Page 58 of Devil Inside: Green

And there’s a white camper van parked on the property. Another confirmation that Danni was right. She’s been fucking right about everything. I ride over to it and dismount my bike with Reap at my back. Gun in hand, I fling open the door. It’s empty, but this… this was his kill site. There’s a pulley system with cords rigged for harnesses.

The stench is overwhelming. Like urine and death. I flash my phone around the inside, using the flashlight, and—it feels like the wind knocked out of me when I see that mattress with a huge bloodstain on it. But then I realize that’s dried blood, not fresh.

Is Danni still alive?

Did she escape?

Which way would she have gone? I shine the flashlight around the property and as I move in a circle, I almost miss the man-sized shoe print in the semi-dried mud. She fucking got away. The print points to the treeline farthest from the trailer. That’s the direction I take off running in. It gets so much darker once we’re surrounded by the dense thicket of trees that I can’t see more than a couple of feet in front of me with the flashlight.Where’d you go, Preppy?

“Danni?” I call out. “Babe? Where are you?” Panic starts to set in because I know I’m so close. I catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and shit—I’d swear this in a court of law that Dela appeared to point me in the right direction. I know it’s only in my head. But my gut says that’s the way to run. When I start to lose my way, she appears again. It’s a panic-induced hallucination, but it’s all I have to work with, so I follow.

“Danni?” I yell this time. My foot catches on something, and I trip. I think it’s an old animal trap. But as I hit the ground, I see an unmoving form lying in a heap on the hard-packed dirt beneath a tree. I scramble over to the heap. “Fuck!” I scream as I turn her over. “Danni, babe, you fucking wake up. Wake up!”

“Careful, man,” Reaper says while trying to get me to calm down. “She could have a head injury or a spinal cord injury. You could permanently paralyze her or worse.”

I’d take her paralyzed, but I let him tug me gently back away.

But then I catch sight of her injuries and Jack is going to die.

“Baby,” I whisper. She doesn’t move. Not a twitch or a blink. Not again. Not fucking again. I can’t have been too late. She’s covered in slashes and blood. I press my shaking fingers to her carotid to try to locate a pulse, but I can’t find one and I don’t know if it’s because I’m shaking too hard or if she’s gone.

If I stop to think, which in my state, isn’t really possible, I’d realize that she’s warm to the touch and I feel little puffs of breath hit my hand as I caress her head because I can’t hold her in my arms. A dead Danni would be cold. And she certainly wouldn’t be breathing, although it’s shallow.

I pull up my Snap app to find my exact location, then I dial 911. Once I get her safe, I’m adding Danni on this goddamn app.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“Listen, my name is Rob Green. I’m with the Bedlam Horde MC. My girl was kidnapped today—”

“You want to report her kidnapping?”

“No—I tracked her. She’s in my arms, but she’s in bad shape. I need police and an ambulance. I think she was kidnapped by the Bible Belt Killer. There’s this van on the property. Shit—the cops need to look inside that van.”

“Sir, where are you located?”

“We’re in the forest.” I give her my exact coordinates for the ambulance to get to us and she has me describe the nature of Danni’s injuries. She’s not conscious. I tell them where the drive to the property should be and that they’ll see the van and two bikes parked there.

“Please stay on the line with me. I’ve got units en route right now. Listen carefully. We’re sending out a helicopter with a flood light to help them see you. If you hear them or see the light, I need you to start yelling for them. That area is so dark.”

It feels like a hundred years before I hear the loud rumble of the chopper and some of the light breaks through the trees.

“Over here!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

“We’re here,” Reaper joins in. The sirens get louder.

“Here!” I just keep yelling over and over. “Here!”

When the first officers bust into our space with flashlights and guns drawn, I don’t even blink twice. They order me to lie flat and that’s when I remember that I’m packing my .38.Fuck.I’m doing time. But at this point, if it saves Danni, I don’t give a fuck. I lie flat on my belly.

“I’m on the phone with the 911 operator right now,” I tell them. One officer kneels on my back to cuff me. Another kneels on Reaper’s back. We don’t fight. “Just get her to safety.”

“What’s her name?”

“Daniella Romero. But everyone calls her ‘Danni.’ Just get her safe, please.”

One of the cops radios in to I assume other cops waiting by the cars. He tells them to send in paramedics. After fucking forever, two more cops show shining flashlights with two medics carrying a thin board, one at each end, who drop down next to Danni and start assessing her condition.

“How long has she been out?” one of them asks.

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