Page 18 of Kick

“How’s she doing?” Tank asks.

“Indie?” I ask and shrug. “She was raped, tortured, and held in a warehouse for three weeks. How the fuck do you think she is?”

Tank shifts in the driver’s seat, staring me down with a smug expression.

“What?”

“You named the bitch.”

“Yeah, considering she’s a missing fucking person, for shit’s sake. I had to name the bitch.”

“You could always shoot her.” Tank shrugs when I glare at him. “It’s true. If you’d let me put a bullet between her eyes, this little evidence thing wouldn’t have been a problem because you’d be thinking about what to do with the body instead of leaving incriminating shit behind.”

“Eat my dick, fuck-rag. You left that shit behind too.”

“Yeah, but I was busy dealing with the fucking dentist you shot over a bitch you didn’t even know.”

I change the subject. “What the fuck are you doing with Ivy?”

Tank laughs. “Aww, you’re really into this superhero complex, aren’t ya, brother?”

“Fuck you.”

“Nah, I don’t swing that way, but put that hot new bitch of yours between us and I might be up for a double tap.”

I let out an exasperated sigh, shifting in my seat. “This is bullshit. I’m going inside.”

Tank chuckles quietly as I open the door and slide out into the freezing cold night. We carefully cross the road—I don’t know why. There’s no one around to see us at all. When we reach the warehouse entrance in the alley there’s nothing more to see than a lone plastic bag caught in a drain pipe and shaking with the wind. The door is still busted off its hinges, thanks to Tank’s handiwork, but when we shine our torches across the concrete floor there’s nothing there—no chair, no blood stains, no video camera, nothing. It’s as though the past three weeks for Indie—for Kayla—didn’t exist.

“What the fuck?” Tank whispers in the darkness, and I know just by his tone that he knows I’m keeping something from him.

“We should go.”

“Start talkin’, brother.”

I shake my head, but even as I do I know there’s no way out of this. Tank won’t hesitate to beat the shit outta me to get the info he needs. I may as well save myself a few fractured ribs. “Indie was the victim of a rape ring. The dentist wasn’t the only motherfucker needin’ a bullet to the brain. There was a cop, and a priest too.”

“Jesus Christ. You didn’t tell Prez about this?”

“No.”

“You gotta take it to the table, brother. If there’s a cop in on it, and they know we have her, we’re fucked.”

“Prez already wants her dead. I can’t give him that kind of leverage over her.”

“Why the fuck is this bitch so important to you?”

“I don’t know—”

“Bullshit.”

“Because I see something in her.”

“You saw something in Lauren, too, and look how well that shit worked out.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath. I don’t know why he insists on reminding me of this shit. It’s not like I can forget that I’m the reason there wasn’t enough left of her to bury once the Angels were done with her.

“You gotta take this to the table.”

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