Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games (3 page)

Sarah glanced at the other two men to satisfy her initial assessment that they were the underlings and this young man—he couldn't be twenty-five—was the one in control.

“All of you bugger off,” she said breathlessly, feeling her arms start to shake from the exertion of holding the heavy gun out in front of her.

The three men erupted into laughter, truly delighted.

“Blimey! She's like Wonder-fuckin'-woman!”

The other two men crowed loudly at their leader's humor and repeated the phrase to heightened bouts of laughter.

“David!” she called out. Out of the corner of her eye she could see he was stirring, trying to sit up, but his face was splattered with blood. He appeared dazed and shook his head, trying to clear it. “I mean it, You bastards better head out. I will shoot you!”

“Nah, you won't, darlin',” the leader of the group said, nudging David's face with the barrel of his rifle. “I must say, I don't like people pointing guns at me. Oy, Jimmy, sit the Yank up there by the fence.”

Sarah watched as the two men grabbed David by the arms and dragged him to a sitting position and propped him up by the fence. She could see he was struggling to come to his senses.

If only their positions were reversed! Should I just start shooting? The bastard was holding his gun right to David's head. Would he have time to shoot him before I—

“Oy, chickie, here's the deal,” the leader said, grinning a smile of very white, very straight teeth. “Give me your gun or I'll blow his fuckin' head off.”

She could see David shaking his head. He might be trying to clear his head, he might just be addled, but she felt sure he was telling her not to give it up.

The Englishman slammed the nose of his rifle into David's temple and David groaned, but he didn't topple over.

“Give me the gun or I shoot the bastard!” the Englishman yelled.

Sarah later would believe that a part of her didn't understand the words or comprehend the meaning. A part of her was only terrorized and harboring some belief that this creature would not kill her or her husband—even in this terrible new world. But right at that very moment she only knew, if it meant her own death, she couldn't just let them kill the man she loved, the father to her child…her David. And so she dropped her arms—her heavy, tremulous arms, with their weighty purchase—and let the gun fall into the grassy dirt at her feet.

She never even heard the monster's grunt of satisfaction over the sound of the gun blast that blew the top of her husband's head off.

T
he sounds
of gunshots were unusual these days, and it didn't take long for reports of the noise to make the rounds in Donovan's small community of fifty people. He, himself, had heard the single gunshot as he was coming out of the stable, leading a horse on either side. He must have tensed, because one of the horses shied and had to be calmed. Although it was impossible to tell which direction the sound came from, instinctively he looked toward the Woodson cottage. He noticed his sister-in-law, Caitlin, standing by her tent watching him and he nodded curtly toward her in greeting. Gavin came running from across the central camp cook fire.

“Da! Did you hear that? Sounds like it came from over near the Woodsons'. Me and Danny'll check it out, eh?”

Mike handed the horses off to a young teenage girl who materialized on his left. “Take these two, Nuala,” he said to her. “Put ‘em in the paddock for now.”

“Not the south pasture, Mr. Donovan?”

The girl was earnest and hardworking, Donovan knew. Pretty, too, but she didn't seem to realize it.

“Not just yet. Go on now.” He turned to Gavin, who was standing in front of him bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Where's young John?” he asked.

Gavin pointed to the other side of the cook fire. “Fiona's got him plucking chickens,” he said.

Donovan followed his glance and saw that John was, indeed, standing with Fiona, a pile of feathers at his feet. But he was looking in the direction of his home.

“Send him to me,” Donovan said. “And you go. But mind! Be sneaky about it. If there's trouble over there, I want information not grandstanding.”

Gavin was off before Mike had finished speaking. He watched him grab John by the shoulder and point to Donovan before sprinting off in the direction of the house. Mike saw John struggle between the desire to follow Gavin and obey the order to come to Mike. He turned and trotted over to Donovan.

“You hear a gunshot?” Mike asked him.

“Yes, sir. Over at our place.”

“We don't know that. Gavin's off to check on it and I'll be needing you to stay here until we know what's going on.”

“But, I…” John was clearly moments from tearing out after Gavin and Mike couldn't help but think it a blessing that just the day before he'd the opportunity to impress upon the boy that he was to be obeyed at all times. If young John's backside hadn't still been smarting from his recent shellacking—and Mike had no doubt that it was—he might have been tempted to ignore Mike's wishes. As it was, he looked in frustration in the direction of his house.

“Go on, now,” Mike said. “Finish your chores. Gavin'll be back in a tick if there's anything to report.”

Mike watched John trudge back to the campfire, where Fiona waited for him. She gave Mike a questioning look but he merely shrugged.

They'd find out soon enough.

S
arah sat
in the back of the wooden cart, her hands tied in front of her, a gag in her mouth, her head leaning and banging against the rough wood sides of the bouncing cart as it jostled over the once-smooth country roads. The time between David being shot and her placement in the cart felt like a sequence in a dream. She didn't remember how she got here, if she walked or was carried. She didn't remember if the men spoke to her after they'd killed David, or laughed, or just turned away from the carnage. She didn't know how long she had been sitting in the cart or how long it had been traveling down the long, bumpy road.

Three women huddled with her in the bottom of the wooden cart but Sarah didn't look at them. The smell of vomit, and worse, pooled on the floor, and with her mouth bound she was forced to breathe every vile gust through her nose. One of the women, a girl it sounded like, was crying softly, almost noiselessly.

The sound began to push the image of David to the forefront of her mind and she fought to sink back into her numb state. She couldn't think of him. She couldn't remember her last vision of him. Dear God, she would go mad. She couldn't remember any of it right now. Later. She would remember it later.

She tried to tell herself, as the cart lurched down the road, that none of this was real.

How? How could it have happened?
The cottage was hidden from the road, was virtually invisible.

As she fought to keep the images and thoughts from overwhelming her, she looked back at the cottage from where she sat in the cart. A heavy tarp was thrown over the top, but afforded a wedge of a window to the outside world. She thought, inanely, of the lone cooling loaf of bread on the counter in her kitchen at the same moment that she saw the long telltale smoke from their chimney and her cook stove heralding the way to their sanctuary.

D
onovan didn't believe
he had ever been more exhausted in his life.

It was well past dark as he packed his saddlebags and gave out his last orders. Fiona and Gavin stood in the stables, silent as mutes, watching him secure his bedroll on the saddle.

“Why can't I come with you?” Gavin asked the question without conviction. Donovan knew he didn't have to explain why Gavin needed to stay.

Fiona was another matter.

“We need you here,” she said fiercely. “Send someone else after her.”

Donovan tugged down the stirrups on the saddle and turned to her. “I can't.” He glanced at Gavin and held his arms out. The boy came into them and Gavin held him close and long.
This was something little John would never be able to do again
, he thought. He'd never again know the warm and secure feel of his loving father's arms around him. The least Mike could do was make sure the lad got his mother back.

Like that's the reason I'm going.

He released Gavin and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Watch over the camp, but err on the side of caution. Take no chances. No heroics. If someone comes, gather everyone together and hide in the caves like we practiced, you hear?”

Gavin nodded solemnly. “I'll take care of the place.”

“I know you will, son.” Donovan gave Gavin's shoulder one last squeeze and the boy turned and slipped out of the stable. He glanced at Fiona. “Who would you have me send, then?”

Fiona rubbed the chill of the autumn night from her arms as she looked wildly around the stable as if trying to find someone else. “I don't know,” she said finally. She looked at him quickly. “And I love her, too, mind. It's just, we can't afford to lose you.”

“You won't lose me.”

“I'm sure that's what David said too,” Fiona said tartly.

The exhaustion pierced Donovan and his shoulders sagged with the weight of it. It was nearly impossible to believe that David was gone. When Gavin had come running back with the terrible news, Mike had gone himself to see. The sight had nearly made him sick.

From what he could see by the boot prints in the damp earth by David's body, there had been two of them—and Sarah. He could tell that Sarah had been dragged away. He followed the tracks to signs of a heavy cart moving due east from the Woodson cottage. Whoever they were, they were traveling loaded and slow. He should have no trouble in overtaking them.

He mounted and leaned down to pat his sister on the shoulder. “Take special care of young John.” The boy had been devastated, naturally. His tears—and his bravery—had nearly broken Mike's heart. “Tell him I'll bring his mother home. He'll believe it because I will.” As Mike spoke, he felt his throat closing up again and he knew he was telegraphing his emotions to Fi.

Yes, it had been horrifying to find David—
the man had been so vital and alive just a few hours before!
Yes, it had been upsetting for the whole community to be reminded that such horrors could still happen. But the real agony? The gut-wrenching, bone-watering agony that Mike struggled not to let overwhelm him?

They'd taken Sarah.

They had her, whoever they were. They must have her bound and probably hurt, because there was no way Sarah wouldn't put up a fight not to be taken from her son.

Just the thought of her, hurt, helpless and heartbroken herself, made Mike put his heels to his horse's flank, exhaustion be damned.

T
he cart moved relentlessly forward
for hours. Sarah didn't notice if it stopped, though later she would realized it must have in order for the men to relieve themselves on the side of the road. Two of the women she shared the back of the cart with soiled themselves and seemed not to notice or care. When Sarah began to emerge from her self-induced dreamlike state, she was aware that it was nearly dawn. They had driven all night. Or, if they stopped, she had no memory of it.

It was her own need to empty her bladder that tugged her back to reality. When she found herself looking around the cart interior, she saw a pair of bright brown eyes watching her.

“If you need to use the loo,” the voice whispered in an English accent, “you just knock on the seat behind you. They'll stop because they don't want to have to clean up any messes.”

Sarah stared at her and licked her lips. Someone had pulled her gag down and it hung like a decorative scarf at her neck. She glanced at the other two women, who clearly could have benefited from that information earlier. They hugged each other tightly, their eyes sealed shut. Sarah assumed they had been taken together. She looked back at the woman with the big brown eyes.

“Why?” she croaked. As soon as she spoke the word, she was sorry. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about or think about what had happened, let alone what
was
happening. Immediately she held up her hand, palm out, and shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

But it was too late. The image of David came roaring back, blotting out every other sight or thought or sound. Sarah covered her face with her hands and a terrible, keening moan erupted from her throat. David all crumpled up and bloody, his eyes not seeing the sky or the ground. Her handsome husband. His wit, his crinkling blue eyes that saw everything so clearly.
Dear God, how could it be possible?
After everything they'd been through. After all the close calls, all the sacrifices…how was it possible to lose him now?

“Do you need to go?” the voice whispered again.

Sarah pulled her hands from her face. Her wrists chafed badly where they were tied but she didn't care. She looked at the woman, who looked almost friendly.

“Why?” she asked again, this time with resignation.

“I overheard them talking,” the woman said, scooting closer to Sarah. “They're hoping to ransom us to our families.”

Sarah looked at her like she was mad.

“We just need to sit tight,” the woman said, smiling shyly. “Not do anything to get us hurt in the meantime.”

“I have no family.” The pit of her stomach roiled as she thought of her husband lying in his own gore in their south pasture. A flashing image of John came to her and she felt a moment's dread that these monsters might have visited Donovan's place, but no, there was just the four women in the cart.

“Well, then whoever wants you returned, pet,” the woman said. “I'm Angie by the way.”

Sarah could see that Angie's bonds were looser than her own. As she watched, the woman constantly moved her wrists and tugged at the fibers of the rope that bound her.

“Sarah,” Sarah said tiredly.
Could it be that simple? Ransom?
“How do they know where to go to find our families?”

Angie shrugged. “I'm just telling what I heard ‘em say.”

Sarah nodded and then reached up and tapped firmly on the wooden bench over her head to get her captors' attention. She felt the cart slow and then stop. The tarp over the top of the cart, which had given them the impression of a snug little cave, was wrenched off, exposing them all to the wind and the rain. Sarah guessed it was late afternoon by the light, although she wasn't sure she hadn't been unconscious for part of the trip.

Involuntarily, she took in a hungry gasp of air, as if she'd only been breathing with a half a lung under the tarp. The face that glared at her from over the cart's side was the young redheaded man who had helped drag David to the fence. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but he had helped kill him.

His eyes looked at Angie, questioning, and his face seemed to soften.

“Oy,” Angie said, her voice softer and pleading. “We need to use the facilities.”

The man looked away and the leader joined him at the side of the cart. “Jesus!” he said. “Smells like you already did. What pigs! Come on, Aidan, get ‘em out. Blimey, what else would you expect from the Irish?”

“Jeff!” the driver called. “Take over here and let me do that, eh? You've had all the fun today.”

The young man called Aidan pulled the gate down in back and Sarah and Angie scooted toward the opening. They were stopped in the middle of the road, but Sarah hadn't seen another traveler. Angie scrambled out first and Sarah watched the two men's faces as she did. They must have been bored, she thought. They were enjoying the distraction. She looked into the face of the man called Jeff—the one who'd murdered David—and she carved his features into her brain.

One day. Some day. If not me, it'll be someone like me. I'll see you punished.

Before Angie was all the way out of the cart, Jeff reached forward and grabbed her breasts, pulling her all the way out. She squealed in pain as he wrenched her out of the cart and dropped her to the ground while the other men laughed.

Sarah's heart pounded as the third man came around the side of the cart. He was homely, his face pocked with old acne scars. It's true, she thought with her fear rising inside her. People born ugly will act ugly. She jumped down from the cart and went to stand next to Angie, who was glowering at Jeff as he climbed back into the driver's seat of the cart and picked up the reins. Sarah looked around and then held up her hands.

“Can you untie us?” she said. “I can't get my…my…” It occurred to her that she didn't want to be anywhere near these animals when she had her pants down, but short of soiling herself, she had to try.

Aidan glanced at Angie again, then pulled out a knife and stuck it between the cords of Sarah's wrists. Her hands sprang free as soon as they were cut and she quickly massaged them, but forced the automatic
thank you
that was on her lips back into her throat.

“Try anything and I'll tie your hands to your feet for the rest of the trip,” he said, as he cut through Angie's cords.

Angie and Sarah edged away from the road and into the ravine, where they lowered their pants and relieved themselves. She could hear the other two women whimpering and she guessed they were having their bonds cut, too. Before she was quite finished, the ugly one came and peered over the ravine at them. He laughed and then turned away.

Angie zipped up her jeans and rubbed the red marks on her wrists.

“They're fucking animals,” she said, her face flushed with anger. “I'm not even Irish, nor you neither.”

Before she could answer, Sarah heard a scream from the road. She fastened her jeans and bolted up the side of the ravine. She saw that the ugly one had one of the other women down on the ground. Her scream had been silenced by the large, filthy hand that gripped her face. She lay motionless as he ripped at her skirt with the other and positioned himself between her legs.

“Old enough to be your mother, ya randy git!”

“I think this
is
his mother!”

“Nah, I've had her. She ain't this fine.”

The men's raucous laughter echoed down the empty road.

Without thinking, Sarah charged. She felt Angie's fingers gripping at her from behind, but she shook her off and sprinted across the road.

By the time she reached the two on the ground, the oaf had obviously removed all obstacles to his goal as his naked backside was pumping vigorously. Before Sarah could reach him, an arm whipped out and pulled her off her feet and swung her away from them. When Aidan set her on her feet, he backhanded her full force into the side of the cart. Sarah's head cracked against the wagon and all light and sound snapped out as she slumped to the ground.

When she awoke, her hands were bound again and the cart was once more moving. Either it was dark out or the tarp was covering them with no gap, and Sarah could barely make out the forms of the other three women with her. She ran her tongue over her teeth and found at least three loose ones. Her head ached badly and her arm felt on fire. That must have happened when they'd reloaded her unconscious body back into the cart, she thought.

“You awake, Sarah?”

Sarah turned to see Angie's anxious face next to her. “You scared the shit out of me,. Why did you do that? That was crazy.”

Sarah's eyes tried to adjust to the dark and see the woman who'd been raped. She sat where she had before, holding the younger woman and staring where the opening in the tarp had been, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of the scenery.

Sarah looked back at Angie and closed her eyes. She was definitely seeing double, so she guessed she probably had a concussion.

“You gotta stop that shit, Sarah. They are gonna bloody do what they're gonna do. Just let ‘em!”

Sarah opened her eyes and saw that Angie looked genuinely distressed.

“Trust me, they'll do all of us before we get where we're going. You want to live to escape, you gotta pick your battles.”

Sarah knew she was right. She had been foolish this afternoon, with no plan or weapon beyond her horror and anger.

If I get killed, I'll never see John again.

As if reading her mind, Angie reached out to touch Sarah's hand and Sarah saw that she was tied again, too. “You really don't have any family?”

Sarah took a long withering breath and willed the emotion to stay in check. Her voice was a whisper. “A son.”

“Is he young? Young enough to need his Mum?”

Sarah looked at Angie and forced the tears not to come. “He doesn't think so,” she said, and tried to smile.

“So see? You gotta stay in one piece, however you need to do that, for his sake.”

Sarah nodded and then shifted against the cart. Some of them must be asleep, she thought. Normally she could hear voices from the front. Two on the cart front and one—Gareth, she thought they'd called him—riding point on a green gelding.

“How about you?” Sarah asked.

Angie's face relaxed but she shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “But I aim to live long enough to do it some day.” She shrugged. “I got a boyfriend.”

Sarah looked away and felt the terrible agony of the day close around her like a vice she couldn't escape from. She wasn't even sure it was her voice that spoke, but it must have been. “I had a husband. A good man. A loving father. My dearest friend…” She put her hands to her face and a terrible keening wail came from deep inside her. She could hear one of the drivers, either Jeff or Aidan, knock hard against the side of the cart. “Shut up in there!”

Angie's hand squeezed Sarah's. “Shhh, Sarah,” she said. “Keep it in, petal. Keep it all inside for now.”

Sarah took a shuddering breath and nodded. Using every inch of strength she ever possessed, she shoved the desperate, bottomless, grief deep inside her.