Twisted Complications by Nikita Parmenter
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ifinally find him, separated from the others. He’s in an intense fight, the guy he’s fighting against seems to be evenly matched with him and he’s landing hits as much as he’s getting hit. That’s not what has me raising my knife to help though. Another fucker is coming up from behind, aiming a gun straight for the back of Rage’s head.
My heart leaps into my throat as fear tries to claim me. Oh fuck no. I growl internally, my anger quickly burning away my fear. Rage manages to get the upper hand finally downing his opponent, his eyes land on mine and go wide just as I let my knife fly.
Don’t move. I mouth to him, hoping that he can see my mouth from here and he fucking listens. It’s too late to do anything else and I watch with horror as the guy behind Rage takes aim again, grinning victoriously. All of this happens in a blink of an eye and I worry that I might’ve been too late to release my knife. I should’ve pulled my gun, but I’m less comfortable with guns and whereas my knife feels like an extension of myself my gun definitely doesn’t. My whole body relaxes as my knife hits true, straight in the middle of his forehead. The guy drops to the floor with a thud and Rage spins around and freezes at what he sees. He turns back to me his eyebrows raised.
“I told you I had good aim.” Call across to him, the guys having just finished their fights and securing them.
“Brat.” He grins back at me.
“You’re welcome.” I grin.
I bend down and start securing the men and women around me.
“Shit.” Trick suddenly curses and I look up worried something’s happened to one of them only to see Trick disappear down a corridor, we all race after him figuring he must’ve seen someone escape down this way and if they get to the people holding Rylie and warn them, then there’s a good fucking chance that they will kill her.
I push myself faster, my muscles burning slightly at the exertion and the little cuts decorating my arms from where one of the fuckers I fought manged to nick me, pull uncomfortably, not to mention the slight pain in my ribs where someone got me with a well-timed right hook.
However, I am still standing and none of them are, so I win.
The corridor slopes downward and I’m guessing that we’re being led into the underground part of the building. Trick and Jensen catch up to the two escapees just before they make it into the room below, knocking them out and securing them, we cautiously peer out into the room, using the corridor as a kind of hide since its placed closet to one wall. I glance over my men quickly, noting that we’re all sporting some kind of injuries but the most serious one appears to be Jensen’s, thank fuck it wasn’t his dominant hand. Its barely slowed him down.
We move slowly into the room, where as the room upstairs was mostly tables, a couple of couches and a few vehicles and not much else, almost as if it was a chill out area for them, down here is row after row of crates. I’m willing to bet that there’s weapons or drugs in them. Maybe both. Something we can check on after we’ve secured Rylie. The room down here is duller, what little light there is casting long shadows, which is easy for us to move about unseen, but also making it easy for whoever is down here to move about without us knowing too.
We all move on silent feet, splitting up, Atlas coming with me, and moving further into the rows of creates. It’s not long until I hear the sounds of fighting coming from where the other guys are spread out. Me and Atlas pick up our pace moving further towards the end of the crates. Rylie has to be down here somewhere; this is where the tracker led us. Unless when they called Liam, he gave them alternative instructions and Rylie’s not here at all. All of this would be for nothing and I’d have to go to the meet tomorrow night.
Fuck, why didn’t I think of that?
Just as I start to become convinced that she’s not here and we fucked up, Atlas holds his hand up to me signalling that I stop. He motions up ahead and I see Rylie secured to a chair. Her face is swollen, her lip split. Her head is bowed, and her eyes are closed as her chest moves up and down in shallow breaths, reassuring me that she is still breathing but something might be going on with her ribs. Her leg is wrapped just above the knee with a completely blood-soaked bandage and if I had to guess, I’d say that’s what they did to her while I was on the phone.
Absolute fuckers.
The one saving grace is that her clothing all appears to be intact, none of it torn or missing.
The darkness inside me seethes at what they’ve done to my friend, a red tint changing my vision. My eyes zero in on a table of six guys, laughing and joking, being loud enough that they didn’t even hear the other fuckers being taken down around them.
I launch one of my knives, making the hit in the guy’s shoulder and grinning as he bellows in pain. I rush from the shadows, the guys quickly on my heels. These guys are better trained than the ones upstairs and provide more of a challenge. I knock the gun out of the ugly fucker’s hand as he waves it around in front of him, kicking it out of the way and punching him in the gut, as he goes to punch me with his left hand, his right strikes out at the last second and catches me by surprise as he cuts a large gash in my side, the pain pierces through me and I know I’m going to need a good few stitches.
Fuck.
Jensen comes out of nowhere and floors the guy, turning concerned eyes to me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I tell him, we need to get Rylie out of here, I’ve dealt with worse and this isn’t that bad, I’ll be good until everyone’s safe.
The plus side to wearing black is you can’t see the blood. My jacket flows behind me as I moved so its sliced through my shirt, but when I stop moving, my jacket settled back into place. I don’t want the guys freaking out over me when we need to be focused on Rylie. Like I said it’s not a big deal. The others have dispatched the rest of the guards down here. So, I waste no time as I rush towards Rylie. While moving in her direction, I do my jacket up, it’ll create a bit of pressure against the wound, thanks to the fact that it’s my leather bike jacket and it’s tight enough to add a bit of pressure.
It also would’ve protected me from the knife in the first place if it was done up.
I rush towards Rylie’s slumped form and cut the cable ties off her hands and feet.
“You guys need to step back, when she wakes up, chances are she’s not going to know where she is and a group of big ass men surrounding her is going to make her panic.” I tell them.
They all instantly back up, their faces creased with worry. Atlas, Rafe, and Rage all cross their arms over their chests as they stand back, their eyes scanning the surrounding area, in case we missed someone.
“We need to be fairly quick, Ever.” Trick says, “A couple of them escaped and we don’t know if they’ve called in for back up.”
“Jensen, Luc, and Riot have gone after them, but they had quite a head start.” Atlas adds in.
“As soon as we’re out, I’ll make a call and get the feds here to detain everyone. We need to get you out first, but we need to do it quickly.” Alaric adds.
I nod grimly. There’s nothing more that I’d like, than to give Rylie and few minutes to just breathe but we don’t have that luxury, she’s going to have to wait until we’re out and safe.
“Rylie.” I say softly, touching her arm, the only place where she’s not bruised.
She jolts as she wakes up, flinching away as she tries to move her stiff arms forward, to protect her, her eyes are wild as they search the room before they finally land on me. The relief in them is staggering and tears instantly start to flow down her bruised cheeks. I pull her into my arms, and she clings to me tightly. I’m aware we’re on a time crunch though and don’t hold her for nearly as long as I want to.
“We’ve got to get going, I’m sorry. We’re not safe yet.” I look over my shoulder and motion Cash forward. “Cash is going to wrap your leg to stop it from bleeding as we move you, okay?”
“Yeah, thank you for coming for me.” Rylie’s hoarse voice whispers, her eyes clearing slightly as she realises that she’s safer than she was, but we’re not out of the woods yet.
“Of course. I’m sorry you were taken in the first place.”
While we talk, me in an effort to distract her from the pain that it’s going to cause touching her wounded leg, Cash secures more bandages over the top of the ones already there, at my questioning look, he explains.
“If I take off the ones already on there, I risk it starting to bleed again, from what I can tell it’s either stopped or slowed down a lot, since the blood is starting to dry that also creates the problem that the dry blood will stick to her and the bandages and cause her unnecessary pain right now. The best thing I can do, is secure it and then leave the rest for the hospital where they’ve got the proper means to deal with it, and painkillers for Rylie.”
“Thanks, dude. I’m all for no more pain right now. Bring on the drugs.” Rylie jokes.
She holds her hands out for me and I slowly try to pull her up.
“Fuck, that hurts like a bitch.” She curses through gritted teeth.
“What does?” Cash asks, sounding concerned.
“Every-fucking-thing.” She smiles, but it looks more like a grimace. “As much as I hate to admit it, I’m going to slow you down. Can someone carry me?”
“Of course.” Rafe says, slowly stepping forward and gently gathering her into his arms, carrying her bridal style.
Now is not the time to admire the ease at which he did that, damn.
“I’ll try not to jostle you as much as possible, but we need to get out of here, quickly. I’m sorry.” Rafe says to her and Rylie nods.
“Just get us out of here, I can deal.” She says, determination hardening her eyes.
We set off at a jog back through the rows of crates. Getting cursed out by those of them that have awoken tied up. Jensen suddenly lands in front of us, making me jump and the pain from the cut in my side intensify. Ah, fuck. I take a couple of deep breaths pushing the pain away until it’s more manageable.
“What the fuck man, where the hell did you come from?” Rage says.
I grin, guns and bad guys no problem, Jensen falling from the air and landing in a superhero pose, that makes him jump.
“From up here.” Luc calls, balancing on the very edge of the crates at least twenty foot in the air. “We lost one of the fuckers that escaped but caught the other one. We thought we’d see what was in the crates.”
“You couldn’t have jumped from up there?” Alaric asks, as he starts to lead us forward again.
“Where’s Riot?” I ask.
“He’s gone up ahead, to make sure it’s clear. And no, he didn’t, he scaled down and then jumped.” Luc says, keeping pace with us along the top of the crates and making it look effortless.
“What’s in them?” Trick asks, curiously.
“Weapons, we could only get into a couple but both of them contained weapons.” Jensen answers.
“Well, fuck. That’s a fuck load of weapons if they’re all filled with the same.” Alaric curses. “I’ll put in the call now. We need the back up and you guys aren’t too worse for wear that you won’t be able to make it to the van in time before they get here.”
“Hang on, Atlas?” Rylie asks, sounding a bit confused, having only just realised that he's amongst us. As far as she's concerned Atlas had disapeared last year. There were loads of rumours at the guys last school about it.
“It’s a long story.” Atlas replies.
“I fucking bet.” She mutters, sounding tired.
We finally make it out of the building, picking Riot up on the way past, he didn’t manage to catch up to the guy that escaped, but there wasn’t anyone else out in the upper part of the building so at least there’s that. Atlas and Rage go out of the door first their guns drawn and checking for any stragglers we may have missed, or that may have arrived.
“It’s clear.” Rage calls back.
“Does anyone else have any injuries that need dealing with right now?” Cash asks, as Rafe gently sets Rylie down in the bed of one of the trucks parked outside.
“I could do with my arm wrapped.” Jensen says. “It can wait for proper medical care until we get home, but I’m dripping.”
Sure enough, blood is starting to very slowly drip off his fingers, having trailed down his arm from where he was grazed by a bullet. It’s not dripping very fast, in fact, it’s one every few minutes if that, so he’s not losing life threatening amounts of blood, but he does need it stopped. While Cash sorts him out, chastising him for climbing up the crates with it in that condition, I walk over to Rylie.
“How’re you doing?” I ask softly.
“I’m alive.” She replies.
And I get it, sometimes all you can be is alive and that’s okay. She’s been through a hell of a lot over the last few days.
“Whatever you said to that main guy on the phone, stopped them from laying a single hand on me after that.” She adds, her eyes open with curiosity.
I can feel the guys eyes burning into me.
“I just made some threats.” I say, downplaying it as I lean against the truck trying to take some of the strain off my side.
The blood is starting to dry and tug painfully.
“I can’t do this.” She says, her eyes lowering.
“Do what?” I ask, moving closer and taking her hand, she clings to me as her eyes latch on to mine.
“I just, I can’t do this. I can’t be involved with whatever you’ve got going on, I’m sorry. I got out and I’m safe, but if they find me again. . .” She trails off, her eyes filling with more fear than I saw even when she was tied to chair. “I can’t risk it; I just can’t. I can’t go back there.” She starts to panic, rocking back and forth as her arms wrap around her, like she’s trying to hold herself together.
“Deep breaths, Rylie. Come on, breathe with me.” I say, my heart breaking for her. “That’s it, in and out. Good, better?”
She nods, her eyes finally meeting mine again. “I don’t think we should stay in contact.”
Pain laces through my heart at the confession, but I understand. My second true female friend and I’ve lost her. “Okay, I never want to put you in danger again.” What she’s said though is concerning to say the least, I don’t want her living her life worried about whoever is after her. “Do you want us to deal with whoever it is that you’re worried about? I promise you won’t ever hear from me again, unless you want to.”
“Maybe.” She says sounding completely unsure, her eyes darting over my shoulder to the guys.
“How about this, I’ll give you my number, if you change your mind or need us for whatever reason, call me and I promise you, we will help.” I vow to her, it’s the least I can do, she was there for me from the minute that I moved back, helped me deal with panic attacks which were a fairly new thing for me and had my back at every fucking turn.
“Thank you.” She replies, her eyes dart away and I really fucking hope that she will call if she needs me.
I reel off my number to her.
“Ever, we need to get back to the van and away from here.” Trick says gently.
I look at Alaric worriedly, he seems to know what I’m thinking.
“I’ll keep her safe until my guys and the ambulance arrive.” He reassures me. “Rylie, you can’t mention that you saw Ever and the guys here. They’re involved in something a lot bigger than this, and it would put them all at risk. As far as they will be concerned, I got a tip and when I arrived, the guards were taken care of except for a couple that I took out since I’m covered in wounds from fighting. I found you and got you out.”
“I can do that, not the first time I’ve not told the complete truth when it comes to the cops.” She smiles, but its strained with pain and emotion. Her eyes land on me again and she opens her arms for me. I hug her carefully. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be strong enough for this.” She whispers brokenly.
I pull back, “Don’t you dare say that. You are one of the strongest people I know and I’m so lucky that I got to know you.” My voice chokes with emotion and I swallow thickly trying to force it down. “Promise me, you’ll ring me if you need me?”
“I promise. Love ya, girl.” Tears start to drip down her face and I force my own back, moving a little sharply, pulling the wound in my side, the pain grounding me.
Not the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but I couldn’t really give a flying fuck right now.
“Love ya too.” I give her a watery smile and turn away.