“Come on. I got you, just go slowly,” she whispers.
Lifting my foot, I shove the toe of my shoe in the chain link, before I throw my leg over. It takes a little finagling and a whole lot of moaning, but I eventually make my way over the fencing.
“What now?” I ask, looking behind me to the clubhouse.
There isn’t a lot of hurried movement, so I can assume that we’re still safe for now, and our absence has gone unnoticed so far.
“Now? We run,” she rasps.
“In woods where we’re totally alone. Sounds smart,” I deadpan.
Trista lets out a huff. “Do you have any other ideas?”
My lips curve up into a grin. “No,” I say with a small chuckle. “Let’s go.”
The forest is dark, it’s cold, and it’s damp, but it doesn’t matter because we are free. I don’t know how long this freedom of ours will last, but every second feels like a gift. We don’t speak, I know that I’m too scared that my voice will carry, that the men will hear us and come after us.
“Do we try to find a road?” Trista asks after a while of walking.
I look up, then glance behind me. “So you know every scary movie I’ve ever seen, the people always get picked up by the bad guys on the road,” I murmur.
“Oh shit, that’s true. Okay, no road.”
“No road,” I agree.
“Maybe we can just be a few feet from the road, but follow its path?” she asks.
“That could work,” I mumble.
It’s not like these roads are heavily driven, we’re somewhere in the California mountains, so I have no doubt that it’s a bit desolate out here. There is a clearing up ahead and I see the roadway.
“There’s the road. I really hope we’re headed south,” I breathe.
“Me too,” she whispers. “I do not want to end up somewhere in Oregon, we need to head closer to south. My dad is in California. He could probably be here in a few hours if we could get to a phone.”
We don’t speak again for a while. We’re both breathing heavily, the climate being nothing that we’re used to. I decide to start with some small talk. I need to keep my mind from wandering, I need to be distracted.
“How long have you been with Taz?”
She snorts. “Off and on for a few years. I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember,” she admits.
“I like that. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
Admitting that I’ve never felt love, it’s weird. Seeing the way the Savage Beasts are, their women are, I can tell that these people have loved and most of them, they are loved. She reaches for my hand, taking mine in hers.
“Mountain feels for you, Leighton. He fell apart when you left. He’s too proud to admit anything like that, but he was a mess. Maybe love is too deep of an expression to claim so soon, but he does feel for you and I know that you feel for him as well.”
“I do, deeply,” I admit.
“I like that for him.”
Pressing my lips together, I look down at the ground in front of me. My feet are soaked, I’m cold and scared, but none of that matters because all I can think about is Mountain and getting home to him. Not just his home either—ours.
“I know the baby is his. He struggles,” I whisper.
“I think anyone would,” she replies.
“Yeah.”
We’re quiet for another moment when we both freeze. The sound of motorcycles buzzes in the distance. They’re approaching, fast. “Shit,” Trista hisses.
“We need to find a place to hide,” I urge.
“Deeper in the woods,” she snaps.
We both turn our back to the roadway and quickly move through the dark woods. We need some kind of shelter, some kind of cover, and luckily, we find it fairly quickly in the form of a few downed and overgrown trees and bushes. Dropping into a crouch, we hold our breaths as the motorcycles ride past us.
They don’t stop, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t men on foot or that they won’t circle back around and start combing the forest area. We need to stay alert and smart—we need to stay alive.
MOUNTAIN
Pulling into the clubhouse parking lot, I’m tempted to just go straight home to see Leighton. I haven’t been able to talk to her in almost two days. It’s been a fucking whirlwind. I hope she isn’t good and pissed at me, and if she is, I hope she’s ready for some great fucking make-up sex, because the last time I was laid was with her and I am jonesin’ for some pussy.
Dragon greets us before we can even turn our engines off. The look on his face, the way his brows are snapped together and a frown is etched on his face, as if it’s been there for weeks, it makes everything inside of my body freeze.
“Dragon?” Hawk asks as he rushes forward.
I’m glad that Hawk can move, because I am fucking frozen and so is Dutch next to me on his bike. Thankfully Hawk was able to drive the truck home, so we have all of the product. Raw fucking product that needs to be cut and packaged.
“Mountain, Hawk, need to talk to you,” he announces, then his gaze flicks over to Dutch. “You too.”
We don’t speak right away, we don’t move either. Dragon takes a step back and starts to walk inside the clubhouse, but I’m not moving. Whatever he needs to say, he’s going to have to say it right fucking here, because my body is not going to voluntarily move right now.
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere. Tell us right fucking now,” Hawk growls.
Thank fuck for Hawk right now, because I’m about a second away from losing my shit. I just know that this is something really fucking bad, but I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to think about what it could be, I just want him to tell us—now.
Dragon curses, looking down at his boots before he lifts his gaze up to meet our own. “It’s Trista and Leighton,” he murmurs.
I disengage from my bike and rush him. Reaching forward, I fist his cut and jerk him forward. I’m a little taller than he is, and about fifteen pounds heavier. I also know him so well that I could take him out in about five seconds.
“Where are they? What about them?” I demand.
“We don’t know. Someone knocked Taz out, when he came to, the women were gone.”
“What the fuck?” I growl. “You didn’t call me. What the actual fuck? Where is my woman?”
Dragon doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t make a single move. He just continues to watch me, probably waiting for me to calm my shit, but I’m not going to. It’s not fucking possible for me to
be calm right now. Leighton is missing, she’s gone and nobody even fucking called me.
“Where the fuck were they, when they were taken?”
His eyes shift to the side, then come back to meet my own. “Your house.”
I release him, pushing him backward slightly before I lift my hands and run my fingers through my hair. Tugging on the strands of my hair, I shake my head. My house. My fucking house. They were taken from my own goddamn house.
“Who?” Hawk rasps. “Who took my daughter?”
Dragon shrugs his shoulder. “We don’t know. We have no fucking clue. There’s been zero communication and Worm can’t find anything, either.”