“No. Would only draw attention. Dark is better.”
I’m regretting my words two seconds later when Cade is falling over sideways, crashing into me, hissing under his breath. He goes down hard, almost taking me with him. The zippo skitters out of his hand, skidding across the roughcast concrete floor, though the flame remains lit, guttering and then strengthening again.
“What the hell, man?” I grab hold of Cade by the shoulder, trying to pull him up in the half dark. He grunts, and then there’s the sound…the sound of a second person moaning? What? No one else should be in here. No one else should even know we have people in the basement. My hand’s reaching for the gun in my waistband when Cade swears loudly.
“Fuck, no. Damn it, it’s fucking Carnie.”
“Carnie?”
There’s more moaning. Cade gets to his feet, moving his considerable bulk out of the way, and then I can see Carnie too in the meagre light being thrown off by the zippo. Sure enough, he’s flat out on his back, a two-inch long gash along his right temple. His eyelids flicker open, but even from here I can see his eyes themselves are not working properly, don’t seem to be focusing on the men standing over him.
“What happened?” Cade demands. “What the hell are you doing up here, passed out cold, man?” He shakes Carnie hard, which seems to do the trick.
“Uh…I was…fuck. I was…heading down to take some food to Mother and the other one. I opened the padlock on the hatch and he…he sprang out. He had a broken chair leg in his hands. He must have hit me over the head with it.”
When I first walked back into the clubhouse and Cade told me Ryan had been killed, it took me a beat to process what he was saying to me. Took me a minute or two to comprehend what he was telling me. Not so this time. As soon as the words are out of Carnie’s mouth, I’m in fight mode, already predicting what will come next. Dreading it with every fibre of my being.
I grab hold of Carnie by the collar of his cut, pulling him off the ground so my face is in his. “How long? How long ago?” I yell.
“I don’t…I don’t know. What time is it?” Carnie’s still struggling to string words together. Means he was probably hit over the head pretty hard. That also means he could have been out for a considerable amount of time, too. I let go of him and he drops to the ground like a sack of flour.
This cannot be happening. It just can’t. “Fuck!”
Cade draws his gun and sets his jaw. He knows what this means, too. Raphael Dela Vega is an unhinged bastard with no sense of self-preservation. He won’t have fled the compound. Not yet. He’s been fixated on one thing and one thing only for a long time now, and he won’t leave here until he’s gotten what he’s been dreaming about.
He has been dreaming about Sophia.
FIFTEEN
SOPHIA
When night falls over the desert, it suddenly feels like the world ceases to exist. Out there, beyond the lights and sounds of the compound, all drunken shouting and the furious roar of motorcycle engines, there’s nothing more than a sea of black ink and an endless void that stretches for as far as my mind can imagine in every direction. No, there are no roads or general stores. No dive bars, and no all-night diners. The compound feels so very isolated and alone. It kind of freaks me out.
My body is still humming from Rebel’s ministrations when I get up and draw the blinds on all the windows. God knows where he’s gone. I didn’t really get a chance to ask him before he fled the cabin, looking very pleased with himself. He knew exactly how cruel he was being when he decided not to stay and have sex with me. Can’t have been pleasant for him, either, but still… the guy is evil.
I’m grinning like a moron as I think this, though. Grinning so hard my face hurts. He’s turned me into some sort of pathetic teenager, which is ironic because I was never like this back then. In high school, I was driven by the need to excel in my schoolwork, and definitely not to pursue the attention of boys. And now here I am, turning my back on my studies in order to be with the most unsuitable person on the face of the planet.
But, in saying that, maybe he’s not the most unsuitable person. If just that one thing about him were different, he would be prime take-home-to-meet-the-parents material. He’s intelligent. He’s a gentleman (for the most part). He was in the army. He went to MIT, for fuck’s sake. But then the kicker…he’s also the head of a motorcycle gang. What would Mom and Dad say if they knew what I was doing right now? A pang of guilt sideswipes me out of nowhere as I really take on board what they probably believe has happened to me by now.
They have to believe I’ve been murdered.