Page 47 of Deadly North

23

GIGI

When I wake up in the dark, it takes me a few seconds to remember where I am. But then it all comes flooding back to me, and I’d do anything to fall back to sleep and never wake up.

Or maybe this is the nightmare. I can only hope. Either way, I’m trapped, and I can’t escape.

I’m alone in a musty, filthy trailer. My hands and feet are bound with rope, which in turn is chained to a table fixed to the floor. I try screaming myself hoarse, but it’s no use. No one is coming to help me.

Memories flash, painful and clear. The last thing I saw as I was dragged away was Mack fighting to get to me, before he was shot. I saw the blood from his wound.

I don’t know where the bullet or bullets hit him.

Maybe he’s dead. My stomach lurches at the thought.

Frantically, I look around for something, anything, to cut me free. But it’s no use. The rope binding me is short, the chain even shorter. I can sit upright, but only just. The bottom of the table is just above my head.

Speaking of my head, it’s pounding with the fiercest headache I can ever remember having. I can’t reach up to feel the tenderness on one side, but I’m sure a large bruise is forming. My lips and throat are parched. I close my eyes and lean against the post of the table. Taking deep breaths, I try to think of anything I can do to get out of here.

I come up with nothing.

A loud bang jolts me, making me bang the top of my head on the bottom of the table. It’s the door to the trailer, slamming shut. Blaze is standing there, omnipresent sunglasses and bandana in spite of being inside. Under the mass of his beard, he gives me a strange, unhinged grin. “You figure it out yet?”

I swallow painfully to clear my throat. “Figure out what?” I rasp.

“Shit, you’re so fucking stupid,” he sneers. “Get the fuck up.”

“I can’t.” I raise my hands. “Not enough rope.”

“Goddamnit,” he spits. Reaching into his pocket, he produces a knife. He slices through the rope, close enough to my wrists that a jolt of fear shoots adrenaline through my veins. “Now, get up!” He reaches for my arm and hauls me up painfully, then throws me against the upholstered bench. I stifle a cry, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing my pain.

“Let me give you a little hint, since you’re such a fucking idiot.” Blaze pulls off the sunglasses. Then his bandana. I’ve never seen him without his head covered. I stifle a gasp. He’s mostly bald, but not in a natural way. There are uneven wisps of baby-fine hair here and there, long and scraggly. The skin of his head is puckered and shiny, like scar tissue. Likeburntissue. It’s the reason he’s bald, I’m guessing. He can’t grow hair any more.

But it’s his eyes, boring into me, that arrest my attention. Without the shades and bandana, there’s something so familiar about them. And not a good something. A very, very bad something.

“Are you getting it yet, you dumb cunt?” he says, pointing at his head. “Your brother did this to me.”

Oh my god.

“Dylan,” I whisper.

He throws back his head and lets out a bellow of laughter. “Fucking finally!” he howls, spreading his arms wide apart. “Jesus Christ, I thought you’dneverfuckin’ get it.”

My ex-boyfriend. The one who hurt me so badly it took years to stop having nightmares. The one I thought…

“Connor said you…”

“He thought he killed me.” Dylan interrupts me. “Right? That what he told you?”

“Yes.”

“He almost did. The only fuckin’ thing that kept me alive was planning for this moment. Planning what I was gonna do to you.” He leers, his eyes snapping like fire. “Then, what I’m gonna do to him and his club.”

My throat closes as three thoughts come to me at the same time.

He’s going to kill me.

He’s got the Scorpions behind him.

---