Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(57)

“Grayson?” There’s a long quiet, and I can barely breathe. I lay my hand on his arm.

He grunts.

My heart soars because he’s still fighting. “I’m taking you home.”

*

It’s dark when we get into Franklin City. It was once a booming industrial metropolis, but now whenever it’s on the news, it’s just about how ruined it is, how everybody is leaving or how it’s out of money. We pass through a downtown part that seems shiny and modern and inhabited enough, but as I head south toward Gedney Street, the landscape turns post-apocalyptic.

Most of the lights are burned out or broken; where they’re still working, they illuminate abandoned buildings, some surrounded by chain-link fences, most with their lower windows all boarded up. Some have their entire first stories blocked off with cement blocks. Others are half crumbled down with bushes and trees growing around and through them. A lot of it is a blur of dark colors.

I start to wonder if Grayson gave me the right address; this is not an area where anybody would ever have a hotel. Am I seeing the signs clearly? Sometimes sevens look like ones.

I pass shadowy figures huddled around a garbage-can fire. I lock the doors.

I’m tired. Tired enough that I don’t know if I’m even driving in a straight line, but I can’t stop. I need Grayson to wake up and be okay.

And then I come to Gedney Street. Clearly it was a grand street at one time; now the buildings that line it are boarded up and half consumed by vines. This street is actually scarier than the others, somehow, because there are more vacant spaces between buildings, full of trees and junk—maybe old cars; I can’t tell. Even the moon seems to shine less brightly here.

I catch an address: 345. Getting close. Or is it 845?

I set the gun in my lap. I can’t believe I’m acting this way—just a couple of days ago, I wouldn’t have touched a gun. Until a couple of days ago, I rejected everything about this sort of life. Rejected everything about him.

Finally I get to 176 Gedney. It’s a five-story stone building on the corner, surrounded by a chain-link fence. The windows and doors along the bottom are boarded up and grafittied, like most of the buildings here, but it’s ornate at the top. There’s even a turret way up high, like a castle. Old-style architecture. This place was beautiful once.

There’s a vintage-looking sign above the once-grand arched entrance; most of the letters have fallen off, but the few that remain suggest it said Bradford something. Hotel, maybe? Bradford Hotel.

I slow the car. No way does anybody live here. The place looks abandoned, just like everything else in a ten-mile radius. I know the address is right—it’s in huge numbers on the front.

“Grayson.” When he doesn’t answer, panic rises up. “Grayson!”

Still nothing. I squeeze the steering wheel. There’s still a half tank, but there’s nowhere else to go.

I pull around the corner and park at the side of the building and pat his cheek. “Grayson!”

He mumbles.

“I’m at 176 Gedney, and it’s not right. Nothing’s here!”

“It’s right. No passing,” he says. “Find no passing. Rattle it, and leave me there.”

He’s not making sense. I drive around to the back, through an alleyway. Shivers crawl up my spine; I feel like I’m being watched, but nobody’s around. There are certainly no cars around to pass. “There’s nothing here,” I say. “It’s nothing.”

“No passing,” he says.

I look nervously around, imagining hordes of half-wild people descending on our nice shiny car like in Mad Max; that’s how this place feels. I have to get us out of here! I pull out, and I’m just about to turn back to the inhabited part of town when my headlights flash on a metal sign. In another lifetime it said NO TRESPASSING, but some of the letters are gone, and it says NO PASSING.

I stop. Could it be what he meant? No passing. Maybe they’re squatting, and that’s their safe house. People do that, right? Criminals do that. Though I can’t imagine how anybody would get in. The car is only a few feet from the gate, though. He said to rattle it.

I look nervously around, and then I scramble out on shaking legs and rattle the thing and then run back into the car and lock the door.

Nothing.

I have to head back. But to where?

I lean my head on the wheel, so exhausted and scared for Grayson. I need to make a good decision for him, but my options all have dark price tags.

Thump. I jerk my head up and see somebody trying to break the car window on Grayson’s side. I pull out my gun with one hand and slam the car into gear with my other.

Thump thump. He pounds on the window. “Abby!”

I look harder. The man draws his face closer. It’s the man we met after the escape—Stone. Short, jet-black hair and bright green eyes, neck thick as a tree trunk and a scowl deep as hell. The one who wanted me dead.

He pounds on the window, and I unlock the door, swallowing hard. He won’t still want to kill me, will he? But I don’t have a choice. Grayson needs help.

The guy yanks open the side door and kneels next to Grayson, shoving his gun in his waistband. “What the f*ck happened here?”

“He’s shot.”

“Fuck.” He touches Grayson’s throat. “Buddy? Hey!” He whistles over his shoulder. Another guy appears next to him, checking over Grayson—a blond, muscular guy like Stone and Grayson, but with longish hair. He makes a quick phone call, and they pull Grayson out of the car and prop him up between them, drunk style, with Stone holding the cloth to his chest.