Charity's Warrior (37 page)

Steve's eyes caught me in the rearview mirror, looking at him. I searched for any sign of the man I used to know.

I didn't find him. There's nothing left but this animal that had obviously tracked me from home to the city and had attacked me at the Grill the night I met Justin. He followed me around. All those times I saw the hoodie—it was him. And, judging by the stitches Justin had on his head, Steve had attacked us both that last night, probably took Justin from behind by surprise.

Like a coward! A dirty friggin’ coward!

This was something different, this thing in his place, and I don't have a feeling or care for this thing. When Justin gets his hands on it, I'm not going to stop him. He can do whatever he wants with him. After what I saw earlier, I'm pretty sure Justin somehow has the means to kill him, and I'm fine with that.

I realize that's my anger and fear talking—I'm fine with that, too.

There is a lot more to Justin than I know. How he was commanding a team of what had to be mercenaries, I don't have a clue, but the only thing that matters is his heart, and that was true to me, I saw it in his eyes, the same way I can see into Steve's eyes.

Steve drove us around a few streets where the cabins grew closer together, still going slow and attracting absolutely no attention. I see a sign that says "office" with an arrow pointing in the direction we are going, and then we came into an area with a big cluster of buildings and a swimming pool. The main entrance.

I can't explain the excitement of seeing Lena standing beside a black SUV at the exit. It was her familiar voice earlier on the camera with Justin.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Steve hissed.

Drugged or not, I want to be a seen. I fight to get an inch or two higher in the window. The clinking chains betray me, and Steve catches me, reaching between the seats and grabbing the chain between my ankles. There is a vicious, uncaring yank and the metal links dig into my flesh, bruising my ankles and wrists as I slide flat on to the seat. He lets me go and rummages through the console next to him. I didn't expect him to come back with a gun pointing into my eyes.

"Do anything like that again and I'll kill us both!" he demanded. "Understand?"

I nodded, which makes my drugged head bobble.

This is too fucking surreal. I feel like I'm lost somewhere in a Tarantino film.

He turns back around and makes a casual left turn to get away from the exit. I'm sure it's not the only way out, but I was willing to bet Justin has them all covered by now. There was not going to be a way out.

I can't see where we're going. The car shifts left and right, and I see the sky spinning through the windows. I keep expecting him to be seen, for him to stomp on the gas trying to get away, but he keeps it slow and steady, showing a patience I would not have believed from him.

Eventually, he stops and turns the car off. He gets out while I watch, but doesn't say a word to me. I'm too terrified to risk sitting up—he still has the gun.

A large, dark cover came over the front window. Steve was sliding a car cover over me, concealing me. He got it fixed on all sides and then rapped on the window right above my head.

"Not a fuckin' sound," he barked. "I'm right out here, keeping an eye on your damn boyfriend. I'd hate to have to shoot us all."

I didn't hear another thing for a long time, while the darkness inside was growing hotter and hotter. Eventually, the heat and drugs made it impossible to stay conscious. I was in and out for hours until Steve came for me again.

The rustling of the car cover being pulled off got my attention. It didn't get any brighter; the sun has long since set. I can see Steve working through the window, putting the cover back on the car he'd gotten it from. The heat is intense now, and I find myself begging for him to open a door or window, anything to get some air in here.

Finally, he opens his door and gets back in. He starts the engine and air blasts from the fan. It's a huge relief, even though it's going to take a little bit before the air conditioner will cool it off.

"Your boyfriend is a stubborn prick!" he snaps as he turns to face me. "He waited hours to see if we would go back. I still don't have a fuckin' clue how he tracked us down."

Steve put the car in drive and we left.

"The prick froze my local accounts. That's the only way I found out he knew where we were. If it had been five minutes later, he would have gotten us," Steve said through a sarcastic chuckle.

He turned to me, his face red with anger. "Hey!" he shouted. "Just who the fuck is this guy that he can do something like that? Who the fuck are you mixed up with? Froze a fuckin' bank account, who the hell does that?"

It was a lot of questions considering he knows my mouth is taped shut. He turned around and drove.

My system is nearly empty of his drugs now, but I don't dare move. It was better if he doesn't know. It might give me an element of surprise when I need it. And I know that gun is still up there with him somewhere. It's best that I just lay here watching the streetlights pass.

Awhile later, I feel the car jerk and I see Steve trying to sit himself up. I don't know when the last time he slept was, but it was taking its toll on him. It happened two more times over the next fifteen minutes and I hear him cursing at himself for it. The dashboard lights have his face twisted up in ominous shadows around his swollen eyes.

He had to pull over. It wasn't optional any longer. Once we are stopped, he pressed his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes and scratching his fingers through his hair. "Son of a bitch," he breathed. He sounded worried, and he needed to be. "What the hell am I gonna do now?"

He put his head down on the steering wheel for a bit. I can't tell from here if he fell asleep or not. The only part of him that moved at all was his sides as his lungs slowly pulled and pushed the air in his lungs.

Suddenly, he sits straight up right. I see him look back at me for a moment, and then he is digging around in the passenger seat again. All I can do right now is pray that he isn't looking for his gun.

He came back up with it in his hand.

Oh Christ!

For a moment, I feel dizzy, the complete fear threatening to knock me out cold. My panicking chest pulls in great bursts of air through my flaring nostrils, just as I see him put it to his own head first.

Yes, great! Let him kill himself. Fuck him, as long as he doesn't hurt me!

Then, like a mad man, he starts talking to it.

I don't know where the gun is, but now I see what he has in hand is just a cell phone. Its shiny black case was easily confused with the gun he'd pointed at me earlier, especially when I wasn't willing to look at it so close again.

"It's Steve, Mom," I hear him saying.

He spends a few minutes convincing her he is alright, and my heart is breaking the entire time. I know her, I love his mother, and I have no way to tell her right now that her son is already dead. This thing talking to her was not the child she'd raised. If she knew what was happening, what he was doing to me, she would be beside herself.

Listening to him take advantage of her is starting to piss me off, but I am helpless to stop it. Somewhere up there, he did still have the gun, and there was still tape on my mouth, and chains on my hands. He convinced her to wire him money, telling her it was so he can come home.

When he hung up, he put his head back on the steering wheel. "Get comfortable," he mumbles back to me. "Because of your boyfriend, we can't go back where we were, and I don't have the cash to go someplace else. I have just enough gas left to go pick up cash wired from my parents, so this is our room for the night."

He was quiet for a short time.

"I don't see too many ways out of this," he finally said to me. "I don't know what you got me mixed up in, but I can see this isn't the average boyfriend."

Steve turned his face toward me without lifting it off the wheel. He looks exhausted and at the end of a road.

That is not a good thing.

"I do believe this is going to come down to me or him being dead. Since he's got a whole team on his side, maybe he has the upper hand," he said slowly. "Then again," Steve lifted his right hand, made it into the shape of a gun and fired at my face, "I've got you."

I'VE BEEN HEARING A
sound now for about three or four minutes. At first I thought it was a distant truck, but it's been growing closer and louder. When I realize it's the sound of a helicopter, I give up hope that it might be Justin's black SUV's grinding down the road as he comes for me.

Strange that it keeps getting closer, though.

Now it's so close that it pulls Steve from a sound sleep. He barely moves, his head tilts as he listens and tries to convince himself that it isn't getting louder. But it is.

"What the fuck is this now?" Steve says under his breath.

In moments, the damn thing is right above us. We are both in shock, I think.

A helicopter, really? Who the hell has a damn helicopter?

Steve puts his head against his window, trying to see. I wish he was dumb enough to roll it down and stick his head out, where they could blow it the hell off.

Suddenly we are flooded with light. It blasts through the windshield and the back window at the same time, startling us. Knowing the helicopter would distract us, they had snuck the SUV's right in on us. We didn't even see them coming. Under the blinding light, I can't actually see the SUV's, but I know it's them, just as I know that Justin is in the one in front of us.

I can feel him.

I hook my feet under the chair for leverage, and I fix myself upright in the middle of the backseat where Justin can see me.

What came next was so unexpected that I didn't believe it happened, not for the first quick moments.

Steve eyed me for moving, shocked and angry. The car keys had been dangling in the ignition. He turned it and the car roared to life while he stared at me for betraying him.

We hear voices shouting at us, but in the flood of light, we can't tell if they are shouting through their windows or if they had gotten out and are coming up on us on foot. Oddly, I feel like I'm the only one curious about that. Steve is blank.

There is going to be a last stand, and it's going to start now.

He carefully puts the car in drive.

A single tear slips along his cheek.

My ears fail. Every sound vanishes as the terror renders me temporarily deaf. I fix my eyes out through the windshield into the light there, connecting with Justin the only way I can.

Steve lifts his hand. The cell phone is gone. The gun is back. There is no mistake this time.

He aims it at me and fires.

My hearing returns at the thundering
crack!

It feels like he punched me in the chest for a second. I'm pushed back against the seat, and then I'm burning. When I look down, I see the sheet draped over me becoming red.

He shot me!

No hesitation. No warning.

I'm not alright! I'm not alright!

As I fall to the back seat, I hear shouting and loud popping and thumping. I'm sure they've opened fire on him. The bullets rip through the hood as Steve stomps the gas and pulls the wheel. The entire car jerks as he hits something and bounces off.

My breath is lost. When I try to catch it, I feel gurgling in my chest on my left side. It's too much to accept.

I pass out cold.

WHEN I COME TO
again, just a few moments later, I'm half on the floor. Steve is screaming and laughing, as if he's playing Grand Theft Auto. This is all just a game to him now. I think he's knows his fate, and he's snapped—completely insane. We swerve to each side and I can hear the car's engine screaming.

The air smells metallic and acrid, and I think it might be a combination of the sheet and my burnt flesh where the bullet passed through them both.

My chest still gurgles when I breathe, and it hurts so damn bad. The pain is an intense heat, like a hot pole ramming through me from front to back.