Hopefully.
Becks tore open the door, and ran. Her feet were bare, but she didn’t care. She followed the gravel path down the hill, surrounded by nothing but trees and brush. Adrenaline helped cover the pain of the stones in her soles, though not as much as she hoped. Every step was agony, causing her to trip and stumble.
And when she heard shouting from behind her, Becks looked over her shoulder before she cursed herself for making the very mistake she made fun of characters in horror movies for doing. Yet, she now understood the instinct in a way she never had before. She might have to reconsider her stance on horror films being so unrealistic. She’d never been kidnapped before, and yet she was sure she made all sorts of mistakes and errors that anyone not in her shoes would judge her for. But without training or experience, how could she possibly know or predict how she would ever react to her own kidnapping?
She was human, and survival was a very strong instinct.
Thankfully, Becks did not trip and fall as the girl running in films always seemed to. She also fought the powerful urge to look behind her to see if Ritchie or Cameron or both were following her. Based on the sounds of crunching gravel, at least one was, and they were closing in on her.
Becks barely made it to the shack Ritchie had entered when he’d checked them in the night before. And of fucking course the door was locked. Becks shouted and pounded on it, screaming at the top of her lungs for someone to help her.
A hand grabbed her hair, and threw her backwards. Becks fell from the top of the three steps leading up to the shack, down, down onto the gravel below. Rocks and pebbles embedded into her skin as her head smacked into the unforgiving ground.
“You lying bitch!”
Becks shouted in fury and pain as Ritchie approached her on the ground. Not knowing what else to do, she flung the laptop she’d somehow kept ahold of during her fall at his head. Ritchie sidestepped, and the laptop went flying right by his head. It hit the stairs behind him, clattered, and rolled down to the gravel below.
It was stupid. That laptop was not a gun or a knife. It wouldn’t have saved her, but she felt the hope inside her die as it lay in pieces behind Ritchie.
“Nice try,” he sneered, advancing on her.
Unlike Becks, Ritchie was wearing shoes. He kicked and stomped on her. Becks tried to scurry away, but he got her hair again. Standing over her, he pummeled her with punch after punch. Her nose, her temple, her cheek, her ear… They all took hits as she tried to curl into a fetal position to protect her head and belly.
Thunder rumbled overhead, getting louder with each passing second.
At times, she did manage to crawl away and put some distance between them, but never enough where she was able to get to her feet before the beatings started again. Something cold touched Becks’ arm just as a shout rang out. It was different than Ritchie’s, nor did it sound like Cameron’s.
“What the fuck is going on here?” The voice was rough, older, and male.
The hits stopped. Becks did not move, only curling further into herself. She didn’t even look up as Ritchie spoke.
“Just teaching my bitch a lesson about stepping out on me.”
A laugh filled the air, sending shivers up and down Becks’ back. “Women need a firm hand, brother, but that don’t give you the right to hurt my computer.”
There was a step in the gravel by her ear, and Becks felt that cold, smoothness leave her arm. The laptop! She and Ritchie must have somehow circled each other, and now she was at the bottom of the shack’s steps.
“My apologies,” she heard Ritchie say, no doubt handing the laptop back over to the owner. “How about I make it up to you? My woman wants to act like a slut, might as well make her one.Why don’t you have a go, and we’ll call the damage to the laptop even?”
Becks’ eyes flew open, her arms still covering her face. She expected to hear outrage from the man, even disgust, at the offer. That’s how she would hope anormalperson would react when offered to rape a woman in exchange for a broken computer.
Instead, she heard that fucking laugh again, followed by the clank of a belt. Becks didn’t care how much pain she was in. She wasnotgoing to just lay here, frozen, as some stranger unzipped his pants.
She kicked out with her heel. She had no idea what she hit, but she hit something. Rain started to fall in heavy sheets, making her slip and slide on the rocks as she got to her feet. Her vision was blurry. Even with the rain, it seemed off, and with each blink felt as if her head was about to explode. But somehow, someway, she found the strength to get to her feet.
Something red streaked past her, just barely brushing her arm, as thunder filled the air. But she didn’t stop. Running was no longer an option. Something was wrong with her right leg. Hobbling and hopping, she made her way into the woods.
CHAPTER 18
There was no pain, no agony, no weakness from unhealed wounds. There was only pure, undiluted rage.
Yesterday, they’d discovered where Becks and Ranger had been held in Mount Grove. They’d been right under the club’s noses, which pissed off not only them but also Carlos. Because they’d been in the old sheriff’s station. The one now closed down and used as a storage building for town décor, office supplies, and miscellaneous junk. Ghost had stood in the cell where his wife had been kept for days, only hours after they left it.
Hours. He’d missed her by fuckinghours. Ghost wasn’t the only one who was ready to burn the place to the ground; Carlos would have supplied the gasoline.
Then Keys had announced that he’d found her. Somehow the club’s tech had used a facial recognition program to identify Becks, even out of state. It had only taken him minutes from the time she stepped into that bank to identify her, but even though the club had headed out that second, they’d still been over four hours away from Becks’ current location. They had no choice but to notify the local authorities. Keys was able to send the tellera message, but that hadn’t prevented Ritchie from guessing something was up.
Ghost tried not to let the disappointment of the bank failure get to him, because now he had somewhere to hunt. With the police after them, Ritchie wouldn’t just drive back to Mount Grove or wherever it was they’d been keeping Becks. No, he’d hunker down and hide like the weasel he was.
