Page 32 of A Wrench in the Plan
Dustin released me, but it wasn’t a second later that he grabbed a fist full of my hair and tossed me to the ground.
I couldn’t say what came over me. Some sort of rage bubbled up inside of me like I’d never known before. I was on my feet, armlessly lunging for Dustin a second later. I collided with his body and bounced off of him. Not the move I had imagined. My butt hit the floor hard and I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t cry out.
Dustin laughed as he looked down at me. His face showed how pathetic he thought I was. Unblinking, I stared up at him, my hate for him clear in the daggers I was glaring his way.
“Get that bitch under control,” the new man barked, not even bothering to look at me.
“Gladly, VP,” Dustin said as his foot reared back and he kicked my ribs hard enough to make me call out in pain. “Gotta admit,” his boot slowly came down on my face, pressing against my cheek painfully, “I like it when they fight. Makes me so fuckin’ hard.” He released me, laughing evilly. Then I felt his spit hit my cheek, the sticky, hot glob rolling down in the direction of my mouth. I pressed my lips together tight, not wanting whatever vile disease was in his spit to get into my mouth. I wouldn’t let him win. “Gonna be so fun when I take you later. You going to fight me? I hope you do, cunt.”
“She ain’t our problem right now, Shark,” the VP snapped. He turned his attention back to Chry. “I want fucking answers! And I ain’t beyond slicing you or this little bitch up to get them.”
The moment their attention was turned away from me, I wiped my face on the shoulder of my cardigan. My cheek still felt sticky and gross. An involuntary shudder ran through me, but I wouldn’t cry this time.
Chry was looking at Dustin like he was ready to kill him. I had to stay strong for both of us. We had to make it out alive.
“Thinking she might be the way to get through to him, though,” Dustin said.
His foot reared back once again. I braced for the impact that I knew was going to leave me broken and bruised.
I called out Chry’s name, begging him in that one word to look at me. But his focus was on Dustin, and I feared I was about to lose him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Evan
Nearly everyone was at the compound. We weren’t exactly on lockdown, but it was clear members were keeping their families close and protected.
There was a large group of us gathered in Church. Chairs had been brought in, and there were a few extra people lingering out in the hall, waiting to go the moment we knew something.
Bridget kept us supplied with fresh coffee. “The good stuff,” as she promised. From the sweet smell drifting up from downstairs, I had a good feeling Abigail and Laurel were in the kitchen, baking up a stress storm. I was glad Laurel wasn’t alone, and I would put money on the fact they had Ingram down there too.
Cable was at one end of the big table, eyes glued to his computer screen. River was tucked away with his laptop in LT’s office next door, since it was best to keep him out of the thick of it and away from where he might hear things he shouldn’t. At least not yet. Word had it, the kid was looking at college, but I’d also heard that he wanted to prospect. However, he wasn’t there yet. Cable and River were searching from every angle trying to find Cat and Chry.
Where we stood as of now? A bunch of dead ends.
Sparrow had called the FBI guy, but he hadn’t picked up. She left a message, though I didn’t think he’d be calling back.
Dead end.
Seven hadn’t been able to find any of The Bloody Jokers up his way, but they were still checking out motels and talking to people.
That was starting to feel like another dead end.
A few hours ago, Cable and River worked their hacking magic and were able to tap into security cameras around the area where we found Chry’s bike. We hadn’t seen what happened to Cat and Chry, but they did clock a small moving truck turning around near the scene on a hotel parking lot camera that set their internal alarm bells off. Mostly because it had damage on the front corner of the bumper like it had hit something, or you know, ran over a motorcycle. Cable ran the license plate and found the place that it had been rented from. Then he hacked into their system and found the GPS tracker they had for that vehicle, only to find out that it had somehow been turned off or disabled. Things were looking shady, and we might have latched onto it because we were grasping at anything. Now Cable was working on getting information on who rented it.
Not that I wanted to sound negative, but it felt like it was taking way too long to turn out to be anything helpful. Dare I say it? Another dead end.
River had been working on searching the surrounding traffic cameras, trying to see if we could track them that way. He’d followed them off of the beach, but that was as far as it went since it seemed to disappear after they crossed the bridge. He was still looking, but I had a feeling the truck and whoever was driving it was long gone, making a search like that nearly impossible. Which meant that if Chry and Cat were in that truck, they were long gone too.
The rest of us? We were kind of sitting around with our thumbs up our asses. At least with all of us gathered here together it felt like this huge dose of moral support, but it wasn’t doing much for me. I was too antsy. Too wound up. Too worried.
“Got something.” Cable’s gruff voice sliced through my spiraling thoughts. “Looks like the truck was rented by a guy named Elvis Dustin Marshwood two days ago. Driver’s license lists an address in Indiana.”
He turned the screen around, showing the room the copy of the driver’s license that went along with the rental agreement.
That face pinged in my brain right away.
“What is it?” Mouse asked, eyes unblinking as he stared at me. The look on my face must have given me away. Not that I would have hid this information.
