Target 84 (16 page)

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.
”―
Federico García Lorca
His hand, the very same one that moments before was gripping my hip in a fit of passion, caresses his reddened cheek.

“Never assume you can take me. This,” I say and gesture down my body, “is mine, therefore, requires permission to enter.” I’m seething. The awe of this man taking what isn’t his irks me.

“You didn’t seem to mind the lack of formalities two minutes ago,” he says and smirks. Irritation blooms in my chest, thick and heavy. I have no way to refute that statement. I was primed and ready for him. Something about him makes me burn with a potent desire I haven’t experienced before. Still, though. I don’t like being controlled.

I don’t like the battle for power that seems to brew between us.

“Just fucking breathe, bird,” he says.
Breathe
. As if it’s that easy. As if the rage boiling beneath my skin can be tamed by a simple breath. I roll my shoulders in an attempt to alleviate some tension. It doesn’t work.

“You need a plan, pansy, fine. Next hotel, we’ll stop.” I fold into the car roughly. The trunk slams shut, followed by muttered curses, and I smile faintly at the effect I seem to have on him.

“So what’s this plan?” I ask as we merge back onto the highway.

“We need to play this carefully, Greta. I want us to be prepared. I say we sleep, wake up in the afternoon, and go shopping for club clothes. Our best bet to get in undetected is with the masses.”

“You want to wait in line?” My voice is furious. He’s insane!

“Yes. Once we’re in, I can easily get us to the storage portion of the building through the back hall.”

“And where exactly would you like to stash our weapons? You have seen what women wear out these days, have you not? It doesn’t leave much room for anything outside of a knife holstered at my thigh.”

“I have a plan for that. I want to drop our duffel earlier, in the dumpster just left of the employee entrance. It’s locked from the inside unless you have a code, which I don’t. So we go in through the front door and pass through back near the restrooms towards the break room. You hold the door and I’ll grab the bag. From there, we can clear rooms one by one until we hit the storeroom. The storeroom is guarded by two men. Once through, there is a narrow hallway and Torren’s office is off of before coming to the main warehouse space,” he tells me, clearly having given this some serious thought. It’s a simple plan, really.

“Sounds all right I guess.”

“Greta, listen, we can access the feed to the cameras once we have a secure connection. The feed is accessible from my phone but we don’t know if anyone else is monitoring them. I’d rather wait until we reach the hotel and I can set up a secure remote session on my laptop. We need to see where exactly Allie is being kept. These men...they won’t spare her.”

“I’m banking on that,” I answer. And I am. There is no guilt in a killing spree that rids the earth of true scum.

“Banking on that?” he questions.

“Yes, Bentley. I will take pleasure in this massacre knowing that they don’t in any way deserve a shred of mercy.”

“You do realize that you can’t go in with the every-man-for-himself attitude, right, bird? Like any tactical team, we need to have a pattern to our movements. We have to trust each other. We have to be able to read each other.”

“You know...I’m surprised there’s room for the three of us in this car,” I say and laugh.

“You and me make two, darling,” he drops sarcastically.

“You, me, and your ego equal three,” I quip back at him. “I’m well aware that we will need to work together to make this work the way you want it to.”

“The way I want it to? Sorry if you don’t seem capable of the ability to play well with others,” he says, frowning.

“Yes, Bentley. This is your plan. Not mine. I want to drive my ass there right now, guns blazing as you say, and kill them all one by one until I come upon Allie, at which point I will scoop her up, exit the building, and get her ass back to Virginia!” My voice rises, giving away my true feelings. I sound like a petulant child and I know it, but that doesn’t mean I have to admit it.

“And what exactly are you going to be able to give Allie when you rescue her? A warm, comforting hug? Placating words? What makes you so well equipped to deal with post-traumatic stress in the variety of a twelve-year-old girl?” he bites out.

Shit.

Shit. Absolutely nothing in my training prepared me for the aftermath of Allie’s situation. Of course she’d want to be held, talked gently to. She will be terrified. The things I’d experienced as a child changed me but didn’t prepare me to coddle someone who needs it. I'm not known for being soft or warm or comforting. Why would I? I've been conditioned my whole life to be efficient. Like a machine. Cold. I am to perform a job and move on. Emotions are foreign to me. Before now that's been fine. I'm not sure when that changed but it's pissing me off. I don't feel in control and that's dangerous for me. She will want a motherly presence. I resign myself to the truth with a sigh.

“Fine. Your plan has merit in that regard,” I say. It is all I’m willing to give. I finger the faintly raised crisscrossing scars at the inside of my bicep, the result of graduation weekend. Over time I’ve come to think of them as my war paint but there was a time all I saw was ugliness. Would Allie have scars? Hidden or visible, they are a feat to overcome. Signaling the left blinker, I direct the car off the highway towards the luminous Super 8 motel sign.

“The clerk probably thinks we’re trouble now,” he says with irritation.

“Well you’re the idiot who didn’t ask first about one room or two.”

“Bird!” he says, clearly exasperated.

“Stop calling me that,” I snip. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to run either. We don’t need to share a room.”

“We do. We need to be in tune with each other. We have less than ten hours to accomplish that,” he grunts at me. Pfft. Learn each other. What a crock. I’m best on my own. I grit my teeth and smile at him as he unlocks the door.

“Here,” he says, turning his laptop towards me. “There.” He points to the screen. Taking swift, weightless steps, towel still wrapped around me from my shower, I stop next to him and stare at the screen. It’s dark, most of the lights look to be smashed out around her. A slender man with sharp features and shiny, dark hair secured in a tight stub of ponytail, stands next to Allie. He has a sinister look about him. I watch, not moving, not breathing.

“Turn it up,” I say softly. Bentley looks over his shoulder to me with questioning in his eyes.

“Are you sure you want to hear what’s going on?”

“Yes,” I say and breathe deeply as rage threatens to fully possess my body. Rational thought is quickly abandoning me.

“Call her,” the sharp-featured man squawks at Allie. She shakes her head. Tears stream down her face. She is bound to a chair. Her dark hair is matted and askew. The man dangles the phone in front of her. “Call Pepper now!” he bellows.

“That’s Torren,” Bentley grinds out. My eyes are glued to the screen.

“Is this a live feed?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers. Torren reaches back as Allie again denies him and backhands her. Her scream is loud and echoes in the space. When she lifts her head, blood rushes down her chin from her nose. My fingers dig into Bentley’s flesh.

“Hey,” Bentley says, sagging in his chair. I snap my eyes to his. He looks to his shoulder. I let out a huff and release his shoulder. The one I didn't realize I was gripping. Five small, crescent moons mar his skin with blood just barely breaking through the skin. His hand reaches out as I focus my attention to the screen again. His fingers lace through mine and squeeze ever so slightly. I don’t wince at the contact. I also don’t pull away. He is feeling the same rage that I am.

We watch for fifteen more minutes. They leave her sobbing and alone, tied to that chair, after she continually refuses to call Pepper. She is so much stronger than I ever imagined possible.

We are coming, Allie.

We are coming for you.

I want to yell it at the laptop but I know it’s a wasted effort. Bentley closes the laptop. Neither of us moves for a long while.

He stands, coming to rest six inches above me. His hand still holds mine. Or maybe I’m still holding on. His free hand swipes my cheek.

“We’ll get her out,” he says. Removing my hand from his, I walk backwards to the bed and thump down on it. I lay back and stare at the ceiling. We should go now. What if by tomorrow she’s injured more? Would Clara sit here right now? Pepper, Sawyer, Dom? No. No, they would do whatever it took to be there now.

A hand grabs my left foot, a thumb firmly on the arch of my foot, kneading along the way before repeating the same on my other foot. It feels heavenly. “We’re not going to risk her life by going in unprepared, bird,” Bentley soothes.

His hands continue their work. I’m not often pampered in this manner. I can’t help but wonder
why
he’s doing it. The muscles in his arms flex as he moves his hands higher, massaging my calf, followed by the other one.
Test your limits
Pepper said once after returning from her stint at the counseling retreat. The words stuck in my brain then, refusing to let go.
Learn what you can endure.
I have forever been doing that. Haven’t I?

I have been so alone in this life, cut off from normalcy. However hard I try, I always feel alien and strange. And now I’ve happened upon a fellow outsider, one who speaks my language without saying a word. I feel as if I’ve been walking on a wire, trying to keep from falling, and now, for the first time, am on solid ground.

Crawling up my body, Bentley’s face hovers over mine. His hazel-hued orbs peer into my icy ones. Intense. Without a word uttered, it’s as if he can see every last thought sputtering around in my brain. “Sleep, bird.” His voice gruff, affected. I close my eyes, not liking the exposed feeling that inhabits my soul when he looks at me. He rolls to the side. I sit up and pull on the shorts from Wal-Mart and a tank top. I grab a pillow and move to the floor.

“What’re you doing?” he asks.

“Sleeping,” I state.

Time ticks by. Moments that no one ever gets back.

No more questions leave his lips. The light shuts off, encasing us in blackness. A blanket covers me. A warm arm pulls me to a firm wall of chest. I stay silent. I focus on my breathing. The sound of it. The feeling of my lungs expanding and contracting. The smell of the man sleeping on the floor behind me.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
”―
Bil Keane
My shoulder is stiff. I’m too old to sleep on the floor. I remember when firm was comforting, though. I’d had a year or so after leaving my shack in the woods when I couldn’t sleep comfortably on a soft mattress after Ravenbrook. Too many nights I lay awake staring at the ceiling from the floor. I could have slept in the bed. I could have ignored the need to protect Greta, but knowing she was sleeping down there next to the bed gutted me. I know silence. I know loneliness. I know the thoughts racing in her brain. I wanted to comfort her. I hope I did. She didn't pull away and she eventually fell asleep. I waited for her sleep to come before finding my own.

It was four in the afternoon when I finally woke up. Greta had the TV on the local news station, volume low. She sat Indian style on the bed, hair haphazardly pulled into a messy bun, coffee in her hand. She’d smiled at me when she caught me watching her and handed me a coffee.

Both of us anxious, we decided that shopping would keep our minds occupied for a while. The hotel clerk pointed us in the direction of a local mall and we’d parted ways, Greta to find some skimpy clothing and makeup and me to find an appropriate clubbing outfit. At thirty-three, I decided that jeans and a fitted tee shirt was plenty good enough for the club scene.

We grabbed smoothies at her request from some hut in the middle of the food court and headed back to the hotel. I’m still hungry. Allie has been left alone for the last two hours. Two formidable-looking men stand near her but pay her no attention. Torren is nowhere to be found.

“You almost done in there?” I holler. It’s been an hour. I was dressed and ready in fifteen minutes. I hear her huff behind the bathroom door. It makes me smile.

As she exits the bathroom I notice how her tight dress forms beautifully around her ass, and I notice how sexy her legs are in those red heels. I notice without letting
her
think I see anything about her at all. When she moves towards the large mirror near the generic desk I let a slow whistle leave my lips.

“You clean up pretty well,” I tell her, grinning.

“You clean up pretty well yourself,” she remarks, voice throaty. To say that Greta Billings is beautiful is to skirt close to understatement. I stare blatantly at her now. She must enjoy the way I take her in because she gives me a smile that would suit a canary-stuffed cat. I feel like a steak on a plate as she eyes me up and down just as openly as I do her, revealing that I am not the only one affected by our closeness. She turns to the mirror to insert an earring. I’m to her in three steps, brushing the hair over her shoulder as she slips the earring in.

“Don't be fooled, bird. I'm the devil in disguise.” I breathe into the shell of her ear. Her skin breaks out in a flash of goose bumps before I step away. Mission accomplished.

“Let’s go,” she says, ushering me to the door.
Yes, let’s.

I hold it open for her, taking time to let my eyes wander over her glorious ass as we walk down the hall.