Page 14 of Captive of Outlaws

“I thought your car was busted,” I all but shout over the growling of the engine. “Seems fine to me.”

“I lied.” Will doesn’t turn around, just yanks the shifter and adjusts his sunglasses. “Will you turn this shit off?” he gripes to LJ, who’s sitting shotgun and fiddling with the stereo dials to crank up the volume on some rock song I vaguely recognize.

“Why, so we can listen to your pretentiousjazz?” LJ grunts. “No fuckin’ thank you.”

“Classic cars deserve classic music,” Will says. “Isn’t that right, greasemonkey?”

“Zeppelinisclassic,” LJ grouses.

“Leave me out of this,” I mumble. I couldn’t give a shit what music we listen to. “Where are we going, anyway?” The Porsche is handling the curves and climbs of the forest roadlike a dream—obviously—but I’m far outside my mental map of the area. The trees are getting denser, the patches of sky and light fewer and farther between.

Will and LJ look at each other.

“Home,” they answer at the same time.

They’re a weird pair, I have to admit—the smooth-as-ice rich boy and the rugged guy with, as I can now see, a tattoo of a bear claw spread across his left shoulder blade.

“Home?” I frown. “So you guys are...what? Roommates?”

LJ bursts out laughing, a husky deep sound like a strong pull of whiskey. Will’s jaw tightens with a small smile as he shifts into third.

“Sure,” LJ says, coughing. “We all split a fourplex in the senior dorms.”

They’re fucking with me. I fold my arms, not blushing.

“We live in the same...house,” Will says smoothly. “It’s...probably easier to understand once you see it.” He glances at LJ. “You call Rob yet?”

“Oh. Yeah.” LJ shifts in his seat, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, and Will takes the opportunity to flick the music from Zeppelin to something with saxophones and a slow, languid percussion. “Goddammit, Scarlet.”

“Driver should always choose music,” Will says mildly. “Unless you’d like to make a suggestion, grea—I mean, Maren?”

“I’m fine with whatever,” I say idly.

Music is the least of my worries right now, and I can barely hear anything over the rush of my pulse in my ears anyway.

I’m starting to look around through the windows, trying to pick out anything that could be construed as a landmark, but no dice. And why does it even matter anyway? What am I going to do, call 911 and say I’ve been kidnapped? If the sheriffcame to pick me up, that’d just make things worse. Besides, I went voluntarily. Does that even count as kidnapping?

Will makes a hard right and tears up an even smaller road I hadn’t even noticed coming up. It’s barely wide enough for the Porsche and more like a horse trail than anything designed for a car.

“You’ve got no respect for the suspension, I see,” I mutter under my breath.

“What’s that?” Will says, glancing at me in the rearview.

“Nothing,” I say quickly and fold my arms.

I’m trying not to feel dread at the thought of where they might be taking me...but a road like this can’t lead anywhere good, I can’t help but think. The roommates thing was a joke, but if they live together out here in the middle of the woods...

Oh, Jesus Christ. It’s going to be some drug den or a meth lab. That would explain all the fancy shit they have and why they’re so secretive.

And I guess that would also explain why they claim to be criminals too.

I feel suddenly, stupidly, incredibly foolish for pointing that out. Running away from my legal guardian to evade a conservatorship I don’t deserve to be trapped in isn’t even in the same criminal universe as the drug trade.

I wouldn’t have picked Will for a kingpin, not necessarily. But LJ has the look of someone who’s been in a few serious fights where you don’t want to see the other guy.

“Yo Rob,” LJ’s voice growls into his phone. “You there?”

Rob must be the leader, I figure. An icy surge of fresh panic washes over my chest. Any group of guys like this who report to a leader cannot be up to anything good.

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