Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (30 page)

~~~

As the Explorer rolled to a stop, I cautiously glanced out the back left window. We were at some kind of construction site. I could see the outline of a light-colored van. I would guess that the color was white. Three shadowy figures leaned against it. One figure held a lit cigarette to his mouth. I recognized the smell—the sweet odor from the lab.

I adjusted my vision, cutting through the night so I could see the men clearly. They were all burly and rough-looking, with dark eyes, black hair, and bronze skin. I felt my jaw slacken, recognizing one of the men. The smoker was the custodian with the silver tooth. I had forgotten about him until this moment. Exhaling the sweet-smelling smoke, Silver Tooth sneered a smile.

The engine turned off. Letting out a long, agonized breath, Ben said to himself, “Well, here goes nothing.” Hearing the door handle pulling up, I ducked down before the cab light caught me in the window. Ben stepped out, slamming the door behind him.

I heard the same low, cruel laugh I had heard on the phone. “I told my friends you were stupid enough to come.” As the caller spoke, one of the men flipped on the van’s headlights, illuminating the surrounding dark.

“Where’s Drake?” Ben demanded loudly.

“Careful, Mr. Johnson. You’ll wake the dead,” the caller warned.

His friends snickered.

“Where
is
Drake?”

“Where
is
the video?”

“First, Drake.”

“There is no Drake, you idiot.”

“Well, no Drake, no video,” Ben said defiantly.

The cab light switched off. Cautiously, I peeked. Silver Tooth held a gun on Ben.

Fury ignited in my chest, sweeping through me like wildfire. Feeling heat in every taut muscle, I took in the scene through the red haze burning in my eyes, wanting blood—the blood of the man pointing a gun at my friend. My body tensed, preparing to spring into action, and my hand shot to the tailgate’s latch. Then, somehow, reason broke through the feral impulse, clearing the red haze.

Control the anger. Be smart. Think.

Pulling my hand back, I evaluated the situation. The gun was aimed at Ben’s chest, and the other two thugs, standing only feet from him, had holstered guns strapped to their sides. The holsters were exposed, making the guns easily accessible. Any sudden moves on my part, and all three thugs would have guns in their hands in a split second. At this distance, I wouldn’t be able to take them out quickly enough, not before Ben got hurt.

I had to wait.

“How do you think this is going down?” Silver Tooth asked in a throaty voice. “I’ve got a gun, and you are unarmed. Get the video, or I put a bullet in your useless brain.”

“My useless brain decided it was better not to have the video with me. Give me Drake, and I’ll give you the video.”

“You’re a fool,” Silver Tooth hissed in contempt. “Tie him up and check his car.”

While Silver Tooth kept the gun trained on Ben, the other men roughly grabbed him, pulling his arms behind his back, tightening a nylon zip tie around his wrists. Ben glared boldly at Silver Tooth as one thug taped his mouth with duct tape. The other dropped a burlap bag over his head, loosely wrapping twine around the bottom to secure it in place.

“For your sake, Mr. Johnson, the video better be in your vehicle. Check it out,” he said to his thugs. “Then toss him in the van. We’ll deal with him later.”

I ducked, my heart speeding with a mixture of excitement and fear. The two men shuffled toward the Explorer.
Time to be the element of
surprise
. My hand grasped the tailgate’s latch.
Showtime
.

I wrenched open the tailgate and dove out head-first. My hands made contact with the rocky dirt and I flipped up, landing squarely on my feet. Silver Tooth already had the gun on me.

My eyes zeroed in on a jagged-edged rock at my feet. In one fluid movement, I reached down, grabbed the rock, and hurled it toward the gun. My movements were so quick that Silver Tooth didn’t realize what had happened until the rock tore through the top of his hand, embedding in the thin flesh.

Letting out a piercing scream, Silver Tooth dropped the gun. Diving forward, I had it in mine before it hit the ground. When he looked up, he was looking down the barrel of his own weapon.

Though in pain, he kept his voice even, menacing. “Who sent you?”

I couldn’t very well answer in my young female voice, so I kept silent, clasping the gun that I had no idea how to shoot.

Peripherally, I saw one man’s hand move toward his holster. Before his hand moved a fraction of an inch more, I turned the gun on him. His hands flew up in the air in surrender. I moved the gun to the other man, who mimicked his friend, raising his hands in the air. Silver Tooth flinched. The gun moved back to him.

Silver Tooth laughed low. Holding up his limp hand, he asked me, “Do you mind?” Taking my silence as consent, he savagely ripped the rock from his flesh.

Perspiration beaded on his forehead. “Why don’t you tell me what you want,” he said steadily.

I kept quiet.

He lifted his chin toward Ben. “Do you want him?”

Still, I didn’t respond, at a loss of how to cross this bridge.

“The silent type, eh? How about I do the talking. You want what we all want: the assassin.”

Who is the assassin?

His lips lifted, revealing the silver tooth. “No reason we can’t share, eh? Be partners. Together, we take these Kings out of the equation.” Smiling, he waited.

After seconds of silence, his face contorted in frustration. “Do we have a deal or not? Talk!”

Well, I certainly couldn’t do that, and I wasn’t using the gun in my hands. Simultaneously, I tossed the gun behind me and kicked Silver Tooth square in the chest. I could hear the wind leave his body. He flew backwards and landed on his back, gasping.

Adrenaline rushed through my veins. The night sky brightened, revealing everything around me in a new light. I perceived every physical detail of my adversaries, breathing in the smell of their skin and hair, tasting their fear on my tongue. Time and space slowed. Everything slowed but me.

The other men went for their guns. I leapt toward the nearest thug, grabbing his hands just as he drew his gun. Squeezing his hand hard, I felt bones crack and give way. Crying out, he released the weapon, letting it drop to the ground. Still clenching his hand, my other arm swung around, punching him in the gut. His body folded around my fist, and he flew backwards ten feet, bouncing off the van. Before he hit the ground, my left leg swept the other thug’s legs as he trained his gun on me. His feet flew up, and he landed on the back of his head with a thud. As he lay dazed on the ground, the gun rested in his fingertips. Darting forward, I retrieved the gun, twisting back to grab the one at my feet. With slack jaws, each man looked blurry-eyed in my general direction, unable to visually track my fast movements.

Sensing movement from behind, I dropped the guns and spun around, catching Silver Tooth by his outstretched arm as he went to grab me. Twirling him in a circle, I let go, and he flew through the air, his airborne limbs resembling a rag doll’s. Hitting the ground, he landed flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him for a second time.

One of the thugs made a feeble attempt to get up, but I was on him like a fly on stink. Grabbing him by the collar, I threw him against the van. As his body began to slink down, I eagerly grabbed him up again, throwing him at the Explorer. A scream tore from his throat as he flew sideways across the ten-foot gap. His body bounced off the Explorer, falling into a heap on the ground. Excited, I sprung at him, gathering him up by his collar and pulling him up so we were eye to eye.

Petrified, he didn’t struggle, only stared at me with terrified eyes. As I looked into his dark, wide eyes, an image flashed before me: The black cat playfully tossing the mouse in the air, toying with its prey before the kill. This image punched a hole through the adrenaline-induced cloud in my head. Through this clarity, I recalled John Merrick in the movie
The Elephant Man
crying out in anguish, “I am not an
animal
!” Releasing the thug’s collar, I watched him sink to the ground at my feet.

I am not an animal
.

Slowly, I reached down to the terrified man, grabbing his collar again. His body was rigid as I dragged him across the dirt to the van, depositing him next to the other thug. Both men stared at me, frozen with fear. I put up a single finger, warning them to stay. They complied fully, reluctant to even take a breath. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Silver Tooth inching across the ground, afraid to make any sudden moves. Unarmed, he didn’t pose much of a threat.

The guns
.

In a heartbeat, I collected the scattered guns, placing them on the Explorer’s floor. Closing the Explorer’s door, I turned around and assessed the men: the two thugs hadn’t moved an inch, and Silver Tooth had inched a few more feet. Then I stepped behind Ben, who had stood frozen during the entire altercation, and snapped the cord from his wrists. Still, he didn’t move. I gave his back a reassuring pat. He flinched, but otherwise stayed silent and still. I assumed he was in shock, and then realized I, too, was in shock. Drawing in a ragged breath, I lowered my face into trembling hands.
It’s the
adrenaline
, I realized, my heart pounding like a jackhammer in my ears.

The van’s engine started.

My head jerked up. The thugs were scrambling in through the side door. As I contemplated what to do, it peeled away, Silver Tooth driving with his good hand. In a running leap, I sailed through the air, grabbing the rack on the van’s roof. Pulling myself up, I flattened my body out on top, hoping I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb against the white.

~~~

As the van sped through the city streets, I fought a battle of my own. My body shook uncontrollably. Overwrought with aggression, I had to fight the urge to punch through the windshield and grab Silver Tooth by the throat. Deep breathing and the cool air rushing over my body eventually calmed me. The men’s foreign tongue, which I decided was Spanish, soothed the beast in me. Like a lullaby, I listened to the cadence of the unfamiliar words pouring from their mouths, while tears trickled from my eyes.

Once able to form constructive thoughts, I came up with a plan. Deciding to avoid more confrontation, I planned to play “fly on the wall,” to be an observer and collect information—unless, of course, these men were taking me directly to my dad. Then there would be trouble. My fingers crossed at this happy thought.

We drove down into the warehouse district. The narrow streets weaved together like a maze around old, dilapidated brick buildings with bars over windows of broken glass. The smell of rotting fish hung in the stale air, trapped between the brick walls. The streets were eerie and still, with not a living soul in sight except for the rats caught in the headlights as they scurried away behind dumpsters and piles of trash.

The van pulled up to a warped wood freight door. One of the thugs hopped out of the passenger side door, unlocked a huge deadbolt on the freight door, and slid it open. The door protested, moaning and groaning along the rusted metal tracks. The van slowly drove through the opening.

With the thug who had opened the freight door still outside and the other ones in the van, I knew this would be my best opportunity to find a place to hide. I scanned the cement floor, but the only likely candidates were the wood crates stacked about. Looking up at the open wood rafters, I noticed a small storage loft ahead. The only thing leading up to it was a tall ladder with peeling red paint. Deciding a bird’s eye view was best, I stood up and leapt to the loft. As I landed, the structure shook, threatening to collapse. I counterbalanced the swaying with my weight, settling it as the van’s engine cut below. Slowly, I lowered myself to the floor, lying flat on my stomach, praying the men hadn’t noticed the structure swaying.