Page 8 of Wired Ghost

“Everybody on your knees.” Jake was already pulling zip ties out of a handy side pocket to secure the dealers. The men complied, grumbling, and he advanced toward them.

“Hey there, cowboy.” A deep voice with an Irish accent cut across the clearing. “I’ve got a shotgun aimed at your woman, and I’m hoping you don’t want her to die.”

Jake’s gaze flew to the doorway of the largest shed.

A tall man with a shaved head and a neat red beard stood in the doorway, holding a Remington Tac-13 semi-auto comfortably across his tight midsection. His eyes were on Jake, but that killer gun was on Sophie. “Drop your weapons and let go of my girl, or the lady gets it.”

The guy who’d grabbed the target wasn’t the boyfriend.

Sophie slowly raised her hands. The girl tore away from her, running to plaster herself against O’Brien. She looked tiny beside his bulk, and way too young, but the vicious tone of her voice gave Jake a chill. “Shoot ‘em, baby.”

“On your knees,” O’Brien said, his flat blue eyes expressionless.Who was this guy?Clearly, they’d underestimated him—Finn O’Brien was no stranger to violence.

Sophie glanced over at Jake. He held her gaze and gave a slight nod as he dropped to his knees, lacing his fingers on the back of his head.No contract was worth dying for.

Sophie knelt as well. “We were hired by Lia’s father to bring her home,” she said. “We’re not cops. Let us leave, and you’ll have no further trouble.”

“That’s not going to happen,” O’Brien said.

The other gang members scrambled to their feet. Eager to prove his worth, the one who’d grabbed the girl reached Jake first. He kicked him in the legs, cursing ripely. Jake went down and curled into a ball, his arms around his head. Pain detonated like explosions in his body as the bastards rained kicks and blows on him.

“Stop it!” Sophie screamed, but they didn’t stop, and there was nothing for Jake to do but take it and live to fight another day.

A blow to his head brought welcome darkness.

* * *

The only wayJake knew he was awake was the pain, because the darkness was as thick as it had been when he’d been knocked out.

He groaned, and his voice sounded funny—echoey and hollow.

“Jake. Are you okay?” Sophie’s voice came from right beside him, pressured with stress.

“Not sure.” Jake ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, testing for broken teeth. He tasted blood and he’d bitten his tongue rather badly, but nothing else had been lost, thank the good Lord. He liked his teeth and his mom had paid good money for orthodontia in his teens. He breathed shallowly against sharp stabs of soreness from his ribs and abdomen. His thighs were one big mess of bruises, but when he stretched his legs out gently, he could move them. “Nothing’s broken. I think. Maybe a few ribs—those are the worst.” He rubbed his eyes, but nothing. Still couldn’t see. “What the crap happened to the lights? Am I blind?” He tried to keep his breathing even and calm, though he was blinking rapidly in rising panic at the total blackness.

“No, you’re not. They pitched us into a lava tube. There’s no light down here.” Sophie’s hands touched his face, his head, and he hissed a sharp breath as she encountered the goose egg on the back of his skull. “I’m feeling for wounds.”

“Don’t bother.” Jake twitched away from her touch. “Let’s focus on getting out of here before you worry about first aid. How long was I out?”

“Not long. Fifteen minutes or so.”

Now that his eyes had been open a while, Jake could perceive a slight gray circle in the space above him. “That the way we came in? They covered the hole.”

“Yes. A plywood circle.”

A rank odor had been penetrating Jake’s awareness; a fruity but foul scent that felt like a slimy substance being rubbed all over his abraded skin. “What the hell is that smell?”

“I think this is their refuse pit.” He could tell Sophie was breathing through her mouth. “There’s human waste down here. Kitchen scraps. And, I think, some decomp.”

“Decomp? As in . . . a body?”

“Maybe it’s a dead animal,” Sophie said, but she didn’t sound hopeful.

A wave of nausea swamped Jake. He shut his eyes. He was lightheaded, disoriented by the totally black environment, and that smell . . . “Gah! I think I’m going to puke.”

“It would be better on your ribs if you didn’t,” Sophie said evenly. “Not to mention the odors we are currently subjected to. Though I expect in a few hours they will no longer seem so acute.”

Jake breathed slowly through his nose, counting to five on each inhale and exhale, and spitting out the taste of bile until the nausea receded.

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