Crazy Beautiful Forever (Dirty Twisted Love #3) (9 page)

J
asper is dead
. Jasper is dead!

As Cutter pushed her to her knees at Marlowe’s feet, a hundred terrible thoughts raced through Harley’s mind, but none of them as loud as the voice screaming that her son was dead. If Marlowe was here, gazing down at her with a look of predatory satisfaction on his deceptively round and merry face, then her son was already dead.

And Clay. Clay, too.

Oh God, they’re both dead.

Both of them.

Both.

“No, please,” Harley said, a sob bursting from her chest. “No!”

“Well, this is disappointing.” The laughter in Marlowe’s voice was echoed by the men and women gathered behind him. “I thought it would take a little longer to get around to the begging and crying part of the evening, love. You aren’t making this much fun.”

“Please,” Harley begged though she knew it was too late.

She wasn’t even sure what she was begging for. Certainly not mercy, she knew that was out of the question. There would be no mercy. The best she could hope for was a relatively swift death, taking comfort in the fact that she would soon be beyond the pain of knowing she had failed to save her child.

“You’ve been very naughty, Harley.” Marlowe squatted down in front of her, bringing his chest level with her face. “Very, very naughty.”

He was wearing nothing but a pair of black athletic shorts and a mask pushed up on top of his head. With a detached part of her mind, Harley noted that his chest was flabby and his belly soft and wondered how someone so weak and harmless looking could control men like Cutter and his friends.

But of course, she already knew the answer—Marlowe never missed a trick. He was always three steps ahead. She’d been a fool to think she could slip into his party beneath his nose and he wouldn’t notice and an even bigger fool to think she would ever be able to lead a normal life.

There was only one way out of the Raposa cartel and there was nothing normal or life-y about it.

“You lied to me and deceived me,” Marlowe continued, “and put all of us at risk by bringing a CIA agent to a family party.” Marlowe shook his head, tutting beneath his breath as the people gathered behind him made louder, more violent sounds of disapproval.

Just like a studio audience, Harley thought hysterically as a strangled laugh clawed its way free of her throat, responding to the cues of the man who controlled them.

Marlowe smiled in response. “I should kill you. The way I killed the man you were sneaking around my house with earlier today.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t I friends?”

The crowd roared in response, the shouts and screams loud enough to make Harley’s ears ring. Pulse racing, she scanned the faces of the people gathered behind Marlowe, but almost all of them were hidden behind masks. There were wolves, hawks, hyenas with wide, toothy smiles, and wild hogs with papier-mâché tusks already bloodied with paint at the ends.

As the masked people howled for their pound of flesh, Harley realized that these masks weren’t concealing the truth; they were revealing it. Revealing the brutal, blood-thirsty animals society demanded these people keep in check when their human faces were on display.

But now, in the darkness of the shortest night of the year, they were free to wear their true faces, to be the monsters they were inside.

Marlowe held up a hand to the crowd, waiting until they quieted before shifting his attention her way once more. “But you’re a survivor, a scrapper. I like that, and I believe in giving people I like a fighting chance.” He rubbed his hands together, the night now so quiet Harley could hear the dry skin of his palms shushing together. “So we’re going to play a little game.”

“I don’t want to play,” Harley said, tears spilling quietly down her cheeks. “Just kill me.”

“Aw, come now.” Marlowe’s lips puckered in a moue of clearly false disappointment. “Don’t be like that, love. You still have so much to live for. That beautiful boy of yours, for example.”

Harley’s eyes went wide, but she was too terrified to hope, too certain that Marlowe was about to pull the rug out from beneath her if she did, just for the joy of seeing her fall to her knees all over again.

“Jasper has been asking for you,” he continued as he stood. “I told him he might see you later tonight if you get lucky in the maze.”

Marlowe crooked two fingers at someone over Harley’s shoulder. A moment later, the man who’d held her gently, the one she’d hoped might offer her aid if things got too rough with Cutter and his friends, came forward, holding out a mask.

“Thank you, Lewis.” Marlowe took the mask and turned it toward Harley with a giddy grin.

It was a fox. A predator like the rest, but also a creature that was chased and hunted for sport.

“If you survive until the sun rises, I take you to see your son,” Marlowe said, his pale eyes gleaming in the light of the torches held by members of the crowd. “If you don’t, I bring Jasper to view your body, so that he will know his old life is dead and I am his only family.”

He held out the mask, making it dance back and forth through the air. “What do you say, doll? Ready to play?”

Throat seizing tight with a mixture of terror and determination, Harley plucked the mask from between his fingers and stood. “Are their rules to the game? Or does anything go?”

“Anything goes,” Marlowe said, reaching for the mask atop his head—a hound, of course—and pulling it into place.

“But there will be no man-made weapons allowed in the maze tonight.” He raised his voice as he turned to address the crowd, his hands thrusting into the air above his head. “We’ll be using only our teeth and claws tonight, ladies and gentlemen. That means bottles and torches stay here when the starting gun fires. Anyone who violates the order can play fox next go around.”

He fluttered his short, thick fingers while Harley slipped her mask on and fought to quiet her racing heart. “Any questions?” he asked, spinning to point at each member of the crowd in turn. “No? Well then…”

Marlowe spun back to her, bending his knees like a tiger about to pounce, letting his monster come out to play. “Then run along, little fox. We’ll give you a sporting head start, but not too sporting so you’d best run fast.”

Without a word, Harley raced for the entrance to the maze pulse thundering in her ears as the crowd roared behind her, a chilling mixture of human cries and wolf-like howling that made her sprint faster, dodging around the first turn and taking a left and then a right, choosing speed over strategy.

She had to run. To run and to hide, if she could find a place, or to fight to the death if she couldn’t. Either way, she had to live to see sunup. Jasper was alive and she wasn’t going to doom him to a viewing of her dead body. She had already gotten his father killed; she wouldn’t let him lose his mother, too.

Clay. Clay. Oh, Clay.

His name echoed through her thoughts, simple lyrics to the saddest song ever written.

She should have told him that she loved him. She should have forgiven him again. Better to be played a fool a hundred times than to have truth trapped inside that can never be spoken because the one you loved is gone.

Now, the only way to honor the truth was to fight like hell to survive and get to Jasper. To Jasper, to her and Clay’s child, the only ray of light left in the darkness.

She sprinted faster, pressing deeper into the maze as the starting gun fired and the crowd let up another savage cry for blood.

“
S
hit
, Hart, watch it.” Foster, a middle-aged agent with a marathon runner’s build and a nose that looked sharp enough to cut glass, braced himself on the dashboard as Clay took another turn fifteen miles over the limit. “If we get there dead, we won’t be able to help anyone.”

Clay didn’t answer; he simply urged the pedal closer to the floor, eating up the last few miles separating him from Harley. He hadn’t wanted backup, but Foster had insisted on coming along. Clay had agreed to save time arguing, but he wasn’t about to slow down.

It had only been thirty minutes. She could still be all right. She could have found a way to run or somewhere to hide. She was smart and determined and quick on her feet. If anyone could defy Marlowe and come out whole on the other side, it was Harley.

“You sure you can’t wait for air support?” Foster asked, checking the GPS on his phone. “They’re only thirty miles behind us and closing in fast.”

“This is Marlowe. You know every minute counts,” Clay said. “You can wait if you want, but I—”

“I’m not sending you in solo,” Foster said, cutting him off. “But what if she’s hurt? If the chopper’s already there, we can airlift her immediately to the nearest hospital. It could mean the difference between life and death.”

“So could a few minutes.” Clay’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “I know it’s dangerous going in just the two of us, but I can’t wait, Foster. I can’t. If she dies because I was waiting around for backup…” He cleared his throat. “I can’t do it, but that doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in danger.”

Foster was quiet for a moment before adding in a softer voice, “I don’t mind danger. I’ve got nothing left but the job, but you do. You have that little boy, and if his mama doesn’t come home, he’s going to need you.”

“He needs his mother,” Clay said, a grim smile curving his lips. Even a week ago he wouldn’t have believed the words, but now he did. He believed and he needed Harley home in one piece every bit as much as Jasper did. “Jasper would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to save her.”

“All right, then.” Foster sighed and tightened his grip on the dash. “I don’t suppose you’re going to slow down in case that hut up there is occupied?”

“Nope.” Clay edged the car up to sixty, filling the car with the sound of rumbling gravel.

The guard shack had been abandoned on his way out with Jasper and it was equally abandoned now. Marlowe wasn’t as fucking clever and all-knowing as he thought he was. He was making mistakes and Clay intended to make sure he paid the price for it.

“I’m going to pull up on the lawn,” Clay said, making a sharp turn into the field where the cars were parked and barreling toward the end. “I can get as far as the rose garden before we have to stop. That takes us within a two minute run to the maze.”

“Sounds good,” Foster said, pulling his weapon from its holster. “You lead and I’ll watch our backs. But when we get to this maze, we go in together. In close quarters, you’ll need someone watching your flank and if she’s injured you won’t be able to carry her out and defend yourself at the same time.”

“All right, but keep up with me.” Clay roared past the orange cones marking the edge of the field parking and over the bumpier ground, circling around the tents. “And don’t hesitate to fire. You know what kind of people these are.”

“Some of them are people like your girlfriend,” Foster said. “Good people who got in too deep and can’t get out.”

“Those people won’t be in the maze,” Clay said, his jaw clenching tight. “It’s only monsters and victims in there and the victims will stay out of our way.”

On the far side of the yurt village, Clay slammed on the brakes, sending the car skidding to a stop beside the first concrete bed of roses. A second later he was out of the car with his gun drawn, moving swiftly and silently through the quiet garden toward the sound of shouts coming from the maze, Foster close behind him.

Hold on, Harley, I’m almost there.

He was almost there. He was going to find her and then he was going to make sure that Marlowe never hurt anyone ever again.

H
er first instinct
—after ripping off her fucking mask and tossing it on the ground—had been to claw her way through an outer wall and make a break through the woods toward the highway.

But the bushy hedgerows were impenetrable. Thirty seconds of tearing at the thick limbs with their needle-sharp leaves was all it had taken to prove she wasn’t getting out that way. Next, she’d considered climbing the dense greenery and hiding on top of the maze, where she’d have a clear view of anyone coming her way from the surrounding corridors.

She was light enough for the hedge to hold her, but if the people hunting her bothered to look up, she’d be spotted instantly. The moon was full and bright, casting a sickly yellow light down on the garden that rendered even the darkest corners of the maze a murky gray.

There was nowhere to hide and soon there would be nowhere to run.

Harley darted around another hairpin turn, sprinting away from the sound of the howls and cries behind her, but she couldn’t avoid the rest of the party forever. Eventually, she would take a turn that led back toward the entrance and she would cross paths with the people who hunted her.

The thought was barely through her head when she turned another corner and collided with a thick male figure. She bounced off his solid chest and hit the ground ass first.

Before she could spring back to her feet, the man in the bear mask was on top of her, covering her mouth with his hand while he whispered in her ear—

“It’s Lewis. I’m alone, but they’re not far behind me. Do what I say and I’ll try to help you.”

Harley nodded, her breath rushing out hot and fast as he removed his hand.

“Roll under there, in the shadows as far under the brush as you can get.” He pointed to one of the darker corners of the maze. “I’ll run ahead and call out that I’ve seen you. With any luck, Cutter and the others will have their eyes on me and run right past you without looking.”

“Why are you helping me?” she whispered as she hurried to the bend in the maze and crouched down, wedging as much of herself into the hedge as she could. His suggestion was risky, but she was running out of options and of all the people she didn’t want to run into in the maze, Cutter was near the top of the list.

Right beneath Marlowe himself.

“I’ve got two little boys. Five and three.” Lewis looked up sharply, toward the howls echoing from farther down the row. “Stay here for a few minutes and then head back the way you came. Don’t go back to the entrance before dawn. There are people waiting to grab you when you’re flushed out. Marlowe’s giving half a million dollars to the person who puts you down.”

Harley wanted to thank him, to tell him how grateful she was that at least one person in this nightmare valued human life over blood money, but he was already gone, moving away from her hiding position, crying out in a booming voice, “Cutter, Eli, this way! I saw her turn the corner by the fountain.”

A moment later, heavy footsteps pounded past her hiding spot, accompanied by the smell of male sweat and alcohol fumes mixed with dirt and crushed grass rising from the maze floor. Harley ducked her head and held absolutely still inhaling the strangely familiar scent.

It was the smell of spring weekends when she was in junior high, getting drunk on stolen liquor with whatever girlfriend she was putting up with at the moment and watching the boys play flag football in the grass. It was the smell of watching boys do things, a past time she’d realized was overrated long before the rest of her peers.

By high school, she’d known that she didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch boys do things. She’d wanted to be the one playing the game. Or better yet, the one calling the shots, making the rules.

This night, this past year, and every year that she’d lived under Marlowe’s thumb with no way out were her personal version of hell. She was in hell, locked in a man’s game, fighting to defend her life and the life of her child because a violent son of a bitch had decided that she belonged to him.

At that moment, cowering in her dirty dress with no shoes and no underwear, hiding from people who were ready to kill her with their bare hands because the bully in charge had told them to—forced to run for her life with the knowledge that the man she loved was dead still filling her mouth with the taste of blood—her rage suddenly hit with enough force to knock the air from her lungs. She sat, open-mouthed and gasping, as the world turned red and her skin flushed hot and the need to destroy rose inside of her like a cyclone reaching toward the sky.

No more. There would be no more of this. It ended tonight and it wasn’t going to be with her death.

Some small part of her realized that she was still defenseless and vulnerable, but her spirit was ten feet tall and bulletproof. When the next person came around the corner—a man alone in a dog mask wheezing the sharp, staccato huffs of a person long out of shape—she didn’t stop to wonder if she was safer cowering in the shadows. She waited until he was just past her position and she leapt at him, locking her legs around his waist and her arm around his throat.

He gurgled in surprise, but by the time he brought his hands to her arm she’d already had him in a chokehold for a good ten seconds. Twenty seconds later, he crumpled to the ground beneath her.

She landed with a soft grunt, her ankle pinned beneath his body, but she held on for another minute. She had to make sure he didn’t wake up while she was switching out their clothes—if he died as a result, so be it.

When she was certain he was down for the count, she rolled him over, quickly tugging his jacket free from his heavy limbs. His pants—track pants that smelled like he might have pissed in them earlier in the night—were easier to get off. She peeled them off his legs and stepped straight into them, too grateful that he’d ignored the no-clothes tradition of the maze to care about the sour scent rising from the fabric. She shrugged into the jacket and reached for his mask, slipping it onto her face and disappearing around the corner just as more heavy footsteps sounded behind her.

Twisting her hair at the base of her neck as she ran, Harley then jerked the jacket’s hood over her head. She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin, letting her arms hang heavy and her stance widen as she became one of the hunters, instead of the hunted.

As long as she could stay on the move and avoid direct interaction with anyone else in the maze, she should be able to run right past them, hiding in plain sight until dawn. And if she happened to come across Marlowe along the way, and he happened to be alone, then she would show him her chokehold.

But this time, she wouldn’t let go until he’d stopped breathing.

Forever.