Terri Austin - Diners, Dives & Dead Ends

Stepping closer to the door I held up my index finger. One. I held up my second finger. Two. When I held up my ring finger I twisted the door handle and burst into the room.

Axton and the bald henchman sat on the edge of the bed with their backs to us. They faced a TV and held controllers in their hands.

All this time I’d been worried about Axton, and here he sat, playing video games.

Irritation, relief, and joy flowed through me as I walked forward and zapped the bald guy in the back of the neck. He gave a little grunt and slumped forward, but I caught him by the collar of his jacket before he fell off the bed.

Roxy shut the door and walked into the room behind me.

Axton, surprise on his face, looked over at the bald man, then up at me.

“Rose,” he cried.

“Shhh,” I said.

“Rose,” he whispered. The controller was still in his hand as he threw his arms around me.

“We’re getting you out of here.” I turned to Roxy. “We need to tie this guy up and gag him.”

She nodded and pulled a rope out of her tool belt.

“You guys are like covert warrior women and stuff,” Axton said.

I put my fingers to my lips in the universal shushing motion. “Axton, help me get this guy to the floor.”

“His name’s Ron,” he said.

Together we got Ron down on the ground and flipped him over on his stomach. Roxy trussed him up with her rope while I looked around for a gag. The queen bed was the only piece of furniture in the room, so I used one of the pillowcases. Roxy took another rope and secured the pillowcase in his mouth, tying it tightly behind his head.

“Let’s see if he’ll fit in the closet,” she said.

“Good idea. Axton, help me with his legs.”

Ron blinked up at us, dazed, as Roxy grabbed under his arms and pulled. Axton and I each took a leg, and pushed, scooting him on his butt into the empty closet.

After we tucked Ron away, I scrutinized Axton. He looked a little shaggier than normal, but otherwise fine.

“Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“I’m okay.”

I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“Enough with the love fest, can we get out of here already?” Roxy asked.

“Okay, right. Do you have your pepper spray?”

She dug it out of a pocket on her belt and held it up.

“I’ll go first, since I have the stun gun. Axton, you go second, and Roxy will be behind you.”

“Be quiet and stay close to the wall,” Roxy told him.

Slowly, quietly, we made our way out the bedroom and down the hall. I peered around the corner at the top of the stairs. We were in the clear, so I motioned with one hand for Roxy and Axton to follow me.

I sidestepped my way down the stairs, my back so tight against the banister, I might be bruised for life. We were halfway down when a man stepped out of the living room and blocked our clean exit. It was the guy who sat next to me in the car when Henry kidnapped me, the one with cold eyes who slipped the blindfold on me.

“Oh no, now we’re all captured,” Axton said.

“What the hell?” the guy asked. He flipped one side of his jacket and reached behind his back. Probably for a huge ass gun that could blow a huge ass hole through my liver.

“NO!” I screamed. I charged down the remaining steps and zapped him straight in the Adam’s apple. His bulk twitched forward as he crumpled and he nearly took me with him on his way down. As it was, I had to struggle to free my right foot from his meaty thigh.

“Rosie, you are kicking ass tonight.” Axton slapped me on the back.

“We gotta go,” Roxy said.

Body shaking, heart pounding, adrenaline spiking, I stepped over the still conscious but unmoving cold-eyed guy, and waved Roxy and Axton on like a third base coach. “Go, go, go. This guy’s won’t stay down forever.”

Roxy grabbed Axton’s arm and dragged him toward the kitchen, me only three steps behind. Then the alarm sounded. Every light turned on and the loudest, most high-pitched wailing blared through the house.

“Go, go,” I yelled as loud as I could.

Roxy flung open the back door. Floodlights lit up the backyard like it was opening night at Busch stadium. They flew through the doorway, sprinting across the yard without looking back.

I’d taken just two steps outside, when someone slammed into my back and knocked me to the ground.

My face scraped the flagstone tile, my right cheekbone taking the brunt of the fall. My earpiece shifted and I felt my shirtsleeve tear.

Cold Eyes hauled me off the ground by my backpack, and with my back to his chest, he wrapped one arm around my neck, the other around my waist, and carried me into the house.

I reached up and smacked at him as hard as I could, but he seemed impervious. I stopped hitting him and clutched the edge of the stainless steel refrigerator, but my puny fingers and the slick surface were no match for his mile-high frame and huge muscles.

He lumbered through the kitchen, the alarm continued to wail, and I kicked back against his shins. I tried to claw at his arms, but had no nails, since I had nervously bitten them off earlier. I shifted my head to the side and tried to bite his arm through his suit jacket, but all I got was a mouthful of fibers.

As we passed through the kitchen and into the foyer, I grabbed a decorative china bowl off the credenza and hit him on the side of the face. He simply grunted and the bowl fell to the ground and shattered. He tightened his hold. Between his arm constricting my throat and the other arm squeezing my ribs, I thought I was going to pass out. Then the front door burst open and Sullivan rushed in, covered in pink and green splotches.

His gaze took us in. Me gasping for air, Cold Eyes squeezing me like a boa. Sullivan hiked his thumb over his shoulder. The henchman simply released his hold on me and I fell straight to the floor, flat on my ass as Cold Eyes made his way out the front door.

I stared at Sullivan, coughing and wheezing, as I rubbed my throat. I didn’t run. Blatant fear, excruciating pain, and the mind-numbing shrill of the still blaring alarm kept me rooted to the floor.

When it abruptly stopped, the quiet was as deafening as the alarm had been.

“Rose,” Sullivan said. I blinked, as if I had just come out of a trance, like my name was the magic word that set me free.

I scrambled up and ran back to the kitchen and out the door as fast as I could. I sprinted across the lighted yard and into the woods. “I’m coming,” I said in a scratchy shout, hoping my headset still worked. “It’s Rose. I’m coming.”

I tripped over stumps, fell on my already bruised knee twice as I ran in what I hoped was the right direction. When I burst through the trees, I saw Eric standing next to the SUV with the door open. With hands on his hips, his head swiveled from left to right, searching for me. When he finally saw me, he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Come on, hurry up.”

No shit. What did he think I was doing, taking a stroll?

I clambered into the car and hopped over the back seat into the cargo space with Roxy, accidentally kicking Axton in the head. Eric climbed into the car after me.

Steve pulled out of the shallow ditch so fast, Roxy and I tumbled against the cargo door. With a grunt I rubbed my shoulder, but didn’t care about the pain. I was just so grateful to have made it out of the house in one piece.

No one said a word until we were huddled around Axton in Eric’s living room. He sat on one of the loveseats next to me, with Ma and Roxy sitting on its twin. Eric and Steve copped a squat on the floor.

I told them about playing catch and release with the psycho henchman while Eric grabbed a blanket from the bedroom and draped it around my shoulders. “Thanks.” My voice was raspy.