Aftershocks (39 page)

“Ambition. Wealth. Beauty.” He placed a totem on each of the squares closest to Kell, Carling, and Zoe as he said each word. Still, nothing happened. But Pat seemed unfazed, and Zoe realized why when he circled the table and reached underneath to retrieve a wickedly curved knife.

“Four energies. Four sacrifices. Tapping unmatched power. All that remains is the connection.” His clear-eyed gaze met Zoe’s, and awareness of his absolute sanity made her blood run cold. She let the ropes drop to the ground. No one noticed, apparently mesmerized by the promise in Pat’s words.

“The other one is unnecessary,” Pat said conversationally, slightly over his shoulder.

His meaning didn’t register with Zoe right away. It didn’t register with anyone, apparently, as no one moved. But then PB flinched, aimed the rifle, and fired.

Right into Grant’s chest.

Chapter Nineteen

Zoe screamed and moved to jump to Grant’s aid, but all her muscles locked when Pat lazily lifted the knife to Kell’s throat. Kell had stepped back from the table, too, but that only gave Pat a better angle.

“Leave him,” Pat ordered, his voice hard. People who’d been craning to look at Grant on the ground started guiltily. Zoe could only glimpse him lying on the other side of the table—part of a boot, one hand, his camo-covered thigh. Every nerve vibrated with the need to help him, put pressure on the bleeding, get him an ambulance or, even better, an airlift. But vying with the list of actions was the absolute terror that Pat would slit Kell’s throat if she moved. Intellect said he wouldn’t, that he needed Kell for this ritual, but PB seemed plenty ambitious. Kell could be replaced.

Never
. It whispered in a shout across her heart, but there was no time to catch it. Chaos seemed to rage through the clearing, but everyone stood still, outside the circle, watching those around the table as if at dinner theater. No, the turmoil was only in her head.
If Pat moves the knife, you can take him by surprise. You didn’t see where Grant was hit. The shot might not have been fatal. There’s still a chance you can help him. If you get Kell free first. And protect Amelia. And Carling. Grab the knife, push Pat away, cut Amelia’s ropes, Kell will check Grant, you get Carling, avoid the guns, get away—it’ll never work, there are too many, he’ll kill Kell if you even flinch and oh God I’ll lose them both at once.
It went around and around until it all merged into one frantic, high-pitched scream.

Useless. Concentrate. Force it all into a bottle and seal it.
She squeezed her eyes tightly, pushing back at the panic, leaving it to rattle fiercely in the background.

“All attention on the totems. Unless you prefer to be part of the sacrifice rather than part of the reward.” Pat blinked in satisfaction when his followers fell in around them again. He released Kell and took the three steps to Zoe’s side. “Since you’ve freed yourself, we’ll begin with you.” When he waved the knife, someone stepped to his side with a jar of what looked like metallic paint. After dipping the blade into the jar, Pat lifted Zoe’s right hand. The rope around her wrists fell away. His skin was smooth, almost oily, but when she twisted and pulled, he tightened hard enough to make her bones rasp together. The knife slashed once across her palm, so sharp there was no immediate pain, and he slammed her hand down on the top of the nearest totem.

Then he let go and moved to do the same to Carling. Zoe tried to back up, to run, but her hand was seared to the totem, which stood as solidly as if Pat had magnetized it to the table. She yanked, and pain finally shot through her palm. But she couldn’t break away. A sob escaped her throat, her vision hazing, her breath harsher and faster. She twisted and pried and jerked her whole body against the pull, all to no avail.

In quick succession Pat dipped the knife, slashed their hands, and fused each of their right palms to a totem. Will let him, limp and unprotesting. Amelia tried to bite Pat, who laughed. Kell had to be unbound first, which was probably why Pat saved him for last. He fought, roaring, but four men held on to him and Pat eventually succeeded in making the connection.

How was he doing this? Zoe curved her fingers over the top of the totem and pulled. It didn’t budge, but she felt a faint hum into her fingertips. She leaned into the table and sensed the same faint vibration against her hipbone. Holy shit, he
had
magnetized it. What the hell did that mean? He didn’t believe the legend after all?

The buzz of noise escalated and the circle shrank, bodies pressing closer and closer. The air warmed and reeked of excitement, body odors Zoe tried not to breathe in. Her vision tunneled to the table and the few people closest to it. Amelia sobbed and jerked, trying to get away, while Carling hung against the table, his arm dangling from the totem. Zoe reached for hers with her left hand, thinking maybe she could pry at the base, but the angle was bad and she couldn’t get near it. The four guys who’d held Kell let go of him. He strained against the totem, lips curled, teeth bared, looking more feral than she’d have ever thought possible.

This was all wrong. A big show. She didn’t understand what Pat was trying to do now. And where the hell were Grant’s people? The FBI? Surely Grant hadn’t come here without giving them the location. Surely someone would come, stop this, now.

“Calm,” Pat said, and she could have sworn the totems responded, a surge of energy sweeping out of them into their attached victims. Amelia stopped jerking and her sobs faded, the tracks on her cheeks suddenly unfed by new tears. Kell, too, ceased fighting. For Zoe, it was like becoming possessed. The totem layered a soothing balm over her that relaxed her muscles and the sharpness of her emotions, but inside, where she could feel but not touch, the terror and anger churned, banging against the barrier Pat’s one word had created.

This is ridiculous. It’s not happening. Drugs. He put drugs in the paint, not just metal. It’s got to be something real. Something we can escape. We have to escape!

Pat tossed his head back and laughed. Zoe’s legs went weak and she sagged to her knees. Her shoulder screamed, pulled by the anchor of the totem, but she couldn’t seem to get the strength back to stand.

Pat grabbed Amelia by the hair and pulled to expose her throat. But he applied the knife to her chest instead, the point scraping a long line of welling blood across the skin exposed by her scoop-neck top.

No!
But the word only echoed in her head. She couldn’t speak. Amelia’s eyes swam with pain and terror, even though she didn’t cry out or struggle. Zoe sobbed inside, guilt and fear and anger boiling ineffectively.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw PB step closer to Amelia. Grant’s legs whipped into PB’s. The man fell onto his back, but he hadn’t hit the dirt before Grant scissored his legs around Pat’s to knock him to the ground, too.

The air
whoofshed
out of Pat with a loud, gusty grunt. Shouts exploded into the clearing. Screams of outrage tore out of Zoe’s throat. Roars from Kell battered against Amelia’s bloodcurdling shrieks. Even Will moaned, while followers shouted and scrambled and wailed and wrung their hands.

Zoe strained to see Grant, to look for blood, but he was moving too fast, on his feet, slugging his way around the table. He’d confiscated PB’s rifle and used the butt to knock people away from Kell and clear his way to Zoe. Before he got to her, several people dressed just like him burst into the clearing, tearing down blankets and sheets from the trees, shouting at everyone to get on the ground and other things Zoe couldn’t hear. Pat had disappeared. Scrambled behind the sheets? She spun, watching the melee, struggling to see if one of the commandos had him.

Another wave of people flooded the now-crowded space. Behind Zoe, some of Pat’s followers tried to run into the woods. A woman with “FBI” in big white letters across her jacket caught two of them, flung them to the ground, and cuffed them—one-handed, the other wielding a pistol. A handful of cops joined in the attempt to corral the freaked-out followers, adding to the chaos.

Zoe absorbed all this with half her attention. The rest was on the table, the totems, and their complete inability to get free of them. She glimpsed Pat crawling across the ground, using the stomping, dashing feet of dozens of people as cover.

“Are you all right?” Grant had reached her side. He wrapped an arm around her waist and made like he was going to carry her off. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Not happening.” She demonstrated, yanking at the unseen restraint. “Someone’s got to get Pat.” But not Grant. He’d been shot. She put her free hand on his chest and felt, instead of sticky, oozing blood, a hard plate under his jacket. “You’re wearing Kevlar.”

He gave her a scathing look. “Of course. I’m not stupid.” The scathing became a scowl when he realized her hand was stuck. “What the hell?”

She didn’t care about that for the moment. “You were on the ground. He shot you. You weren’t moving.”

Grant ran his hand down the totem and under the edge of the leather key. “It stops the bullet from entering my body, but the impact still hurts like hell. Knocks the breath out of you. Plus, that guy still had his gun on me. The vest doesn’t stop a head shot.” He shook his head. “I can’t undo this, and the table is too sturdy to break.” One of his team stopped next to him. “Find Thomashunis,” Grant ordered him. “I don’t see him in custody. He was over there.” He motioned to where he’d knocked Pat down and went back to examining the totem under her hand. Silvered blood ran down over the carvings and pooled on the leather. Grant stared at a blotch of it on his finger. “What the hell?”

“I think you need to slice the key. Or cut off one of our hands.” She could joke now that most of Pat’s gang had been subdued. “You know, break the connection.” When Grant looked at her as if she’d gone insane, she shook her head. Maybe she had. “Forget it. I’m fine. Go get Pat! I think he went behind the sheets.”

But Grant ignored her. He ducked to examine the underside of the table.

“At the end,” she told him, leaning over. “Near Will. Pat kneed it earlier. I think there’s a—”

“Magnet, yeah. I see it. Hold on.”

Like she was going anywhere. She checked on Will and Amelia, who both had one of the good guys puzzling over their totems. Will seemed to be coming back to himself, maybe recognizing that he was going to be okay. Amelia cried again, but silently, almost motionlessly. Zoe’s heart ached for her—she knew what the girl would go through, trying to overcome this experience. Hopefully, it would be easier than it had been for Zoe. That she would have the right kind of support from her family, and that the short duration of her captivity would fade faster and more completely than Zoe’s memories had.

Satisfied that the others would be okay she turned to Kell, who stood watching her, his hand flexing and curling over the top of his totem. He looked tormented, and God knew he had too many reasons to be.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but he shook his head.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” He sounded lost, resigned, and her throat closed. She had so much to say, so much to figure out—

The table shook. At the other end, Grant bent and hit something again. The faint hum clicked off, and Zoe’s hand slid off the totem just as long fingers closed around her throat and dragged her away from the table. Pat’s knife flashed past her face and pressed against her chest, digging in when Kell lunged toward them. He froze the same way she had when Pat had put the blade to his throat.

Kell’s “Son of a
bitch
!” echoed in her ears as she backpedaled, pulled by Pat into the woods. She choked trying to call to him, and heard him shout again as leaves and branches closed behind them, blocking her view of the clearing. Pat dragged her by the throat deeper into the dark woods before he stopped and pulled her flush against him, her back to his front, and dug the point of his weapon into her ribcage.

She stilled, not knowing what she should do.

“Good girl,” he murmured into her ear. “Let’s go.” He maneuvered her easily through the woods as if he knew exactly where he was going. Dawn broke enough to cast a faint light over the woods, but they were still in deep shadow. Their slow pace was quiet, but Zoe couldn’t hear anyone following them. She didn’t know how that could be. Kell had seen it happen. He wouldn’t let Pat just take her.

Soon, though, they were deep into the trees, darkness prevailing, the only sound the soft rustle of their feet over the ground. She strained but couldn’t hear anything else, not even insects or animals. After a while she lost track of time, and it was like she and Pat were alone in the world.

The surreality of what had happened faded, and new fears swelled to fill the space. What was he going to do to her? It was down to revenge now. No rituals, no power play. He could move faster without her, so she wasn’t just a hostage. And once he was done with her, what would he try to do to everyone else?

Abruptly, he released her. She staggered, but he yanked her by the wrist into an old hunter’s shack. She stumbled and almost let herself fall. What was the point? No one was going to find her. Not until it was too late. Was she going to lie here and let him cut her up? Leave him to harm the people she loved?

Fuck, no
.

“There’s no point in doing this.” Her voice rasped, throat tight and tense. “The totems are gone. I can’t help you anymore.”