Page 5 of Crossover

I had to think of something else.

“Detective Mitchell is waiting for me,” I lied. Well, it wasn’t a full lie.

He had called me and asked for me and my mother to come down and see him as soon as possible. Technically, I’d ended that call abruptly, and he was probably expecting to hear from me before seeing me, but these guys didn’t need to know that. If they thought someone in law enforcement was expecting me, maybe that would put a wrench in whatever they had planned.

I was totally grasping at straws, but desperate times…

“Detective Mitchell, you say?” the Jackhole on my left asked. And then his thin-ass lips arched up on one side. “I’ll be sure to send him one of your fingers, then. You know, so he knows you’re not going to show up.”

My intestines clenched at how relaxed he spoke of my dismembering.

Not just a drowning, then. They had something worse planned. Of course they’d torture me, to find out how much intel Grayson might have leaked, right? But what did that matter if I was dead? Would Grayson’s punishment be scaled according to the level of his betrayal or something?

Or…were they worried I might have passed information to someone else? Could that mean other people in my life would be next? Until they plugged all the leaks?

The vehicle swayed to the left, sending my shoulder into the door.

The door…was it locked? They had two armed guards in here, so maybe it wasn’t. In fact, I couldn’t recall hearing the click of a lock when they threw me in here, but I couldn’t be sure.

Could I jump out? The asphalt would tear me to shreds at this speed, but I’d probably die anyway, so it was my best chance of survival; if I failed, at least I’d die on my own terms.

My hands shook, adrenaline surging through my veins like liquid fire. In a burst of desperate energy, I lunged for the door, my fingers closing around the handle. I yanked with all my strength, and the door flew open, wind howling as it whipped past my face. The road below was a blur of motion, a deadly current eager to claim me.

But as I teetered on the edge of oblivion, iron arms clamped around my waist, yanking me back from the brink, and though I used my training to fight back, they managed to drag me back into my nightmare, the van swallowing me whole.

With a sickening thud, I hit the floor, the impact rattling my bones and stealing the breath from my lungs. Jackhole One loomed over me, his stale breath washing over my face like a noxious wave while a cruel sneer twisted his lips.

“That was a stupid move.”

I didn’t tell him that his teeth smelled of rotting fish, and I resisted the temptation to spit in his eyeball.

Instead, as soon as he was off me, I curled into myself. I didn’t want these men to see me crack, but I couldn’t stop hot tears from leaking into my palms as despair became so thick, I felt like I was suffocating.

What if this was it? After all, reasoning had failed. Trying to scare them had failed. My attempt to flee by jumping from the van had failed, as did my effort to fight them when they dragged me back. At every turn, they had overpowered me, their strength and ruthlessness an insurmountable wall.

I wanted to believe I wasn’t at their mercy, that, realistically, I still had a chance to get away.

When the vehicle jerked to a halt and the door opened, a wild flare of hope ignited that maybe I could run. But it was snuffed out as quickly as it sparked when both men deflected my self-defense moves, put a pistol to my temple, and dragged me through a parking lot that butted up against a small commercial building.

I could only take in its flat roof and run-down shingles before they ushered me through a set of double doors, down a musty concrete staircase, and into some kind of industrial basement reeking of mold, bleach, and the coppery tang of old blood, which invaded my nostrils and clung to the back of my throat like a slimy, unwanted intruder.

It was here that they bound me to a metal pipe by wrapping my arms around it and handcuffing my wrists together with a clank as chilling as the concrete floor against my skin.

Jackhole One and Two took up positions on the opposite wall, their stances casual yet alert, like predators waiting for their prey to make a fatal mistake. A third man, likely the driver, joined them, his face a blank mask that betrayed nothing.

A drain sat in the floor between us all, a black hole waiting to swallow secrets and sins. How many had bled out here, their last breaths soaked into the unforgiving stone? How much of my blood would leak before my heart stopped beating, and how much pain was I about to endure?

My body began to shiver harder with the sound of a fresh set of footsteps. Slow and calm, the steps echoed in the space as a figure descended the staircase.

My breathing became so shallow that the edges of my vision began to blacken as my kidnappers all watched this man’s silhouette come closer.

There was something familiar about him, something I couldn’t place, not while he was still swallowed in the shadows. But eventually, the fluorescent light illuminated his face.

And the world tilted on its axis.

I knew that face, that silver hair, that mole by his right ear. It couldn’t be, though…

“Steve?” I said in a shaky breath.