Tansy Taylor (27 page)

“Why you want to stay out here? You are shivering.” He stood in front of me. “What’s that in your hand?” He grabbed my hand and forced it open, the glass puncturing his finger. “Ouch! Why you have glass?” He picked me up from the ground by my shoulders and shook me. The puppy started barking frantically at him and biting at his pants.

“Let me down Boris! I was just holding the glass, honest. It looked pretty in the sunlight.” I sounded lame even to my own ears.

“Boris not stupid! You were doing something…. Just because my English is no good, does not mean I not smart.” The dog had a hold of his pant leg now and was intent on doing some serious damage to the fine garment. He flicked his leg, trying to get the dog to let go without hurting him. It wasn’t working, so he dropped me back to the ground. Fortunately, I landed on my rear end; unfortunately it was also on the piece of glass I’d been holding.

“Umph! Ow, shit!” Damn, why did my plans always end up biting me in the ass?

Both the puppy and Boris stopped and looked at me. I sprung back up just about as fast as Boris had dropped me.

“You dropped me on a piece of glass you big oaf!” I tried getting a glimpse of my rear end, but I ended up looking more like I was chasing my tail than if the puppy were to be doing it. Boris looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Boris! You dropped me onto a piece of glass! Do you see it?” I stuck my butt out toward him.

“Um, I see blood. You are hurt, da?” The puppy was back at my feet, trying to get my attention.

“Yes, I am hurt. Can you get it out? Please?” I gingerly felt around with my index finger and thumb, trying not to make it worse. I touched it lightly and a shockwave of pain wracked my body. “Ow! Dammit!”

Boris was looking a bit on the resistant side. “I no good with blood.”

“Seriously? You kidnap and kill people for a living and you are telling me you’re afraid of blood? How can that be?” I tried to straighten up but I couldn’t. “Boris, seriously man, I really need you to help me out here. I can’t stand up. The glass is in deep and I can’t stand up so you’ve got to get it out!” I was starting to panic now, imagining all of the different infections or diseases I might be subjected to by the nasty piece of glass.

Boris moved in closer and bent down to get a closer look. “Hmm. Looks deep. I don’t know. Maybe I get someone else.” He was looking worried and kept glancing back to the warehouse. My back was starting to hurt from being bent over.

“Boris! I think it would really be great if you could just pull it out. It’s easy. Just take a hold of it, count to three, and pull. That’s it-easy, then I will feel so much better.” I put my hands on my knees to steady myself. I felt a trickle of blood go down my leg and end on the inside curve of my knee.

“I don’t…”

“Boris! Please! Just grab and pull! You’re killing me here - ugh, no pun intended.” I was getting a little light-headed now, and figured he would either need to do this now or I was going to end up face down on more of the broken glass.

“Okay, I try. But I don’t like blood.” He reached out gingerly and touched the piece of glass.

“Ow!” I screeched.

“Sorry!” He whipped his hand back as if he’d burnt it and I shook my head.

“It’s okay, just pull it out. It hurts, so this time, just grab it and tug, okay? Just don’t listen to me, okay? Ready?” He reached out so his hand was hovering over the glass and then nodded. I closed my eyes. “One, two, three! Shit! That burns!” He did it! I slowly stood back up and turned around; just in time to see Boris go pale, roll his eyes back into his head and faint into a giant heap on the ground.

“Seriously?” I asked his fallen shape. I grabbed the puppy and started toward the river, my goal to get as far away as I could.

I made it down to the water’s edge when I realized two things. First, fuzzy slippers were not the best choice when trying to walk over sharp pointy boulders and two; I really hadn’t though this through very well. I looked left and right and realized that there was no conceivable way to escape from this particular point of the port. This was the last warehouse on the row and my choices were to swim for it or climb a twelve foot high chain-link fence topped with coiled barbed wire that bordered either side of this property. My only other option was to backtrack and try to sneak out the front. I heard a door slam and some loud angry voices yelling in Russian and I knew the last option had just expired.

“No, no puppy! You don’t want to get down here, it’s all sharp and pointy and will hurt your little puppy feet.” He was having none of it though, he wanted down and to play. He struggled against me, scratching my stomach with his sharp little puppy claws.

“Ouch! No chewing on Tansy, that is not nice! Ouch! Little sucker, my hands are not chew toys!” He was really intent on breaking free. He sunk his teeth into the skin between my thumb and forefinger and bit down with everything he had.

“Ouch! Little shit!” I dropped him out of sheer surprise at the pain in my hand. Luckily he landed in a crevice so he wasn’t hurt on the sharp basaltic boulders. I was having a hard time balancing however, and was unable to stop him from scrambling back up the rocks and running back toward the building and the bad men. The dog however, had no idea they meant to hurt me, so he ran willingly back. Damn, I could only hope they wouldn’t know what direction he’d come from.

I lowered myself down into the rocks as far as I could so anyone getting close would have to really come far down the rocks to see me. I heard the little mutt start barking a few seconds later. Damn, damn, he was way too close to avoid them from figuring out where he came from. Shit, this wasn’t good.

I heard voices coming closer and I tried to shrink down and become one with the rocks. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer. No luck, I heard the gravel crunching right above my head.

“Now Tansy, whatever have you done to Boris?” It was the evil Sam. He reached down and lifted me up out of the rocks. He set me down on the gravel. I promised myself when or if I ever got out of here I was going to buy myself some slippers with actual soles on them. Standing on sharp pieces of gravel sucked. I bit my lip though, not wanting to give away my pain. My feet hurt and my ass was throbbing.

He turned me to the side and looked at my rear. “What did you do to your cute ass?” His piercing blue eyes were not friendly. I scowled at him.

“Your hulk over there dropped me on a big piece of glass and then fainted when he pulled it out.” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. The wind bit me through my thin t-shirt.

Sam smirked. “Got a little bit of a chill do we? Maybe we can warm you up later.” He sneered at me. “But first, we’ve got to get you back inside so we can keep on schedule.” He glanced down at his watch. “The guys should be here any minute.” He gave me a little shove back toward the warehouse.

Boris was awake now, rubbing his face where he’d landed. There didn’t seem to be any glass sticking out of him, so at least he had escaped having to deal with more blood.

“What’re you doing anyway? Why are you mixed up in this?” It felt to have Sam be one of the bad guys. It wasn’t just that it seemed wrong, it felt wrong. His aura definitely didn’t match his actions, which was extremely unusual in my experience. Sam wouldn’t meet my eyes, he simply ignored my questions.

“Come on, I don’t have time for this.” He grabbed my wrist roughly and dragged me toward the warehouse. My fluffy bunny slippers were taking a beating.

“Ouch! Geez! No need to be so rough!” I grabbed hold of him, trying ease up the pressure on my forearm.

He pulled me through the door and over to the stairs; I stumbled along behind him. He yanked me along and I felt like my arm was going to come out of the socket. Hot tears stung the corners of my eyes.

He wrenched me up a set up metal stairs. I was granted a brief moment of reprieve as Sam stopped to unlock the door; then I was shoved into a seemingly small dark room. The door slammed and the deadbolt locked in finality.

“Hello?” A tiny voice asked from the dark.

“Callie? Is that you?” I was sure I recognized her petite voice.

“Oh, Tansy!” She cried, and I was engulfed in a huge shattering hug. “I was so worried they would kill you!”

“Kill me? I was worried they’d already killed you!” We stood there, clinging to one another and crying for a good minute until we came to our sense. After all, we were not weak women; we were masters of our own domain!

“We’ve got to get out of here!” We both said at the same time.

“Sam’s one of them!” Again, both at the same time.

“Okay,” I said, let’s figure out what we know so we can come up with a plan to get us out of here and get these guys put in the slammer. I don’t know what got into me-a sense of invulnerability or just that I was really, really, pissed; all I knew was these assholes were not going to get away with kidnapping us, killing Buster, or doing whatever illegal activity they were doing. I still wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it didn’t matter. I was ready to kick some ass.

“So, from what I overheard at the bar before I passed out and what I’ve seen here it appears that Big and the Russians have some sort of deal going with totaled cars, reused VIN numbers, and using these ‘new’ cars to smuggle guns.” Callie was chock full of information it seemed. She had put her time in captivity to good use.

“Well, we can’t let them get away with it! That’s for sure. I found the files and it sounds like they must outline all of their business dealings. No wonder they didn’t want them out in the open. ” It was all coming together all too clearly now, especially Sam’s involvement.

“So, how do you think that we can get away?” Callie asked. “Oh, and sorry about Sam. He seemed like such a good guy.”

“Ya, but I’m still not sure. His aura is totally off for being one of the bad guys. Even when I dated other bad boys they put off an aura that might be considered on the bad side, if not simply ambivalent. I should have known better with them. Sam is confusing. His aura totally is heroic and good, but his actions are bad. Either my skills have gone south, or he is not what he seems.” I sat and contemplated this for a moment. I wasn’t sure what I was saying, let alone what it meant.

“Well, all I know is he’s been acting like a complete jackass. I’m no expert in ‘reading auras’ but I sure know when someone has it out for me.” She was all logic and sensibility. I was just plain nutty.

“Okay, enough about Sam. I’ll deal with that later. What are we going to do to get out of here? How long have you been in here, anyway?” I realized that if Callie had been here for any time at all she had probably tried to figure out how to escape. Since she was still here I had to deduce that either A, she hadn’t been here long, or B, there was no way out.

“Hmm. I’m not sure. What with it being dark and all, five minutes seems like ages. They drugged me at the club and the next thing I knew I was in this giant warehouse. Sam was there, and then I was put up here in this room for ‘safe keeping’. They kept talking about you and finding some files.” She paused, thinking I supposed. “Where id you find them anyway?” She asked.

“On a flash drive in a hide-a-key under Buster’s wheel well of his truck of all places. I called Sam, thinking he would know what to do or what to make of them.” I snorted. “Apparently what he knew to do was have me kidnapped and snag the files at the same time. You have to realize they don’t intend on keeping us around for long. We know too much.”

I felt my way back over to the door and tried the knob. It turned, but the deadlock was firmly in place and kept the antique door from budging. I could hear little puppy barks echoing off of the metal warehouse walls. I hoped the little fuzz ball was okay.

“Did you find any windows in here? Or another door?” I asked, hoping she had some sliver of hope to serve me.

“Nope. But, I didn’t get far, actually. I have this horrible fear of spiders and I really didn’t want to be sticking my hands into places they could be. I only caught a glimpse of this room before they closed the door, but it was dusty and cobwebs were everywhere. I don’t think anyone’s used this office in quite a while.” She let out a tiny noise and I could feel her giving a responsive shudder to her spidery thoughts.

“Did you see any vents or anything when you glanced around?” I asked, an idea forming.

“I’m not sure. Maybe? It’s been a little while, and I can’t remember exactly.”

“If we can find the vent, maybe we can crawl through the ventilation system and find a way out of here. I noticed when I was down below that this place has a huge duct system. I’m sure we’ll fit!” I moved over from the door and started feeling along the wall.

“My guess is there had to be a vent and it will most likely be somewhere near the floor, along the back wall. I worked for a time at a packing plant back home which had been housed in a similar building. The offices were up above the main assembly floor so management could watch over production; see who was screwing off, you know? The vent system came into the office from under the floor.” I kept tapping the wall with my foot and my bunny slipper soon hit metal. I felt my way down and sure enough, it seemed to be about a two by two foot vent.

“We’re in luck Callie! One of the screws is missing, and this thing is a little on the wiggly side. Come and help!” I heard her scramble back through some chairs and then she was at my side.