage. I’d push with my legs and jump toward Freitag. She was five feet from me, and by the time she realized I was coming at her, she wouldn’t have time to react.

  I could plow into her stomach, shoulder first—my only available weapon—and knock the breath out of her. One of the others could take her gun. One of them could free me and Murphy. But that’s where the plan fell apart. Jerry and his thugs would hear the struggle below. Then we’d be trapped below deck with one weapon, trying to get our hands untied when three guns fired on us.

  I looked at my companions. How many of us would die when that happened?

  Did it really matter how many of us died? The question was how many would live? If we did nothing, we’d all be doomed. I looked around at my fellow prisoners, wondering which of them had also figured that out.

  Freitag glanced nervously over her shoulder. She was the only one of our captors that we could see.

  I waited. I focused on the rhythm of the waves. I turned to Murphy and caught his eye.

  He was up near the bow, furthest from the door, furthest from Freitag. I motioned toward Freitag with my eyes.

  With a barely perceptible motion, he nodded. He understood. More importantly, he agreed. He was smart, and he was intuitive. He knew what fate awaited us.

  Turning back, I noticed that Dalhover was staring at me. He’d caught the exchange between Murphy and me. He shot me a bare nod. He was on board, and his hands weren’t
bound. We had a chance.

  Without any urgency, I turned slowly back to Freitag and fell into the rhythm of the waves.

  There would be no mercy this time. Not for her. Not for any of them.

  I felt a pattern in the waves. It seemed like one out of every eight or ten we hit was larger than the others and would bounce us all a little higher off of our seats. As we came over one of the big ones, I started counting the small ones. I was going to make my move on the next big wave.

  Freitag’s expressionless doll face made a change.

  I counted through two waves.

  She was troubled. Her forehead wrinkled, and her eyes seemed sad.

  Another wave.

  Another.

  Her left hand let go of her rifle’s barrel. My excitement ticked up a dozen notches, but I tried not to let it show.

  We bounced over another wave.

  Almost there.

  Freitag’s hand slid into her pocket.

  It was going to be easy, at least the Freitag part. Just a few more waves.

  The hand came back out of the pocket with a lock-blade knife.

  Before I formed a guess as to what she planned with the knife, she caught Dalhover’s eye and tossed it to him. She turned to me and said, “Don’t kill them.”

  I was dumbfounded.

  Dalhover opened the knife and bounced behind Murphy to cut his bonds.

  Freitag looked up over her shoulder. Just loud enough for us to hear, she said, “The boat will come to a stop soon. Hurry.”

  I turned in my seat so that Dalhover would have easy access to the wires binding my wrists. As soon as my hands were free, I was up on my feet. I stepped quickly over and put myself against the wall beside Freitag. Dalhover jumped to the spot on the other side. We weren’t visible from outside the cabin.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  She simply said, “Now we’re even, okay?”

  “Even?”

  “Yes,” she said. “So fuck you, too.”

  The boat’s motor quieted as the helmsman throttled down.

  I said, “Thank you.”

  Dalhover handed the knife to me and said to Freitag, “Give me the gun.”

  Chapter 14