Kat’s phone rang as Casey walked out the door.
“I’m at Casey’s, waiting for Dylan, who’s been waiting for his ‘moment’ by the way,” and she actually held the phone with her shoulder so she could do the air quotes for the phone caller—did I mention crazy? “to get off work.” A pause, then, “Dylan, why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
“Casey said my leather jacket made me look like a punk and was keeping old ladies from buying lottery tickets. And he needs one of them to hit it big so he can get his share because his wife’s demanding to go to Bermuda or some shit. I guess I left my phone in the pocket. It’s in the back.”
“Jesus,” Kat said into the phone, “slow down. I can’t listen to both of you at once. He says because it’s in the pocket of his jacket which is in the back because—Well, damn, girl, take my head off. Fine. Here he is.” Kat passed the phone over the counter. “It’s Heather. You might want to hold it away from your ear. She’s a little wound up.”
“You okay, Heather?”
“It’s not me, it’s Joss.”
I backed up into the stool we kept behind the counter and sat down.
“I’m not sure what I heard—not heard, but…you know—“
“Yeah, I get it.” Heather tended to hear stray thoughts in people’s heads. “Go on.”
“They were just going by my house, on foot. I kinda got a glimpse of them out the window.”
“Who?”
“I’m not sure. Definitely Marco, though, and Jeff, some ‘voices’ I couldn’t quite place, maybe five or six, and Joss.”
“What’s she doing with those guys?”
“She’s thinking a lot. Trying to take in details and come up with some kind of a plan to get away. She’s wishing she could see, so I think she’s blindfolded.”
“Fuck.” Besides the fact that Joss with Marco scared the crap out of me, and Joss being taken away blindfolded scared the crap out of me, the part of my brain that was actually thinking knew that her ability worked about a million times better if she could see what she wanted to move. I knew that she could use visualization to some extent, but her Talent was really weak that way and didn’t always work. If she couldn’t see, she was almost helpless.
“She’s scared, Dylan.”
Join the fucking club.
“Do you know where they’re headed? What Marco’s planning?”
“I…it was really a mess of thoughts, all of them at once, and once I heard Joss, I really just concentrated on her.”
“Any little thing, Heather,” I said quietly, trying to sound calming.
“Okay, um…Marco thought about his…lair? Does he have a lair?”
A string of expletives went through my head, but I was also kind of relieved. At least I knew where they were headed. “He does, the freak. Anything else?”
“Marco’s got a lot of hate. It was kind of inarticulate, but I think ‘payback’ was clear. And Jeff wants… Dylan, if you know where they’re going, you need to just get there.”
I clicked off the phone without saying goodbye. “We gotta go. Now.”
“What about the store? Is it Joss? Did something happen?” Kat asked.
“Yes, it’s Joss, and fuck the store. You run it,” I said, heading for the door.
“Go through the storeroom,” Eric told me, “I’m parked around back. We’ll go kick some ass and then I’ll swing by to pick you up later, ’kay, baby?”
“Call me!” I heard Kat yell. I was swiping my jacket off the hook as we ran through the back room. How much time had we already lost because I didn’t think to keep my phone on me? Had Joss tried to call me?
I looked. No messages. Of course not.
Eric slammed his hand down on the hood as he moved around the front of the car and his Talent brought the engine roaring to life. We threw ourselves down into the Camaro, slammed the doors, and he peeled out of the parking lot.
I thought about calling Heather back, asking her if she could tell if any of the others had Talents and what they were. But would knowing that really help? What was I going to do when I got there?
Something. I was just going to do something.
Chapter 2
Joss
The sweat-jacket tied around my head stank like cigarettes and pits. The way it was wound up, part of the zipper had gotten caught up with the sleeve and was digging into the side of my head. It had reached that point where it itched more than anything else. But nothing I could do about it with my hands bound behind my back with electrical tape. Except be grateful they’d found the tape after the jacket thing. I was going to get to keep my eyebrows. Bonus.
If I could keep the rest of me intact that would just be aces.
I shook off the distraction of nausea-inducing bad thoughts and refocused. It was a long walk, maybe close to half an hour, so probably a bit more than a mile from the mall. Marco never once let up on his grip on my arm. I was guessing we were cutting through some yards and parking lots by the change in the terrain under my boots, the fact that I was hearing things like loud televisions and phones ringing more than I was hearing cars going by, and that, hey, a group of kids force-marching a blind-folded girl down the sidewalk was bound to attract some kind of attention. One would hope. Judging by where we had started, how much downhill there was, and how the wind had picked up and really cut in where I couldn’t pull my unzipped coat closed, I figured we were going down to the river.
Which I had to admit was a scary proposition. How long could I tread water without the use of my arms? How cold was that water? What was the current like? How hard would it be to breathe when this jacket took on water and was stuck to my face? And that’s all assuming I was conscious when I went in.
I tripped and went down. It wasn’t a brilliant attempt at escape; it was probably a concrete curb. The first few times that had happened, Marco’s grip had kept me upright. But this time he let me go and I went down hard on the packed, gravelly earth so fast that I didn’t have time to try to turn onto my shoulder. And of course I couldn’t put my hands out. Fortunately the padding of the jacket saved my face from the worst of it, but son of a bitch that really hurt. Plus it was hard not to be humiliated, even though I knew that was the point of the exercise.
I got a boot in the ribs, reflexively rolled to my side and cringed away from it while I tried to catch my breath. “Come on, Joss,” Jeff said, and the boot landed on my shoulder, forcing it down to the ground and me onto my back. He straddled me and dropped to his knees, landing hard on my pelvis which was really gross, but better than if he’d had the sense to sit on my chest or stomach where it would be harder to buck him off. “This isn’t a rest home. What are you doing?”
A hand grabbed me under the armpit and yanked hard. Only Marco would have had enough strength in one hand to pull that hard and that fast, toppling Jeff back onto my legs as I was dragged across the rocky dirt and back onto my feet. My shoulder felt like it was going to tear right through my skin.
“Hey!”
“She was about to buck you off—”
“I might have liked that.”
“—and probably kick you in the teeth, you moron,” Marco finished. “Let’s quit playing around and get inside.”
I heard Jeff picking himself up and dusting off as Marco dragged me along. Now that I knew they were taking me “inside,” the river was starting to sound a lot more inviting. A sudden wave of panic made my limbs feel watery and uncoordinated.
This is really not the time to lose it. Man up.
I stepped more carefully, picking up my feet in case there were steps and finally felt concrete under my boots. I dragged my foot and felt a layer of grit, but no debris. I didn’t know if that told me anything. The wind had changed, so we were definitely inside, but it seemed just as cold as it had been outside. Or maybe that was just me.
“Tony, let’s get some light in here,” Marco barked, letting go of me and leaving me unanchored and lost in unfamiliar, dark space.
&n
bsp; “Yeah.”
I felt heat rush past my head and the weird disturbance it made as the air changed in the path of what I assumed was a fireball. I couldn’t help but jump to the side, away from it. And then of course it happened again on the other side. I jumped again. Tony chuckled. A hand clamped down hard on my shoulder and voice close to me said, “Don’t worry, Joss. You can’t see me, but I can see you.”
I was jolted half out of my boots by a blast of crappy music right behind me. Tony let me go and his jacket moved against mine as he dug out his phone. Marco came back to us.
“Your girlfriend didn’t want to come along tonight, fine, but don’t let her keep you on the damn phone all night. Hate that shit,” Marco added, to me, it seemed, as Tony’s voice walked away from us. I ignored Tony’s conversation and Marco. I was listening for the other people in the room, trying to get a sense of where they were, maybe hear objects they were using that I might use.
Marco spun me around, pulling me up on my toes by the front of my jacket so that we were almost touching and I was completely off-balance. “I’m really glad you found us tonight, Joss. That rib Dylan cracked for me is just about all fixed up now and I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.” He turned us fast, tangling my legs, and then shoved me backward. I was falling through space, tucking my chin and bracing for the cement landing. Instead I collapsed onto what felt like a couch. It rocked backward with the impact, settled back on its feet, and a cloud of cigarette and other reek puffed up from within it. I could feel hard, scratchy upholstery, gunked by time and filth, against the fingers that were trapped between the small of my back and the cushions.
Marco straddled me, sat on my lap with his knees on either side of my legs, and his hand closed over my throat. Not squeezing, but just settling over the bare skin at the edge of my t-shirt, maybe just to feel my pulse race. I kept trying to breathe slowly, normally, and not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he was scaring me, how threatened I felt, how helpless.
“You know,” he said, his thumb stroking up and down my neck, “I don’t really understand what Dylan’s interest ever was in you. Because I’ve been watching you guys at school and clearly he’s just…not interested, right? I mean there you are, hanging around with your sad, shy-girl thing, stealing the little glances and all. And has Dylan made any kind of a move at all? Not that I’ve seen. And trust me, that’s not a problem for my boy Dylan.”
“He’s not your boy.”
“No, he’s not. Anymore. But he’s not yours either, no matter how pathetically much you…what’s the word, pine? No matter how much you pine after him. I thought he was into you, I really did. But I guess he got over it. I wonder what you did...”
This was the part where I was supposed to, like, get all upset and tell Marco to shut up. Maybe cry or something. Like I’d give him the satisfaction. Wrong girl, asshole.
“Of course, could be you’re too butch for him. I can see how that would be a turn-off. But sweetheart,” he said, leaning into me, “when we’re done here, when I’m done, when my boys are done, there ain’t no way Dylan is ever going to want whatever’s left of you.”
“All right, that’s it,” one of the girls said so unexpectedly that we both jumped. “Marco, that’s just nasty. I’m not hanging around for that.”
“So go. I don’t give a shit what you do.”
“Bella, you coming?”
“I…” the other girl’s voice just trailed off.
The first girl made a disgusted noise in her throat. “Fine. I’m outta here.”
“Marco,” it was one of the guys, and since I couldn’t place it, I figured it was Curtis, “I-I’m gonna walk Angie home, er, if that’s okay.”
“Again, busy, don’t care.”
“Marco!” Tony called.
“WHAT?!” and now Marco’s hand did clamp hard around my neck.
“Phone.”
“What the fuck, so she can whine at me about keeping you out late? I’m not gonna deal with your skag for you.”
“Shut up, man, it’s not her. Call waiting.”
Something about the way Tony said that was weird, meaningful, and it must have meant something to Marco because he let go, got up off me, and walked away. I tried to take a deep breath but it came as a series of jerks that wanted to turn into hiccupping, hysterical sobs or something. And that’s just not happening. None of this is happening. Because you’re going to focus, use your skills, use whatever weapons come to hand, and get yourself out of this mess. Period.
Marco must have been talking outside because I couldn’t hear voices. I could sense that there were still people in the room with me, even had a general idea where they were from the little sounds they made as they shifted and waited. But no one spoke.
Footsteps, brisk and definite, approached across the concrete. I figured that was Marco and I braced, knowing I was unable—at least right now—to stop him from getting hold of me again. Someone passed quickly in front of him, intercepted, and I heard Bella’s voice, again. “Marco, you don’t really—”
“I gotta go. Tony and I got somethin’ we gotta go take care of.”
“Now?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, now,” Marco snapped in that did I stutter or did your ears flap? tone. “Bella, I need you up on the roof, watching over things until I get back.”
“But I want to go with you,” she whined.
“Well, you can’t. So do what I’m tellin’ ya.”
The couch bounced and sagged as Bella landed beside me, and it was hard to keep myself from toppling onto her.
“Fine,” she said, and then her body went limp.
“The rest of you, whatever you do, do not take that blindfold off, you got me?”
“Absolutely, boss,” Corey said with an undertone of smartass.
“We’ll probably be about an hour, but the real fun doesn’t start until we get back, is that clear? Jeff?”
“I hear you.”
“All right then. Later.”
“What do you think that’s all about?” Nathan’s voice wanted to know. He was at a distance, in front of me and to the left.
“Not your business, twerp,” Jeff snapped at him. “Marco doesn’t like it when you ask a lot of questions.”
“I didn’t ask Marco.”
“Just shut up.”
Someone was pacing the floor in front of me, sort of prowling, like a lion in a cage. By process of elimination, it had to be Corey. Then he stopped and asked, “You got a good camera on that fancy phone?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Nathan’s voice. “Why?”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s time for some artistic photography.” He moved to my right and then he was shifting Bella’s body. She slumped against my side and her head fell on my shoulder.
“Maybe some artistic nudes? Ohhhh, yeaaahhh,” Jeff drawled. I could hear him coming closer.
“Nathan, get over here.”
Nathan shuffled over slowly. Reluctantly? “Looks like crap, guys. The light’s just not good enough over here.”
“Good point, kid. Let’s move some of these lights.”
Apparently there’s nothing like a little porn to spur Jeff to action.
Something twitched on the couch behind me and I flinched away, thinking it might be a rodent. But Bella’s hand wrapped around mine and squeezed. Her body still felt limp against my side. Her fingers moved, like she was searching for something. Then I felt the slight motions of her hand as she began to poke at the tape that bound my wrists together. There was resistance, tightening on the rubbery tape, and then the stab of her long, sharp thumbnail that jabbed my arm when it couldn’t break through and overshot. I bit my lip to keep from reacting and she tried again.
Jeff came back up behind me and I arched my back, giving Bella more room to work, pressing my shoulders into the back of the couch to cover her movements. Which sucked because it put my chest out on display for these cretins. Now that Bella was on my side and I could see a way out, my head wa
s clearing of any panic I’d felt about these guys pawing at me. I was going to get my hands back, get this blindfold off, and—
Jeff hands touched the skin of my throat, lightly, sort of…caressingly. Gross. They moved up under where the jacket hung down over my face and felt along my jaw-line. I was really itching to break his fingers. “It’s too bad about this blindfold thing. It’s gonna mess up the pictures.”
“Nah,” Corey said, moving Bella again, “it adds to the artistic whatever—the whole bondage thing. It’ll be hot.” He put her hand limp hand on my chest and I was sure she could feel how hard my heart was beating.
“I’ve always thought of Joss as a double-bagger anyway. That means,” Jeff added, in explanation to me, “that you’re so fuckin’ ugly, that to keep from puking when I was doin’ you, I’d not only put a bag over your head, but one over mine, too. Just in case yours came off.”
Nathan snorted.
“Funny, huh? But no, man, I’m totally serious.”
“I guess that’d be handy.” I drawled. “I mean, likewise on the puke factor. But also it’d probably be a good way to know you were there, doin’ your thing, ’cause otherwise I might not notice.”
Nathan snickered.
“You think you’re funny?” Jeff squeezed my jaw tight. “You think you’re a badass Nikita? What you are is helpless. I could break your neck now.” He tried to yank my head to the side, like how they always break necks in movies. But since he wasn’t really trying to kill me, he didn’t try hard enough and didn’t get too far. It felt like Bella was making progress on the tape, but it seemed to be taking forever.
“Take it easy, Jeff. Remember what Marco said,” Nathan warned.
“Would you quit sucking up for five minutes? He’s not even here. And I know what he said, okay? Don’t you worry about it. Now you,” Jeff told me, “should worry. Because when Marco’s done and I get my turn, trust me, you are going to know about it. And I am so going to enjoy making you cry.”
I was pulling my wrists as Bella worked and suddenly I felt the tape break and my hands pop free of each other. I didn’t think about waiting for the perfect moment. I just spun around, bouncing up onto the couch on my knees and plowing my fist across the back of it, grinning under my blindfold as it sunk into Jeff’s stomach and sent him stumbling back, away from me.