I'd already had my ass beat once out here. What the fuck had I been thinking? Oh, just that it was the middle of the day, on the busiest corner in town, and that I wasn't stopping for long. Stupid, stupid idea! Fuck!
So when the first man took a step towards me, I decided that I didn't care if they called me a pussy. I wasn't overly worried about looking like a badass. I knew what came next, and I'd been 'gay' long enough to know when running was the best idea.
I lunged for the door handle, hoping to get inside the car and lock the doors. I got it open almost six inches before big guy number one kicked it closed again. Then one of the men behind me grabbed my arm, yanking me back. I didn't even have time to turn before the fist landed on the back of my head and the world began to get a little fuzzy around the edges.
So I swung. My hand connected with something, but I wasn't sure if that was the car or a person. Someone else pushed. As I staggered, I tripped over the hose to the pump, falling on my ass by the back of Violet's car. I rolled, hoping to get back to my feet, but that fuck-up was the one I just couldn't recover from.
A boot caught me in the back. The concrete slammed into my chin. Someone lifted me up, just to shove me back down. I kicked, hit, and struggled to fight for just enough room so I could get away, but it wasn't working. Pain flared in my body over and over, fast enough that I couldn't keep track of where I was being hit.
And then someone caught me in the temple, turning the whole world black.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
My phone rang. I was in the middle of writing an email to the woman who would most likely be our new teacher. Without looking, I reached over and swiped at the screen. Lifting it to my ear, I answered almost absentmindedly.
"This is Violet Dawson."
"Violet, it's Maisie. Please tell me that one of you came and picked up Ash."
My brain completely stalled out. "Ash's on his way to Bonham," I explained. "He left here like…" I looked up at the clock. "Maybe twenty minutes ago?"
"Shit," Maisie breathed. "I have that Audi sitting in front of one of the gas pumps here. The nozzle is still in the tank, and Ash came in to pay, but now he's gone. I mean completely gone."
"Could he have gone over to the Grill?" I asked, trying to figure out why he would do something so stupid. He'd already been attacked there once, and that was when he had Luke with him.
"I honestly don't know," Maisie said. "I was in the back, restocking the coolers." She pushed out a breath, sounding like she was honestly terrified. "Violet, I tried calling the cops first. I mean, I walked up to the car thinking that maybe he was having problems or something, but there's no one in it. That was when I called the cops, and they said that there's no telling what a guy like that would do. They wouldn't even come to see what's going on!"
My heart couldn't decide if it wanted to stop completely or beat too fast. My head felt like it was spinning. I heard everything she said, and I believed her, but that didn't mean it made sense. How could Ash be gone? He was supposed to be heading to Bonham. If he stopped to get gas, why would he just leave the car there?
He wouldn't.
"Can you look at the security tapes?" I asked her. "I don't know, maybe see which way he went?"
"I don't have access to that," Maisie explained. "It's run by corporate. In all honesty, I don't even think the things work."
I pushed to my feet, but I didn't yet know which way I was going. "Okay, there has to be something we can do. I dunno, go out to the car and see if his phone's in there?"
"It's not," she assured me. "Violet, I already looked. He's gone. Even worse, I heard some of the guys talking the other day. I mean, you know people talk shit to each other and assume that because I work at the gas station, I won't hear them or something? Well, Jeremy and Nathan were joking about how long it would take to get one of the guys into town. They said fags, so they had to be talking about your guys. What if they did something?"
No, no, no, no, no. This couldn't be happening. "I have to…" I was looking around my office as if I could find the answer, because I really had no clue. "The cops," I decided. "I have to go talk to the cops. I'll worry about the car later." Then I simply ended the call.
My mind latched on to that one thing. Somehow, getting the police involved with this would fix everything. I didn't trust the cops, and I certainly knew they weren't on our side, but when things went wrong, they were supposed to be the ones to help fix it. Right now, I needed help. I really didn't care where it came from. I just needed to find some way to make this better.
I made it all the way to the living room before the panic began to take control. Ash was gone. I couldn't live without Ash. The two of us were supposed to be eternal, so he would never leave me. He would never go to a gas station and walk away. Hell, the thought of Ash walking anywhere he didn't have to was mind-boggling. He was a man who would call an Uber just to get around the block.
Which meant he hadn't left me. He'd been taken from me. There was no other way to explain this, and I didn't know how to fix it. He was supposed to be the one telling me what to do next. They had already put Darnell in the hospital, so what would they do to Ash?
That was when I broke. My throat closed. I felt like I couldn't even get a breath, yet I still managed to race for the door. Yanking it open, I flew onto the front porch and screamed at the top of my lungs.
"Cy!"
Over and over, I screamed his name. When he didn't answer fast enough, I started calling for Luke. It felt like it took everything I had to get the sound out, but the wail carried out across the pastures. Even to my own ears, it sounded like pure terror. It sounded like grief had been given a voice. That meant it was enough to make both men run as fast as they could to get to me.
"Vi?" Luke begged as he hurried over to catch me by both shoulders. "Violet, what's wrong?"
"Ash disappeared," I explained. "He took my car. He was going to Bonham to meet Scott. But Maisie just called and said my car is at the gas station, but Ash isn't around anywhere. I don't know where he went, and I don't know what to do, but he's gone. He's just gone and I know he wouldn't leave me." My eyes jumped over to Cy. "It means someone took him, doesn't it?"
The air fell from Cy's lungs and he had to reach out to grab the banister to hold himself up. "Ash?"
