Page 107 of Hendrix

“Fuck me,” Iceman said drolly. “Ain’t that a turn-up for the books?”

“Well, lookee here, boys.” I sat back in my chair and scrubbed my hand over my beard, trying to calm my hammering heart. “Think we just found our connection.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ANNA

Slowly, my eyes opened, and my stomach roiled like a ship caught in a storm. I was so drowsy and so out of it that all I could do was jerk my head to the side and vomit on the concrete floor where I sat. After retching a few times, I lifted my head and rested my skull back against the wall behind me. My eyes drifted closed again, and I let out a pained moan.

“God, you’re pathetic,” a voice spat. “Fuck knows what he sees in you. What kind of MC president wants a weak-ass bitch for an ol’ lady? It doesn’t make sense.”

I could tell it was a woman speaking, but the voice was distorted. Something about it seemed familiar, though the rushing inside my ears made it hard for me to think straight, so I couldn’t place it.

I tried to open my eyes, but my head ached so badly that I had to squeeze them shut again. Even the waning sunlight shining through the windows felt like laser beams burning my retinas.

My heart was thudding so hard I could hear it pounding in my ears. My breathing turned shallow, and I began to fight for my breath.

Back when Hendrix and I broke up, I started to suffer from small panic attacks. The doctor explained that my emotions were so heightened they needed to come out somehow. He taught me breathing techniques and mind-calming exercises. Over time, I learned to control them, but at that moment, my head was so muddled that I couldn’t form a coherent thought.

I breathed slowly through my nose and out my mouth, over and again, until my heart rate eventually began to slow. But the panic was still there in the periphery of my mind, threatening to envelop me.

Everything was hard and cold, from the floor I was sitting on, to the wall behind my back. I couldn’t feel any heat source, even from the window.

The room smelled musty, like old furniture that hadn’t been used for years. My eyes cracked open to slits, but the world seemed tilted, like it had been rocked on its axis, and the room spun, making me nauseous again.

I tried to think back to how I got here. I remembered talking to Carina in the bar and then Tweety offering to come for a walk with me.

That was the moment everything came rushing back. The gun, the garage, the threats, the cloth over my face.

Oh my God,I thought.He drugged me. Tweety drugged me.

My hand went to my stomach and rested there. I tried to concentrate on the baby’s movements.

All I’d done in recent weeks was complain about how hard my son kicked, but right then, I would have done anything to feel that magic moving inside me.

Tears filled my eyes.Please kick,my inner voice implored.Please, sweetheart. Move.

But I couldn’t feel anything.

My ears pricked up at the sound of a door creaking, and two voices, one male and one female, filtered in from what appeared to be another room.

“We need to get rid of her now,”a deep voice said.

“Baby, we can’t do it here. They’ll find DNA evidence and link us to the murder. We have to wait until it’s safe to move her. We’ll take her to a deserted part of the river and shoot her there. Then, we can weigh her body down. She’ll sink to the bottom if we tie enough rocks to her bitch ass.”

The deep voice rose with a thread of panic.“The town’s fucking crawling with undercover Feds and bikers. We need to get outta here.”

“Stop worrying, Justin baby,”the other voice said soothingly.“You’re so tense. You need me to help you relax? I know how much you like my special brand of stress relief.”

Bile rose through my chest again, and I leaned my head to the side, fighting back the urge to be sick. Jesus. I needed to get out of this place. I had to pull myself together.

Slowly, I opened my eyes again. The light had dimmed. Time was marching on while I sat here, waiting to fucking die like some kind of wounded animal.

Footsteps tapped on the concrete, and the voices got louder as they entered the room.

“I’m going out to find another car,” Tweety said.

“Ace will bring us one,” the female protested. “He won’t let us down.”

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