Shadows (Black Raven Book 1) (9 page)

Run. Trust no one.

Dear God, I am trying.

Aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses concealed his eyes. She saw her own reflection there and hated that she looked vulnerable, uncertain, and afraid. Snead, with sandy-blond hair and a receding hairline, had a smaller build. He stood next to McClendon. He wore the same kind of sunglasses as McClendon and the same somber expression.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to talk right now,” she said, trying not to panic, “and I don’t have any information about my father.”

From inside the van, Spring shot her a questioning glance, as Candy gave a loud bark. Skye drew a deep breath.
Run
. But she didn’t know how to escape from them.
Stall
, she thought.
Think
. “My sister and I are going on a delivery. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Why don’t you go in, get a cup of coffee, and I can talk to you when I return.”

McClendon frowned, while Snead went around to the passenger side of the van.

Skye said, “Leave her alone. Please. We can talk now. Just let me get my sister situated inside the coffee shop.”

Spring screeched, a loud, high-pitched, incomprehensible screech that signified that she’d been startled by someone she didn’t know, and the person was too close to her body space. Loud barks from Candy accompanied the screeching. Skye would have run to Spring’s side of the van, but McClendon gripped her forearm with a hand that felt like a steel clamp. She hadn’t seen that McClendon had a weapon, or when he had unholstered it, but she felt cold metal against her temple and didn’t have to look at it to know what it was.

McClendon said, “Get in the car. Now.” He didn’t mean her van, either, as he pulled her in the direction of his car, while she tried to pull her arm away. She locked her legs so that she wouldn’t move with him. After a few seconds where he pulled at her but made no progress, his fingernails dug into her arms. “Stop resisting me, or your sister’s dead.”

With his threat, Skye stopped pulling away. She stumbled as he pulled and dragged her to his car, past the driver’s side, and past the back seat, and
Oh God
, he was dragging her to the rear of the car.
Not the trunk.
She’d die if he put her in there.

Spring yelled, “Chloe. Gun. Chloe. Gun. Chloe. Gun.”

Skye twisted to see Spring. All she could see, though, was the van, which blocked her view of Spring. She couldn’t see her, but she could hear Spring’s panicked screams, then sudden silence.
Oh God.
Another second of quiet went by. Her silence was worse than her screams. The man who had Spring yelled a string of garbled words. Skye saw Daniel run to the back door, take in the scene with wide eyes, and run straight for Spring, who had again started wailing in the high-pitched, panicked way that signified a meltdown. There was a quiet pop, and Daniel fell to the ground, between the back door and the van.

“No,” Skye yelled. “No.”

Candy barked, then growled. A canine yelp of pain turned Skye’s blood cold. Skye looked for an opportunity to knock the gun out of McClendon’s hand. Sebastian had made it seem easy when he did it to her, but she couldn’t wriggle either arm out of McClendon’s steel-armed grasp on her. He dragged her the last few feet, to where the trunk of the sedan was open and the interior was a huge, dark void. He punched her upper back, pushing her towards the trunk. Skye stumbled forward and down, but caught herself on the rim before falling in. There was no way she was going in there alive. Claustrophobia wouldn’t let her. She wouldn’t be able to breathe. She’d die once he shut it. No way.

Snead, red-faced, came around with Spring. He was half carrying her, half dragging her. Spring was limp, with blood dripping from her nose. The left side of her face was bright red. Skye kicked at McClendon’s legs, trying to break away. Spring couldn’t get away from Snead because he was pulling her by the hair, but she wasn’t even trying.

Oh God.
He had knocked her out.

“Fucking bitch bit the shit out of me,” Snead said.

Sarah came to the back door.

“Help,” Skye yelled, meaning go get help. Sarah gasped. Wide-eyed, she ran to Daniel.

As McClendon strong-armed her towards the trunk by pushing her lower back and her shoulders at the same time, Skye heard an engine. She heard car doors, but her attention was locked on Snead. He had thrown Spring into the trunk and, lifting his right arm, he pointed his weapon at Sarah.

Skye yelled, “No. Please no. We’ll go with you.”

From behind her, a deep, authoritative voice, yelled, “U.S. Marshals. Freeze.”

Sebastian and Pete arrived back at the coffee shop in two minutes. The street in front of the coffee house was empty.

Ragno said, “I’m in the security system. Camera on the back parking pad reveals a partial glimpse of two men, weapons drawn. Skye is struggling. I can’t see Spring.”

“The back,” Sebastian said to Pete, slipping off his sunglasses, his hand on the door handle. “Block the drive.”

“Partial glimpses aren’t helpful. I can’t manipulate the view,” Ragno said, her tone calm. “Your eyes will be better than mine. I’ll be on stand by. Let me know if you need anything.”

Leaping out of the truck when he saw the black sedan, with every nerve in his body firing, Sebastian’s mind was in calm assessment mode. Snap-fire assessment while acting under pressure was something he had learned and practiced since he was a kid. Fear was good. Panic was bad. Controlled fear fueled positive reactions in life-threatening situations. Panic was a brain drain and stupidity meant death.

Breathing deeply as he ran up the long driveway, he took in Skye, hair loose and wild, resisting as an armed man tried to one-arm push her into the trunk. Spring, head down, hair falling around her face, was limp and still, as an armed man dragged her and pushed her into the trunk. Both men held semi-automatic pistols with silencers. Always a way out, Sebastian reminded himself. Lethal force was the last option. He scanned the scene.

Find. The. Other. Options.

The baker was lying in a growing pool of blood near the back door. Sarah was frozen, two steps out of the door that led to the driveway, in mouth-opened shock. Assessment time, over. Lethal force was his only option. Sebastian’s Glock was in his right hand, and he stopped at ten yards away, using his left hand to signal to Pete to hold steady. There was no way to have an easy or even moderately hard shot at these men, not when they were using the sisters as shields. Pete was good, but not sniper-quality good. Not yet. Sebastian almost had a shot at the asshole who had Spring. He didn’t have a shot at the one who had Skye, because he was holding her too close. The situation snowballed straight to hell when the asshole who had Spring simultaneously one-armed the limp Spring into the trunk and lifted his arm to fire at Sarah.

“No,” Skye yelled. “Please no. We’ll go with you.”

As he aimed, Sebastian yelled, “U.S. Marshals. Freeze.”

Not correct, but now was not the time to worry about technicalities. He aimed his weapon about one inch above where the arm of the man’s sunglasses met the frame, and fired as the man fired at the baker’s wife.
Fuck me to hell.
He hadn’t been fast enough, because the asshole managed to fire a shot before being hit with Sebastian’s bullet. The loud report of his own weapon barely registered as he saw the blood and brain spray from both of them. Sarah fell in the instant before the would-be kidnapper dropped to the ground. Dead. One down. One to go.

Sebastian ran, shaving a few more yards off the distance between himself and the black sedan. The second man pulled Skye closer, shut the trunk on Spring, pressed the pistol against Skye’s temple, and turned to face him. Skye was five feet eight inches of human shield, give or take an inch, and she wasn’t taking being held at gunpoint lightly. She was writhing, struggling, biting, scratching and using some creative curses at the top of her lungs. He admired her determination to break free, but her efforts weren’t helping him get a bead on the man holding onto her. The top of her head reached between the man’s jaw and his upper lip. Her height compared to the kidnappers gave Sebastian only a few inches for a kill shot, and the inches were unsteady, because he was walking backwards and dragging her closer and closer to the rear passenger door.

Sebastian aimed at the kidnapper’s forehead. He was holding Skye close with his left arm, pulling her in a bear hug around her neck so that her back was against his chest, edging step-by-backward-step to the side of the car. His right hand held his weapon and it was pressed into Skye’s forehead, but that wasn’t stopping her from trying to get away. The more Skye resisted with elbow jabs and shin kicks, the faster the guy moved, which made Sebastian’s percentages for success suck.

“Skye,” Sebastian said, his tone commanding. “Stop fucking
moving
.”

The kidnapper raised his voice. “Put your weapon down by the time I count to three or she’s dead.”

“If you want to stop me, point your weapon at me. Not her.”

The man’s weapon stayed trained on Skye. “One.”

Time crawled as Sebastian absorbed the horror in Skye’s eyes. She had no way of knowing that he wasn’t going to miss. She was wide-eyed, and, finally, he thought, as he drew a deep breath, she was still, so still she appeared to be holding her breath. Four inches separated Skye from the point where Sebastian’s bullet was going to enter the man’s head, right in the middle of the forehead, just a hair above the metal bridge of his sunglasses. Big, meaty arms, had a chokehold on Skye, but because she now was still, with each backwards step, the space between Sebastian’s target and Skye’s head remained the same, give or take an inch.

Four inches was plenty of distance. Plenty. He was damn good at hitting targets. Any target, especially human assholes who held a gun to a woman’s head and used her as a shield. When the man’s lips parted for the next count, Sebastian fired. A hole appeared directly above the guy’s right eyebrow, not quite at dead center between the eyes, but close enough.

Sebastian ran forward as the kidnapper slid against the car, releasing Skye as he fell. He kicked the guy’s pistol away as he grabbed for her. She was pale and silent, her eyes focused on the man who lay at her feet, with his blood pooling underneath him. Sebastian tucked his own pistol back in its holster. She was too quiet. Too calm. She was standing under her own power, but slowly reached back, for the car, and leaned back against it as her legs started to buckle. Sebastian reached out, trying to steady her by grabbing her shoulders. The strong woman who had enough moxie to point a revolver at him, who had fought back with the full weight of his body on top of hers, who had resisted a burly thug with a gun pressed to her head, was trembling from her hands to her shoulders, and her legs wouldn’t support her. Before she fell to the ground, he wrapped his right arm around her back, and his left arm lifted her up by tucking under her arm.

Skye smelled like vanilla-laced fear, her body was soft, and she trembled from deep inside, as though shivering in extreme cold. In her almost-passed-out state she was pliable and limp. As Sebastian held her upright, the hyper-kick that adrenaline from the gun battle had given to his senses wreaked havoc through his body, sensitizing every feeling, every smell. Sensitizing everything, dammit. Volumes of blood pumped into unintended places.
Son of a bitch
. Killing men normally didn’t give him an erection, so he knew his arousal was all about her.

As he held Skye upright, Ragno said, “Saw a partial view of the action. Nice work. Talk to me, Sebastian. Can’t see you now.”

“Two kidnappers, dead.” He watched Pete check for vitals on the baker and his wife. A headshake confirmed what he suspected. “Two collateral killings, compliments of the kidnappers. Pete. The trunk. We’re getting Barrows’ daughters out of here.”

He mentally switched from Ragno to the woman who was leaning into him, her face buried in his chest. She was silent and so still he wondered whether she had fainted. Her full chest hit at the bottom of his ribcage, her nose was pressed into the hollow of his neck, and if she was breathing, he couldn’t tell. But God, he could feel her heart beating. The pounding went straight through her chest, through the thin wrap sweater that she wore, and through his cotton shirt. “Hey. You’re okay. Skye?”

She didn’t respond.

“Breathe. Come on. Fight through it,” Sebastian said. “You’re going to be fine.”

Pete popped open the trunk. Over Skye’s shoulder, Sebastian saw Spring lying in the well, curled into a fetal position. Her eyes were open. She was quiet, but tears were flowing. Relief pulsed through him at the sign of life. A crimson smear of blood was on her cheek. More blood dripped from her nose. He set his jaw.
Fucking bastards. They deserved bullets through their brains.

“Come on, Skye. Don’t pass out. Spring needs help. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Sebastian started to lift her, planning to carry her into the SUV. Then he could return to help Pete with the sister, but when her sister cried out, Skye stiffened. Spring sobbed again, louder, and Sebastian felt strength returning to Skye’s limbs. When Spring cried a third time, a small, pathetic sound of fear and pain, Skye gasped for air. Gray-green eyes wide with fear searched his, as more strength returned to her legs and arms.

She drew another deep breath and nodded, “I’m ok.” Her words were barely a whisper.

“That’s a champ. You’re doing fine,” he said, relieved beyond words that she didn’t break down and start crying. When strong women like Skye cried, they reminded him of his mother and he’d sell his soul to make the tears stop. No, he studied her as she drew a deep breath. Not the type to break down. Instead, she was pulling herself away from an almost-faint that was induced by shock and fear, all because of Spring’s cry. He understood Skye’s strong will to protect. His body, still pumping with adrenaline from split-second decisions that focused on the need to kill, was sizzling with, among other things that he didn’t have time to think about, the need to get these women to safety. Now. He didn’t let go of her. He wasn’t certain she was ready to stand under her own power, because she was still leaning against him.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, her voice stronger.

“You sure?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He loosened his arms, but kept them encircled around her, just in case he needed to catch her. She managed to hold up her own weight.

“See,” she stood under her own power and turned to go towards the trunk, towards her sister. “I’m fine.”

Letting her do her thing with her sister seemed to give her more equilibrium. Sebastian crouched beside her would-be kidnapper, as Skye stepped closer to the open trunk. “Take Spring and get in the SUV.” Sebastian started looking through the man’s pockets, where there was no phone, no ID, no wallet, not one goddamn clue as to who the men were.

“Not going with you,” Skye told him as she moved past him. “Not now, not in this lifetime.”

Sebastian watched her walk through, not around, the pool of blood and guts that blocked her path. He guessed that she didn’t see the puddle of gunk or that her cream-suede boots became speckled with red blood and gray matter, because she was too focused on getting to her sister.

Not in this lifetime.

Feisty pep in suck-ass situations was something Sebastian normally found amusing, and he almost did now, except that two more of these assholes were going to show up at any second, and he didn’t have time to argue with Skye about getting in the SUV. Though his aim was dead certain, he frowned as he glanced at the bodies of the baker and his wife. Sometimes, like this fucking time, really bad collateral damage happened.

Pete was kneeling on the ground on the other side of the trunk, searching through the other guy’s pockets. He stood as Sebastian did. Pete said, “Nothing. Nothing in the car either.”

“Ragno. Pete. Did we record the camera footage?” Sebastian asked, walking to where Skye stood consoling Spring, who was still lying in the trunk.

Pete nodded as he scanned the area. “Yes, even if we weren’t recording through our system, the cameras have a digital recording through an online application, so Ragno can access that.”

“Ragno. Access the recording system. Keep a copy for us, then delete it from the application. Pete. Lock the front door. Put out the closed sign. The longer we can keep this from going public, the better.”

“Ragno. Send a Cleaner here. Have him call me when he’s en route.” Cleaners were Black Raven agents who were trained to deal with fucked-up situations. Since most of their operations were international, only a few Cleaners were in the U.S., and all were now working on the prison break. “For now, hold onto the camera footage. Later, I’ll get it to Minero. Skye, we have to go.”

“Should I alert Minero?” Ragno asked.

“Yes, but I’ll give him details. Tell him we interrupted a kidnapping, the sisters are safe, we’re in transit, and I’ll be calling in ten minutes.” Sebastian glanced at Skye. Pale and unmoving, she had rested a soothing hand on Spring’s shoulder, who still lay curled in the trunk. From where Spring lay, if she sat up even an inch, she’d have an unobstructed view of the carnage that was between the coffee house and the sedan. Skye’s eyes were on Sarah, who had fallen sideways against Daniel. A bullet had blown away a chunk of her head. The baker lay face up, eyes open, with a round entry wound in his forehead. Thick, crimson-black blood pooled around them.

Skye’s wide-eyed, stiller-than-still reaction told Sebastian she’d never seen this kind of death before, at least not in real life, in people who she knew and cared for.
Hell
.

“Hey,” Sebastian said to Skye as he grabbed her arm, “we need to get moving. Pete.”
Dammit.

“I’m in the coffee house,” Pete responded, through the mic, “locking it.”

“We need to call for help!” Yanking her arm out of his grasp, she tore her eyes from the bodies to look at him. His heart twisted with the abject misery that he saw in her eyes. He fought the urge to scoop her in his arms again and shield her from the carnage.