Page 27 of Wicked Things
My plan works.Just. Time seems to slow down until it feels like it’s moving fucking backwards. The moment we’re on the ground, my phone starts blowing up. Eighteen missed calls from Michael. The screen on my cell phone goes crazy, displaying text after text from my friend. Dread sinks deep into my bones as I read.
Michael: Call me as soon as you get this.
Michael: What time do you land?
Michael: Call me back.
Michael: Zeth, please call back ASAP!!
Michael: 911
And then, finally…
Michael: Sloane is missing.
“Whoa,” Sal Barbieri hisses. “What the fuck is going on? You look like you’re about to go nuclear.”
For a moment, I can’t speak. My jaw is clenched too tight, my teeth grinding together so hard. People are getting up out of their seats all around us, reaching up into the overhead lockers, pulling down their bags, chattering into their phones. I am glued to my seat, my heart thumping frantically in my chest. She’s missing? What the fuck does that mean,missing? She’s not answering her phone? He just can’t find her at the hospital? She’s dodged him and traveled home on her own?
I hit the call back button on the screen, holding the phone to my ear, holding my breath. The line rings just once before Michael answers.
“Thank god,” he says. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Tell me,” I grit out.
“She went to go give a consult. When she didn’t come back, I searched the hospital. She’d just vanished. I bribed one of the security guards to let me watch the security cameras. She was taken into a stairwell by the nurse who came to get her, and then the feed from the underground parking lot shows her being taken away in a van. I’m sorry, man. Fuck, I am so sorry. I ran the plates on the van. It’s registered to some cleaning company. I called and they said the vehicle was stolen forty-eight hours ago. I have people working on tracing its journey from the hospital as we speak. We should know where they took her soon.”
I can’t move. I can’t fucking blink. My heart has quit it’s urgent thumping behind my ribcage and has ceased beating altogether.
“Zeth? God, just stay calm, okay? We’re going to find her. We’re going to get her back.”
“I know,” I whisper. “ Text me an address. Text me somewhere to meet you. Right now.” I hang up. Theo and Sal are watching with matching frowns on their faces, their eyes hard, flashing with curiosity.
“Something’s happened,” Theo says, excitement coloring his voice.
“I feel like we’re about to fuck some people up,” Sal adds.
Oh. Oh, he hasnoidea. Whoever has done this has just signed their own fucking death warrant. I’m not just going to kill some people. I’m going to tear them limb from limb. I’m going to peel the skin from their bodies. I’m going to torture them within an inch of their lives, and then I’m going to patch them back together, purely so I can cause them more pain. They’re going to suffer. They’re going to experience pain the likes of which they’ve never known before. I’m not just going to end the lives of the people responsible for this affront. I will destroy their families, their brothers, their sisters, their children, and their parents. Anyone they fucking love will pay the price for their actions. There will be no compassion. There will be no mercy. I get to my feet, my vision flashing red. I’m tumbling, falling down a rabbit hole of violence and death. People snap at me as I shove them out of the way, pushing them back into their seats so that they fall into one another as I force my way past them. My ears are deaf to their complaints. When I reach the front of the plane, the air hostess waiting by the still-closed exit gives me a cool, unimpressed look.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait your turn, sir. You can’t just barge past people and expect—” I take a step toward her, and she stops talking, registering the look on my face. Out of nowhere, Sandra, Michael’s airline contact appears, sliding herself in between my body and her colleagues.
“That’s okay, Michelle. This gentleman has severe claustrophobia, don’t you, sir. I’m his liaison. I’m going to escort him from the plane right now…okay, sir?” Her expression is grim, filled with warning, but I can’t heed her. Not right now. Not when the woman I love has been fucking kidnapped. She needs me. She needs me to find her, and I can’t do that if I’m trapped on this godforsaken tin can.
“Get. These. Fucking. Doors. Open. Right. Now.” I snarl.
Michelle still doesn’t look very happy with my attitude. Her imperious pout fades a little when she looks over my shoulder, though. Sal and Theo are right behind me, looking just as menacing as I do. A solitary furious passenger is one thing, but three… She arranges a forced, polite smile on her face.
“Don’t worry, gentleman. We’ll have you off here in a jiffy.”
******
I have an address, but it’s not the one Sloane has been taken to. She’s still nowhere to be found. Apparently the van driver who took her made sure to follow a route free from security cameras. Smart motherfuckers. They won’t have been that smart, though. They will have fucked up. They will have slipped up somewhere, made a fatal error along the way, and Michael will track them down. His guilt at losing Sloane means he won’t stop until he finds her.
He’s ashen when he opens the door to the house he asked me to meet him at. His suit jacket is gone, and his shirt is rumpled, his tie missing altogether. The haunted, desperate look in his eyes flickers when he sees the two men standing behind me.
“Theo and Sal Barbieri,” I tell him, as I slide past him into the house.
“What…why?
