“After what happened to me, I don’t go anywhere without it.”
“Don’t blame ya,” Brick uttered, moving closer to me and Ryder, Tag two feet behind the rest of us.
Ryder slammed his shoulder against the door, and while there was movement, the lock remained steadfast. Until he repeated the motion, practically falling into the kitchen once the frame splintered and the door flew open.
We rushed inside, our guns up and pointed, waiting for any sign of life inside, but there was no one else present in the room besides us.
Another noise sounded from upstairs, then another but from the other side of the dwelling.
“We have to assume there’s three of ’em here,” Ryder said, talking low and taking the lead out of the kitchen and into the narrow hallway toward the staircase. From what I could see of the house, it was old but clean, basic necessities for the people who lived here. Not that I had much time to take in the décor, all my focus on keeping my breathing regulated and making sure my heart didn’t burst out of my chest due to a spike in adrenaline.
Caged between Ryder and Brick, with Tag taking up the rear, our footsteps were quieted by the carpet beneath our feet. As we crept up the stairs, stopping briefly when we heard a thud right above our heads, we surveyed the spaces we could see. Once we reached the top, noticing the hallway was thankfully clear, we moved to the first bedroom, peering inside to see the room was also vacant.
But when we came to the second one, we saw a woman hanging halfway off the bed. The only thing we could see was from her shoulders on down, her head not visible from where we stood in the entryway. Her dress was pushed up to her waist, her panties dangling from her left ankle.
We stealthily filed into the room, and Tag rushed to the other side of the bed. “Fuck!” He raked his hand through his dark hair, shaking his head before looking back at us. “It’s gotta be her mom. Someone slit her throat.”
“After they raped her,” Brick added, bristling with anger behind me. Tag’s eyes darkened and he tried to shove past all of us and out the door, but Ryder held him back.
“Nope. Not gonna happen. You can’t rush out of here until we have some sort of plan.”
“But they’re probably… doin’ to her what they did to….” He glanced back over at the deceased woman. “I need to help her.”
“And we will if we can. But we’re not goin’ in blind only to get our heads blown off,” Ryder finished. “That’s not what we do.”
Brick, Tag, and I would have to take his word for it because we had no idea what we were and weren’t supposed to do, finding ourselves in more precarious situations every fuckin’ week.
A house this small probably only had three bedrooms max, and we’d already been in two of them, leaving one final room to check.
Brick quietly closed the door but not before we heard low voices followed by a string of groans. “The bathroom is right next to us. They have to be in the room next to that.” His eyes landed on the most tenured member here. “What’s the plan?”
A shrill scream bounced off the hallway walls and seeped under the door, but it was followed with a grunt, then a heavy thud. Tag again tried to move past the wall of us, but it was Brick who stopped him this time, whispering something into his ear to make him stand still, although from the strained look on the prospect’s face, he struggled to obey.
“I told you… I don’t know. Please,” Erin cried. Another grunt echoed through the upstairs. Her plea fell on deaf ears when we heard a man respond, “Your turn with her. Make it count.”
“I don’t care what happens, I need to help her,” Tag said, his chest rising and falling quickly, choking on each breath that entered his lungs. “I can’t just stand here while they torture her.”
None of us said a word. Ryder moved to open the door, peering into the hallway to make sure no one was waiting to ambush us. With guns raised, we followed him out only to halt our steps when one of the Reapers stepped from the room at the end of the hall, his weapon resting at his side. I couldn’t recall his name, but he’d been at the fight where Lincoln took Maddie from them, the burn scar on the right side of his face distinguishable.
“Wanna join in, boys? She already took the three of us, but I’m sure she can take the lot of you.” I snatched Tag’s arm to stop him from moving. “No? Okay, more for us. Unless dead bitches are your thing. If that’s the case,” he said, pointing back from where we came, “her mom’s kinda sweet.”
“Just let her go and we’ll get out of your hair,” Ryder offered, sounding bored and taking a daring step forward. The Reaper retreated into the room without a response. The entire scene left the four of us baffled. Not only did the fucker not care he had three guns pointed at his head, he acted like we weren’t enemies.
Ryder turned to look back at us. “Focus. Shoot any of ’em who makes a move toward us.” He zeroed in on Tag, then to the knife gripped in his hand. “If you get close enough, drive that right into their fuckin’ brain.”
I counted every second, praying for time to freeze, but of course, no such luck.
In fact, what happened next blurred together, time speeding up and escaping before any sort of rationale could take hold.
31
The moment we stepped into the room with them, they drew their guns. I couldn’t say I was shocked, yet I was.
“Welcome,” one of the other Reapers cockily greeted, looking like our arrival was nothing more than an amusement to him, the pupils of his eyes so dilated I was surprised he was able to string a sentence together. There was a sheen of sweat covering his bald head, and his gut hung over the unbuttoned waist of his jeans. I’d never seen him before, but that didn’t matter because if I had a prediction for the outcome of this encounter, I wouldn’t ever have to see him again.
His arm swung out toward Erin, who lay limply on top of the mattress, naked from the waist down, blood soaking the sheets beneath her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brick place a hand on Tag’s arm to stop him from running toward her, and probably to his death.
“This is how this is gonna go,” the bastard said, grinning as his attention flipped between us before landing on our prospect. “You’re gonna tell us where Pike is, or I’m gonna put a bullet in her brain.”
“Who the fuck is Pike?” Ryder asked, and it took me a moment to realize his question wasn’t a serious one, although they might not know that.
“You know damn well who he is, but for the sake of argument, Pike is our prospect. Or should I use the word was?”
“We don’t know him. So we certainly don’t know where you can find him. Dead or alive.” Ryder’s only movement was the parting of his lips when he responded.
The Reaper moved a few steps back until he stood directly next to Erin, who slowly regained consciousness. He pressed the barrel to her temple, the pressure causing her lids to finally pop open. When she tried to move toward the other side of the bed, his buddy pushed her back. I watched as she scoured the room, finally locating Tag standing five feet from the edge of where she lay.
“Tag.” His name fell as a plea from her mouth. “What’s—”