Page 75 of Has-Been
“Fuck’s sake. Then get me a fucking update on something. Anything. I’ll only stay if I know exactly what’s going on.”
Their response was to arrange for Grease to come in. Fucking Grease. Tesio waved the two of them out, and waited until the door closed, leaving the two of us alone.
“Shit’s getting real pretty fast, man. I hope I’m not the catalyst here, but someone, and at this point, it could be more than one someone… they were organised. From what we can piece together, step one was incapacitating you. Step two was the alarm to get your girl out of her room. All other doors were glued, including mine. He had free access to her, man.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “And Torch?”
He shrugged, running a hand through his slicked back hair.
“Honestly? I think it was a case of wrong place wrong time. Maybe he even tried to stop whoever it was, but yeah… it doesn’t look good, because he lost a lot of blood. Like I’ve only seen that much blood when someone’s already fucking dead.”
No. Not Torch, dammit. He was one of my closest fucking friends.
“No sign of where he took Elise?”
Tesio grimaced, shoving me back when I hadn’t realised I’d even tried sitting up.
“Stay down, pretty boy. Look, we’re pulling out all the stops, okay? I got us access to every fucking street cam this side of the town, and Ice is working through that while I’m here. I need to be helping him though.”
I nodded, sitting back again, because I fucking got it. He needed to be working, and I was the one stopping him. Every delay was another minute my old lady was stuck with some psycho who could be doing anything to her right now. I was about to lose my fucking mind over the images that kept filling it, no matter how I fought to push them down again.
“You’ll find her, right? I can’t lose her.”
He looked grim, but determined, digging his phone out as it pinged.
“Is it her?”
He shook his head, tapping something and shoving it back in his pocket.
“We’ve got a potential van that might be his, and Ice is tracking it through town. Look, there are still two club members unaccounted for, and right now we need to be tracking them too. Someone took your girl, and I’ll fucking find out who. Get better, man, because we need you on this with us. This guy knew what he was doing, not only with this attack, but also with who he took. He’s got you and the club VP losing his shit, and that’s just fragmenting our efforts more than we can afford right now.”
He was right, and after he left, I did the one thing they’d all told me not to do, and I got up out of that bed, and onto my wobbly legs. It was time to fucking fix this. To find my girl, and kill the bastard who took her. My head spun a little as I moved, but neither that nor the relentless pounding headache were going to stop me from finding her.
When I pulled open the door, and was faced with a pissed off Reacher, an even more pissed off Doc, and two sheepish prospects, I shoved my way through all of them.
“I’m going to find my fucking old lady.”
Elise
Hewasgoneforhours, and I even fell asleep waiting in the darkness, in this cramped position. I only woke when I felt someone tugging at the hood, and then I was straight into panic mode again. He loosened the hood and lifted it away, and I immediately looked for his face to see who it was, but… he had no face.
He wore a black motorcycle helmet, with a tinted visor. I didn’t recognise it, because it wasn’t adorned with anything that could be recognised. Likewise, his arms were covered and he had gloves on. There was no chance of seeing any tattoos, or anything that might identify him either. He was too smart for that. The helmet also muffled his voice enough that I couldn’t tell what he really sounded like.
“Figured I should let you breathe for a bit. Some bitches get pissy about that stuff. So… I bet you’re sitting here thinking that your boy toy will rescue you, right? You’re trying to tough it out until then, aren’t ya? I guess I should tell you everything I did last night when I took you…”
I didn’t like where this was going, but I was still gagged, so all I could do was blink up at him, and try to breathe normally so I wouldn’t suffocate.
“Yeah… he never saw me coming, the dumbass. He was so easy to take out. So fucking pathetic and vulnerable. Some biker he was.”
Was. He said was? Oh my god no! Suddenly I couldn’t breathe at all, my chest heaving as I tried to gasp in breaths through my nose, which was rapidly feeling blocked, as tears poured from my eyes. Oh god, I was going to suffocate after all. If Has was dead though… maybe I could be with him after death. Maybe that was where we were meant to be together, and not here at all.
“Fuck’s sake.” The bastard peeled the tape from my face, and pulled the sodden fabric out of my mouth, as I gasped, and choked, and cursed him, as soon as I could get words out.
“Oh… sorry… you thought I meant he was dead? I mean, I’m not entirely sure, but I left him for dead. Know this though… even if he survives? You wouldn’t recognise him anymore. He’s changed for good. Yeah, no more pretty boy…”
Oh god. What had he done to him? Was he alive or dead? Would I be able to feel it if he was gone? We were in love, so wouldn’t I know? We’d barely had a chance to be together. It was so unfair.
“So I guess, the only question is… what should I do with you now I have you? Kinda wanted to be the one to break you in, but I gather that bastard got there first… no more cherry for me, huh?”
