Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (55 page)

A baby robin landed in front of me and hopped onto a broken branch along the path, staring up at me, completely unafraid.

“Hello, little guy,” I said to him, as I leaned over to get a better look.  His bright orange chest stuck out proudly and his head tilted as I approached him.  I put out my hand to touch him, and he flew away. 

I sighed and stood up, turning back to the path.  When I felt a hand snake around my face and clamp down on my mouth, I tried to scream.  The smell of chemicals was the last thing I was aware of as I fell to the ground.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Slade

Three Hours Later

I woke up to the burning sun on my face.  I was sweaty and uncomfortable, the blanket smothering me like a heavy weight.

“Babe?” I muttered, throwing my arm out to the other side of the bed.  It was empty.

“Babe?” I called again to the empty room.  I opened my eyes and looked around.  No sign of Diana.  The bathroom door was open, and the light was off.

My stomach growled with hunger, and I pulled myself out of bed.  I threw on a pair of shorts, and walked out into the hallway and into the kitchen.  The clubhouse was bustling with activity.  Cherry was in the kitchen cooking, and Doc and Lacey were sitting in front of the television show watching an old rerun of I Love Lucy.

“Hey guys,” I mumbled.  Diana was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey handsome,” Cherry said, her eyes raking over my half-naked body just like they always did.

“Hey Cherry,” I said, grabbing a slice of bacon off a platter by the oven.  

“Where’s Diana?” I asked.

Cherry squinted and shrugged and looked around.  Lacey and Doc looked over at me and shrugged too.

“We thought she was in your room,” Cherry said.  “Ain’t seen hide nor hair of her all mornin’, in fact.”

“Shit.  She probably went for a walk again.  Goddammit!”  I said, heading back to my room to find my shoes.  I changed out of my shorts, threw on a pair of jeans, my boots, and a black t-shirt, and ran back into the living room.

“Be right back,” I said, slamming the door behind me. 

I entered the woods in front of the clubhouse and headed towards the creek.  I was pretty sure I’d find her there, probably looking for Olivia again.  I told her not to leave yesterday, but obviously she didn’t listen.

I remembered yesterday, how worried I was when I couldn’t find her, how angry I had been.  I forced myself to breathe this time, to control my anger.  It wasn’t Diana’s fault I was so worried about something happening to her.  She didn’t deserve my anger.

She was so fucking amazing, she deserved nothing but all the love I could give her.  I was past the point of caring if I belonged in her world, or if she belonged in mine.  What the fuck had I been thinking, thinking I would have to let her go?  They’d have to pry her from my cold, dead hands at this point.  I wasn’t about to let her go now that I had found her, now that I had these feelings that I had never felt before.

Diana was special.  And, if it was the last thing I did, I intended to make her mine.  I didn’t care one bit that she didn’t say I love you back to me.  She would.  And I would give her as much space and time as she needed.

By the time I made it to the creek, and still hadn’t spotted her, my heart was pounding in my ears.  I jogged out of the forest, calling her name, and by the time I made it back to the clubhouse, I was becoming frantic.

I opened the clubhouse door, and peered inside.

“Did she come back?” I asked Cherry.

“No, babe,” she said.

I slammed the door again and ran the short distance to Ryder and Grace’s cabin. I knocked on the door and Grace called out.

“Come in!”

I opened the door, so ready to see Diana’s smile as I walked in.  But it was just Grace standing there.

“Hey,” I said, trying to control the panic rising in my throat.  “Have you seen Diana?”

“No, not since last night at dinner,” she said.  “Is everything okay?”

“Shit.  I’m beginning to think it isn’t.  I don’t know.  I woke up and she was gone.  Nobody has seen her today, and she’s not down by the creek.  I don’t know where else she would go.”

Ryder walked in from the kitchen.

“She’s gone?  Is her car still here?”

“Yeah, it’s parked right where we left it,” I replied.

“Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.  What the fuck do I do now?”  I was now past the point of trying to stay calm.

We ran back to the clubhouse together, and Riot met us outside.

“Hey brother.  Lacey told me you were looking for Diana.  Did  you find her?” he asked.  

“No.  She wasn’t in bed this morning.  I have no idea when she left.  Her car is still right here.  What the fuck?”  My voice was filled with panic, and I began pacing in front of the clubhouse.  Cherry, Doc and Lacey joined us out front.

“Well….listen, man.  I have to tell you some shit, brother.  I didn’t like the way the shit with her co-anchor went down, with him up here spying on us and shit, it just didn’t feel right.  So, I took it upon myself and I did some digging on him.”

“And?” I asked.

“Turns out his real name isn’t Wyatt Williams.  He changed it five years ago.”

“What does that have to do with Diana?” I asked, my thoughts racing frantically.

“Well, his real name was Jasper Coots, Jr.  Jasper Coots was born in Eastern Kentucky.  His father, Jasper Coots, Sr., was a well-known snake handler, that is until he died…from a snakebite when Jasper Jr. was just ten years old.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

“Nah, brother, I wish I was.  But there’s more.  Jasper’s mama, Effie Coots, took Jasper out of Kentucky after his daddy died.  Took him to live with relatives up in Maine, sent him to some fancy boarding school, tried to give him a different life.  Turns out, Jasper wanted to be just like his daddy, and when his mama wouldn’t let him become a snake handler, too, she died in a mysterious house fire when Jasper was 13.”

“Oh, fuck! He killed her?”

“Sounds like it.  Although, he was never charged, but townsfolk apparently talked.  I learned all this through newspaper articles I found on the web.  But Doc knows a guy who joined a biker gang up in Maine from his time in the service, so he called him.  He’s the one who told us about the rumors about Jasper.  How his family pretty much disowned him after the fire.  He stayed at the boarding school until he was eighteen, then he moved away, went to college, changed his name, and never once has gone back to visit his mama’s grave.”

“Well, fuck me,” I said, whistling under my breath.

“He’s gotta be the fucking kidnapper.  That mother fucker!  And he’s gotta have Diana now.  Fuck, what are we going to do?”  I asked, looking around at them desperately.  “How are we going to find her?”

“I’ll call my friends on the force.  I’ll get Wyatt’s address, see if he owns any other properties,”  Grace said.  “More than likely, if he’s got Diana, he’s got the other girls too.  We’ll find them, Slade, don’t worry.”  She turned away and ran back to her cabin.

I ran my hand through my hair, and began pacing in the parking lot.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have let her slip through my fingers like this? 

“If anything happens to Diana, I won’t forgive myself,” I said out loud.

“Brother,” Riot said, his hand on my shoulder.  “We’ll figure it out.  It’s what we do.  We’ll save her, she’s gonna be okay.”

“I hope you’re fucking right.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Diana

The first thing I heard was the chanting.  Only it wasn’t English, it was some language that didn’t sound like a language at all.  I opened my eyes to complete darkness.  No light, no shadows, nothing but pure blackness.

It took a moment before I realized I was moving.  Swaying, bumping, turning.  A car.  I was in a moving car.  I lifted my arm and felt a heavy cloth surrounding me.

The man’s voice was still talking, if you could call it that.  The words were muffled, unclear, completely foreign.

I tried to breathe, told myself to remain calm, not to scream.  I had to keep my wits about me, I had to get out of this.

I had to get back to Slade. 

I tried to remember what had happened, how I had gotten here, but all I remembered was seeing Olivia in the forest.  And then the little baby Robin. 

And now this?  Who was in the car with me?  And where was he taking me?

I tried to find a way out from under the cloth, but no matter how much I pushed or pulled, it wouldn’t budge.  It was like I was in a sack - I couldn’t even get my feet loose.

I moaned, and the man stopped chanting.  Or talking.  Or whatever it was he was doing.

Complete silence.

“Hello?  Please, mister, please let me out of here?”  I asked, the sound of my own frightened voice freaking me out even more.

The man didn’t respond, but I could hear him breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out, steady and slow.

I didn’t say anything else.  I was trapped in this cloth sack, in the back of a strange car, going God-knows-where, and I was fucked.

Was this the kidnapper?  God, I fucking hoped not.

My heart started beating violently, my imagination running wild into the darkest corners of mind.  I tried to remain calm, but by the time the car slowed and then turned and then came to a complete stop, I was frantic.

Sweat poured off my body, and my heart was throbbing in my ears, the blood rushing through my veins like a dam had broken.

A loud muffled scraping sounded in my ears - a garage door opening.  The car moved forward again slowly, and then came to a complete stop before the engine cut off.  The garage door closed and a car door opened, and then shut.  Another opened, and then I felt hands on me.  I kicked and thrashed around, screaming when I felt his fingers clamp under my arms and pull me out of the car.  I landed on the ground, my body crumpling onto a cold, hard surface.

If only I could see
, I thought.
 I could get out of this!  I could fight back or escape!

“Who are you?” I asked.  No response. Just the steady, slow breathing of a man towering over my crumpled figure.  Hands grabbed me under my arms again, dragging me away from the car.

I didn’t make it easy.  I thrashed around violently, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs, hitting nothing but air.

A ball of fear and terror began forming in the pit of my stomach, but I refused to acknowledge it.  I wasn’t going to go out like this.  I had just begun my life, my career, my relationship with Slade.  I wasn’t going to just give all that up. 

I wasn’t going to just let some maniac take all of that away from me.

He dragged me up a few stairs and then I felt carpet beneath me. He stopped briefly, and then began dragging me again, down an entire flight of stairs this time.  When we reached the end, he let go, and my body flopped onto the ground like a rag doll.

I stopped screaming long enough to listen.  Every thing was different down here.  The temperature had dropped twenty degrees, and it seemed even darker under the black cloth.  I heard a low, constant hissing…and something else.  Something human.

Moaning!  Low, quiet moaning.

“Where am I!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, the words flinging from my mouth before I could even think.  “Let me go!”

More hissing, more moaning, and a far-away dripping sound answered me.  I couldn’t even hear him breathing anymore.  But I could sense him.  He hadn’t left.  I felt as if he were still right next to me.

Panic began rising in my throat, and my breathing became short and gasping.

“P-p-please, mister, just let me go, I won’t tell anyone, please just let me the fuck out of here!”

Nothing.

Fuck!  Maybe he had left?  Maybe he was just fucking with me.  I had no idea, but I had to at least try.

I began scooting back towards where I thought the stairs were, determined to keep my breathing slow and steady so I didn’t hyperventilate.