Cyclone nodded and pulled Angel from the room. She kept her face turned toward the floor as she returned through the gauntlet of jeers. She didn’t want anyone to see the tears filling her eyes. They didn’t deserve the satisfaction.
This time, she welcomed the darkness when he locked her inside. She felt her way to the corner and sat down with her back against the wall. Dropping her head on her knees, she cried silent sobs of humiliation and despair. Maybe her father wouldn’t save her after all.
Whenever Cyclone returned to her room, Angel pushed away from the wall and knelt in the ring of light from the open door. She deliberately used the word Viper had demanded. “Please. Please let me have a pad, Cyclone. I’m begging you on my knees.”
“Here. Let me know if you need more,” he told her in a strangely tight voice as he thrust a filled sack at her.
“You brought me several?” she asked in disbelief as she accepted the stuffed bag.
“Tell me when you’re out,” he said and slammed the door shut. Something or someone had changed his mind.
Time passed slowly. Angel tried everything she could imagine to occupy her mind. She ran multiplication tables in her head, recited the capitals of the states, plotted out fantasy vacations in her mind, and made a grocery list of the foods she planned on eating when she got out of there and tried to never think about anything to drink.
When Cyclone came to visit next, his attitude toward her had changed. He left water and food for her to eat. His earlier habit of tossing half on the ground for her to salvage from the dirt vanished. Angel hoped she might have an ally to help her escape.
A loud commotion shook Angel from drowsing in her corner. Listening intently, she pinpointed the location to be coming from the right. Cursing herself for not memorizing the hallways when they’d paraded her through the building, Angel ran to the door, straining to hear better. Violent shouts resounded from both directions.
“Razor!” an urgent voice yelled from nearby. Almost silent thuds followed metallic pings as cursing filled the hallway.
Are those bullets? Angel raced from the door and flattened herself in the far corner.
She sniffed, smelling a burning scent. Something was on fire. Please don’t let me be burned alive in this hellhole. Angel wrapped her arms around herself and tried to think. She’d never found a way to get out. If the fire reached the door, she would die.
“Hey! Woman who’s kidnapped. Help me find you. Where are you?”
The man’s shouts pulled her from the corner. Angel yelled, but her voice was weak from a lack of water and use. She pounded on the door with all her might. If she broke the bones in her hand, the injury wouldn’t matter if she died.
“Stand back,” the man called.
She scurried to the other side of the room as quickly as possible. Almost instantly, the door flew open. Her gaze fixed on the bearded man who had broken the lock on her door. A leather vest. He was a biker, but the patch was different. Not a Ravager. Without taking time to read the name, she glanced back at his face. The expression of relief on his face morphed to totally pissed off as he scanned her. He shook his head, pushing the anger from his expression.
“I bet you’d like to get out of here.” He ran forward to scoop her up in his arms. “Consider me your knight in shining armor. Hold your breath. It’s smoky in the hallway.”
The haze burned her eyes. Angel buried her head into the leather vest that stretched over his broad chest. Gratitude filled her heart. He’d gotten her out of that room. Even if she died in a spray of bullets or the fire, she wasn’t in that goddamn room.
Her rescuer juggled her in his arms. Her ears rang as a close-range gunshot sounded below her. She clamped her teeth together to stop from screaming as a man tumbled to the ground ahead of them. The green patch told her that a Ravager had lain in wait in the smoky corridor to kill them. Her heart pounded as if it would explode at any minute.
“Almost there.”
When they burst out of the door, guns pointed at her from all the bikers waiting on their bikes. She shrank against the man holding her as she frantically checked that the Ravagers hadn’t followed them out of the doorway.
“Go, go, go,” her rescuer yelled hoarsely. His voice roughened from the smoke as he raced for the last riderless bike.
“Hold on the best you can,” the biker told her as he slid a leg over the bike and sat her in front of him. She’d never be strong enough to hold on behind him. His arms formed a cage around her before he started the engine and gunned the bike.
Chapter 2
The blonde in front of him hadn’t weighed a hundred pounds. Vex pushed his anger into a box in his head. He’d deal with the people who had tortured her later. Right now, he needed to keep her safe, and all hell was breaking out.
“Lean the same way I do,” he coached. Without asking, Vex knew from her rigid posture that she’d never been on a bike. He curved his body around her, trying to block the wind from the petite woman. Wrapping his left hand around her waist, he erased any space between them.
When she scooted away, he tightened his grip. Vex growled. Most of his words would be distorted by the wind. “Stay there or I’m going to spank your ass when we’re safe.”
In response, he heard “Filthy.”
“We’ll deal with that when we’re safe. The only thing that matters is that you’re out of there.”
She nodded so vigorously that her head struck his chin. Her gasp of pain went straight to his heart and erased any discomfort he felt. She stiffened against him and tried to put some distance between them again. His hand splayed across her stomach, tethering her in place.
