“And yet he managed to capture your smoldering eyes,” I reply grimly, trying to quell the tears forming in my eyes for what Enrique is doing to help me.
“You told Enrique about us?” Jax asks, and I shut up again, refusing to answer his question. Seeing the fear in my eyes, Jax says, “We’re not going to hurt him. We were just following him to find you. I promise, he can’t come where we’re going.”
“He’ll know that we have you now. He’ll follow us,” Trey says with satisfaction, looking at the television.
“Enrique?” I ask.
“No, the knob knocker,” Jax says absently. “Do we wait for him?”
“No, we finish our mission,” Trey says with a hint of reluctance in his tone. “If he manages to catch up though, then it’s really not our fault that we had to take him out, is it?” Trey smiles at Jax.
“No, we’d just be protecting our prisoner,” Jax grins back.
“We’re here,” Wayra announces, slowing the car in an empty parking lot in what looks like the middle of absolutely nowhere.
CHAPTER 5
THE POOL
Trey’s eyes lock with mine. There is anticipation in them and…happiness. I glance at the window, seeing that we’ve pulled up to some kind of defunct tourist attraction—a “mystery spot,” as the falling down billboard indicates. It’s also closed for the season.
Parking the car, Wayra unlocks the doors. Trey and Jax exit the limo, along with Wayra. I can hear them pulling things out of the trunk. Not moving from my seat, I wait, figuring that they want me to get out because they left all the doors open.
The smell of gasoline assails me as I watch Wayra through the window take a gas can and spill the liquid over the front seat.
“Kricket,” Trey says in a gentle voice, bending and peering at me from outside the car. “We’re going to burn the car. You might want to get out before we do that.”
Fear and confusion prey on me. I drop my chin, shaking my head.
“You want to stay in the car?” he asks, frowning.
I shake my head no again, looking at him.
“Listen, Kricket…I just want to take you home and finish my mission. If you comply with me, I promise that I won’t hurt you,” Trey says truthfully, extending his hand to me.
“Do I have a choice?” I ask, looking at his hand warily.
“No,” he replies. I deliberate for a few moments, but he’s right. There’s really no choice. The gasoline is making it almost impossible to breathe. Reluctantly, I ignore his hand and slide to the opposite side, getting out of the car and walking toward where Jax is standing by the hood.
Stuffing my hands under my armpits and feeling the frigid wind on my exposed arms, I hunch my shoulders against the cold. Trey carries a black duffle bag with him to my side. Standing close to me, his body heat radiates out, making me inch closer to him. He’s really tall; my head only reaches to his shoulder. He didn’t bring his coat with him. His dark gray, woolen dress pants and tailored, white button-down shirt would make him look corporate if the thick, black tattoos on the left side of his neck didn’t make him look like some kind of ancient gladiator.
“Why are we here?” I ask Trey, while Wayra lights a match, tossing it into the cab of the car. Flames burst to life as Trey grips my upper arm, ushering me up a wooden plank walkway, leading to another wooden causeway.
“Was that a question?” he asks, raising his brow. “That’s funny because I thought we agreed that neither of us were answering questions.” I grit my teeth while Trey pulls me along next to him through the deepening snowdrifts.
Approaching a gated wooden fence, secured by a padlock, Wayra jogs ahead. Pulling wire cutters from his duffel bag, Wayra easily removes the lock, pushing open the gate leading to a limestone cave. The sign outside the cave says that while surveying this spot years ago, workmen discovered that their equipment could not be leveled as the plum-bob needle seemed to always skew to the right. It was theorized that gravity does not affect this particular spot in the same way that it does elsewhere.
Fear threads through me. Until now, I’d been hoping that this was going to somehow turn out to be a horrendous reality show prank, but now, I’m beginning to fear that this is far from staged. Pausing for a moment, Trey, Jax and Wayra each don a headlamp before Trey grasps my arm again, leading me inside the cave.
Wayra jogs ahead of us, deeper into the winding, dark tunnel. When we finally catch up to him around several twists and turns, he’s securing climbing ropes over a sheer drop. He flashes his light over at the wall, saying, “Alameeda. They came through this way. The wackers didn’t even have the decency to use decomposing lines.” Pulling the Alameeda lines out of the wall, Trey lets them fall over the edge. I wait to hear them hit the ground, but I never hear a sound. Paling, I look at the inky darkness where the world seems to just fall away.
I begin to back up, putting my hand against the wall. Looking over my shoulder, I can’t see anything behind me. It’s completely dark. I won’t get very far without a flashlight or a headlamp. Turning back to them, I’m nearly blinded by their lights as they all focus on me. Putting up my arm to shield my eyes from the light, Trey says, “Kricket, come here.”
“I’m not going down there,” I reply quickly, taking another step back from them.
“Yes, you are. Come here now,” Trey orders sternly.
“I want to go home!” I demand, hearing my voice echo off the wall and feeling like I’m going to burst into tears, which is something I never do. I rarely allow anyone to see me cry, especially strangers.
“This is the way home,” Trey replies.
“NO! I want to go to MY home—Chicago,” I retort, taking another step back and feeling cold, rough stone against my fingertips.
“You cannot thrive under the wrong stars, Kricket,” Trey says in a calm, soothing voice. “The stars here are in opposition to you…can’t you feel it? You are foreign to them. You have no ancestry here—no lineage. Let us take you home.”
“Where I can ‘pay for my crimes?’” I ask with a scowl. “No thanks!” I turn and run blindly for a few steps before the light behind me tells me I’m caught. Trey picks me up, swinging me over his shoulder again. Carrying me over to the edge, he says, “We’re going down there, Kricket. I can tranquilize you and take you or you can come willingly, the choice is yours, but you will go.” He drops me from his shoulder and stands me in front of him, angling his light up so it isn’t shining in my eyes. “Which will it be?” he asks in a soft, deadly tone.
Knowing that if I’m tranquilized, there will be absolutely no chance of escape, I look at the ground, saying, “That’s not really a choice because the result is nearly the same,” I argue. Seeing Trey reach for his pocket, I straighten. “Okay, I’ll go!”
Wayra steps nearer to me and begins strapping me in a rock climber’s harness, securing a line to it. I’m sure he notices that my entire body is shaking, but I’m hoping he’s attributing it to the cold and not the fact that I’m completely terrified. “Have you rappelled before?” Wayra asks, his violet eyes looking concerned.