Page 35 of Freeing Souls

Another man steps forward from around the side of the van and glances down at the dead man with disgust before glancing up at me. “That wasn’t very nice.”

His eyes… I know those eyes. I’ve seen those eyes. “What do you want?”

“Well, that’s a stupid question.” He tilts his head as he studies me. “Shall we see how tough Rage’s offspring is?”

“Harley–” Rage coughs, but I don’t look down at him.Shutdown, don’t feel.

“No long lasting injuries,” the man says and then nods towards me. “Go ahead.”

Five men move towards me all at once, and I begin firing. I’m able to drop two men before one of them grabs my arm and my instincts kick in.

Twisting out of his hold, I use the gun to hit his head, but he moves to the side so it barely scrapes him. Coming at me again, he goes for my hair, but I duck and spin before kicking my leg out and getting him right in the balls. He grunts as another set of hands grabs me from behind. They yank my arms behind my back, and I let out a scream at the pain. The first guy comes forward again, and I try to kick out at him, but he steps aside.

“Fucking stop, you bitch,” he snarls.

Without responding, I narrow my eyes and keep fighting, trying to pull my arms out of the other guy's hold. He holds them high enough up my back that if there's one wrong move, he can easily snap my arms out of the sockets.

I don’t get a chance to come up with a new plan because there's a sharp pinch in my neck, and then everything slowly fades away.

Looking straight ahead, I can barely make out Gabe as he lays unmoving on the ground.

Chapter Eleven

Grayson

“Are you doing alright?” I ask Lex as the guys and I step into the kitchen where she sits at the counter with Presley and Jayce.

“I’m good. Presley let me spend the day with her since I wasn’t sure what to do.” She chuckles nervously.

“Like I said, just make yourself at home. Everyone will be welcoming,” Pres tells her with a warm smile.

“Did anyone have plans for cooking dinner tonight?” I ask Presley, noticing out of the corner of my eye how Ryker is intently focused on his phone, his brows dipped in frustration.

“I don’t think so. You want to cook?”

“Yeah. I haven’t in a while and feel like I need something different to do.”

“You can cook?” Lex asks, raising a brow.

I shrug. “I try.”

Presley scoffs. “He can cook. He did well on his own, and then I started helping him. Just don’t ask these two for help, or you’ll run into trouble,” she says, gesturing to Cade and Ryker.

Cade rolls his eyes, but Ry doesn’t make any snide remarks, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Ryker, you good?” Cade grumbles.

“Harley and Rage are still gone.” I go to cut him off and tell him to stop obsessing, but he beats me to it. “I know, I know, let them be, they are bonding, but they were on their way back the last time I checked the trackers on their phones. They should’ve been back thirty minutes ago, and now, the trackers aren’t loading.”

“Let me see.” He hands me his phone, and I check over the system we use for phone trackers. As much as Ryker insisted on tracking our bodies after Cade and Harley were taken, Nerds and I have to do more research on it. It has just kind of been shoved to the back of our plates, so we settled for phone tracking until we can figure it out.

I reboot the system on his phone, and when it still doesn’t load it up, a bad feeling settles in my gut. I walk out without a word, heading back to the tech room.

I faintly hear Lex asking if everything is okay, then Presley responding to her.

“What’s wrong with it, Gray?” Ryker asks as he and Cade trail behind me as I walk into the tech room.

“I don’t know. Let me bring it up on my computer.” Once I get the system up, I am able to check their last location. It was about an hour and half from here, and when I look at the history, Ryker is right. They should’ve been back by now. “Taking a risk that this is just a malfunction would be stupid of us. We should find Sugar.”

---