When I had called him and Xavier on Sunday, to tell them I was going to be otherwise occupied through Monday, I had told them both that I was with Devi. I hadn’t told them the details about fucking her all day and night, but they had gotten the message loud and clear; Devi was officially mine. And that meant she mattered to them, even if they haven’t officially met her yet. So, I wasn’t surprised when Atty told me to fuck off.
“I love you, too,” I replied like an asshole.
Atticus chose to ignore my smartass remark, and said, “I’ll call Xavier and Keith with what I have, and we’ll be right behind you, Cass.”
“See you soon,” I said.
“Don’t get killed,” he returned before hanging up.
A few minutes later, I was coming up on Steele Canyon Road, and I slowed down just enough not to flip the fuck over as I took a hard right, going north like Atticus said to. Frustration burned bright as I saw nothing but goddamn farmland everywhere. And even after I did get to the first abandoned-looking farmhouse, there was no guarantee that it’ll be the right one.
It took another five minutes of driving like a lunatic before I spotted the first disastrous farmhouse, and it was easy to see this wasn’t the place. Only two of the walls were still standing, and I imagined Fischer would want privacy for whatever he had planned. And my stomach roiled at the thought because I was pretty sure I knew what he had planned.
Passing the farmhouse, I hit push down farther on the gas pedal, taking my black Ferrari F60 to over a hundred. Not that it made a difference, but traffic was practically non-existent out here, so the odds of killing myself or some poor, unsuspecting fool dwindled a bit.
Finally, I came upon the second abandoned farmhouse, and I could see the tail end of a black truck peeking out from behind the building.
This was it.
In most cases, I would have been smart about this. I would have circled the property and checked to see how many cars might be in the vicinity. I would have parked my car somewhere secluded and crept my way around the building to see where I could get an edge on the situation.
But this wasn’t most cases.
That sonofabitch had Devi in there, and he’s had her for a while. I couldn’t afford the time it took to be smart about this.
Coming to a screeching halt, I jumped out of the car, not caring that dust was flying everywhere, and ran towards the farmhouse, praying I wasn’t too late.
God, don’t let me be too late.
Chapter 16
Devi~
Ialways considered myself a fighter. With all that Keith and I have endured since our parents’ deaths, I always thought getting through those hard times had made us fighters. But this situation has taught me that there’s a difference between being a survivor and a fighter.
A big one.
Surviving hard times was different from fighting for your life.
Surviving hard times was basically getting through the emotionally troubling times in your life. Surviving hard times was the act of maintaining control on your feelings and soldiering through your emotional breakdowns with some semblance of control.
Fighting was the physical act of holding your shit together. Fighting was more than enduring some heartbreak or sadness. Fighting was knowing the odds were against you, but not letting that deter you. Fighting was more than surviving the hard times.
It was actual survival.
And that’s what I had to do here.
Fucking fight.
Once we had hit the countryside, there’d been no stops. Oh, there’d been plenty of stop signs, but no stops. And the two cars we did pass on the road had just waved back at me when I had tried flagging them down.
Alvin had laughed.
When he had pulled his truck behind an abandoned farmhouse, that’s when I had gone into fight-mode. I had jumped out of the truck and had run out into the street. He had run after me, of course, and it’d been no contest when he had caught up with me. However, I was proud to say we had both fallen on our asses as I had kicked and screamed and fought against him the entire way back.
And now, inside the farmhouse, tied to a chair with enough scrapes and bruises to make my body hurt, I wasn’t exactly sure what Alvin was waiting on. Not that Iwantedto be attacked, but his caginess was making me more nervous, if you could believe that.
The abandoned farmhouse looked like you would imagine it to. Cobwebs and dust everywhere. Cracked windows with torn curtains or completely boarded up. Alvin had drug me through the living room to the kitchen, so I didn’t get a good look at anything other than the kitchen, but I imagined the entire place looked like the setting for a horror movie.
