Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(52)

“Abby,” I plead, voice hoarse.

“You would have to kill me eventually,” she says, so damn sadly that my chest aches. The tears on her cheek flash white in the sun. “In the end, that’s how it would be.”

Helplessly I watch her turn and run to the town car, to the open door that’s shielding the man in the buzz cut. He pops up and grabs her by the neck, shoving the nose of the gun into her cheek so hard it distorts her pretty features. Rage stabs through me, and it’s all I can do not to barrel out of the ditch.

She coughs and struggles as the coward marches her out, using her to cover him.

Strategy. Shoot her.

Her cry is hoarse. “Grayson!” Her terror blinds me. It’s all I can see—he’s hurting her, choking her.

Shoot them both. Mow them down.

If this had been a trick to draw him out, it would’ve been brilliant. Because there he is, out in the open with only her for cover.

She’s clawing at his hands. He’s choking her, and the f*cked-up thing is that I can barely breathe now, and my pulse pounds so loud I can’t think.

Red speaks. “Throw the weapons and come out, hands knit on your head. Then I’ll let the girl go.”

He won’t let her go. He’ll kill her for the same reason I should’ve. But the pain of him choking her out slowly is too much to bear.

“Help me!” she gasps, and I’m powerless to resist.





Chapter Twenty-Nine




Abigail


I’m pulling at his fingers, trying to get air, scratching his arms and hands, but he doesn’t care, he just squeezes tighter until it feels like my tendons are separating from bone. Even dragging me around the woods, even f*cking me, Grayson didn’t hurt me like this.

The tip of his gun is grinding so hard into my cheek that my mouth tastes of blood.

“Grayson!” My cry is a whisper in the wind.

Come on back here where you’ll be safe, the man said. A lie. For once Grayson was telling the truth. But then, he was telling the truth all along.

Through my tears I see something flash in the sun out in the weedy ditch where Grayson took cover. I watch the gun slide onto the road with a loud clatter and come to rest a few feet over the painted white line.

“The other.” The guy in the suit shakes me like it’s nothing. He’s a big guy, almost as big as Grayson, so I guess it is nothing.

My brain feels scrambled when he tightens his hand again. I can’t get enough air. I gasp and claw at his fingers. Another gun sails out of the weedy ditch onto the road.

“That’s it.” Grayson’s voice. “She can’t breathe! Ease up.”

The man loosens his hold on my neck, and I gulp in the air. The haircutting shears I got from the bathroom lie on the ground near my feet. He didn’t see them fall. I try to twist out of his arms, but they’re like rock. If I could get to the scissors…

My heart twists as Grayson rises from the weeds, hands over his head. His stance is wide and proud. And then he starts toward us.

He’s coming for me. Just like he did before.

My heart skips a beat, and everything slows. I forget the hands around my throat, the burn in my lungs. All I see is him. The borrowed gray T-shirt shows off his lean, muscled body. His expression is fierce.

The man tightens his grip on my neck again, and I can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Even from far away I see the change in Grayson’s eyes—they’re like steel, peering out of his bloody face.

He shrugs. “The way I remember it,” he calls out, “I said the next time I saw you, I was going to kill you.”

The man jabs the gun deeper into my cheek. “Yeah, you said that right before they stuffed you into the back of a squad car.”

Grayson smiles, and it sends chills down my spine.

“Close enough,” the man says.

Grayson doesn’t stop.

“I’ll kill her,” the man says.

“Oh, I was going to kill her myself,” Grayson says, moving steadily toward us like a thundercloud or a battleship.

I feel the man’s fingers stiffen over my throat, press in. I sputter. “If you were going to kill her, she’d be dead,” the man growls.

I cough, but Grayson doesn’t flinch. I’m right in the middle of them, two men who want to kill each other.

“Any kid who grew up on a farm knows,” Grayson says, moving ever nearer, just a bus length away now, “you should never name the animals. It makes them too hard to slaughter. But you go ahead.”

Name the animals? I twist and kick, landing one on the man’s shins.

In a flash Grayson’s hands are off his head, and he has a gun pointed at us, having taken advantage of the distraction I’d provided, I suppose. “You’ve got one shot, the way I see it, before I take your head off. So how about you do her, I’ll do you, and we’ll all be on our merry way.”

The man starts pulling me back toward the open car door, but then Grayson starts counting. “One. Two.” And I know we won’t make it. “Three.”

The gun is off my cheek, and the blast shatters my ears. At that exact moment he lets me go, and I stumble back, clutching my neck, gasping for air. I lose my footing and fall to the ground. There’s another shot, and another. I wait for the pain, but it doesn’t come. Who’s hit?