Leaning forward to scratch my leg, I peered out the front window to see where we were at. Not being all too familiar with Los Angeles, I really had no idea where we were, but we’d just turned onto a freeway of some sort. LA was made up of a lot of freeways. Hopefully it wouldn’t be long until we were away from the city.
I must have looked for too long because the guard beside me shot out a gloved hand and slammed me back into my seat. Gritting my teeth, I held back a bitchy remark. They needed to think I was docile. Non-threatening. Clearly they’d considered Wesley the bigger threat between us—hence why he was gagged but I wasn’t. Unless they just weren’t taking any chances with his magic seeing as literally no one seemed to know what he was.
Wes gave me a small headshake and flicked his eyes to the window to indicate he could see from where he sat. Hopefully we were in tune enough that he knew why I was waiting.
Keeping my attention on my bound guardian, I shifted my weight to move the gun closer to my hands.
“Are you sure no one can be tempted by money?” I asked casually, once again taking the guards’ concentration away from what my tiny movements were doing. “It would be such a shame to have to kill you all if it’s just a matter of commerce. I mean, I get it. Everyone has to pay the bills somehow, right? All I’m saying”—by now I’d wiggled the gun under my crotch, and it was just being hidden by my black sweatpants and the fact that my thighs were tight together—“is that I can make you all rich men—er, people”—because how the hell did I know if they were men, women, or... other? My life had had a whole hell of a lot of other recently—“if you just let us out on the side of the road.”
Without warning, one of the guards beside me snapped out a gloved fist and punched me clean across the face. My head snapped to the side, and I had to fight to keep my balance and not expose the stolen gun underneath me.
“You talk too much,” the man—definitely a man, this one—snarled from behind his anonymous helmet. That did it. Fuck them; no more Miss Nice Guy. Girl. Whatever.
Rolling my jaw, I met Wesley’s wide eyes, and he gave me a small nod. Combined with a flick of his gaze to the front window, I had to trust that we’d reached a location that would be suitable to make our escape. Or... try to anyway.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Blocking out the pain in my face, I shifted in my seat once more, this time bringing my hands up and grabbing the gun from between my legs. In rapid succession, I fired one shot at the chain holding my cuffs within a foot or so of the floor, one at Wesley’s chain, then fired off another shot at the still-armed guard beside Wesley before he could reach for his gun. With the two guards opposite me disabled, I then turned the gun on Captain Punchy and placed the barrel against his helmet visor.
Wesley had my back, throwing a vicious elbow into the face of the man I’d taken my gun from, then launching himself across the van at my other guard.
“What the fuck?” One of the guards from the front bellowed, turning in his seat. The driver didn’t stop or even slow down, though, which was a shame. It was going to hurt when this van crashed.
Wesley had looped his cuffs over the guard’s neck and was choking him while my friend, Happy Fists, considered how serious I was. He clearly made the wrong decision, though, as he ignored the gun to his head and reached for his own weapon.
The sound of my fourth gunshot cracked through the small space like a car backfiring, and blood splattered all over the white walls as the now lifeless guard crumpled to the floor.
“Stop the van,” I ordered the driver, training my gun on the back of his head.
Again, this one made a bad choice and ignored me. Instead, his buddy in the passenger seat fired back at me, missing by inches and hitting the side of the van instead.
“Shoot him,” Wesley panted, having yanked his gag off and procured his own gun from the unconscious guard at his feet. He was right, but I hesitated just a second.
That second was just long enough for the unarmed guard, the one Wesley had elbowed in the face, to launch himself at me and tackle me to the floor of the van on top of two bleeding bodies.
Another series of shots rang out, this time between Wesley and the guard in the front, but I couldn’t check to see if my guardian was okay—not while I was being smothered by two hundred pounds of anonymous guard who was trying to wrest control of my gun.
The van seemed to speed up before hitting something with a massively jarring impact and hurtling down a slope.
None of us were belted in, and we found ourselves bounced around like salad in the back of the van as it hit bump after bump for what felt like days before it finally came to jerking stop.
Somehow, miraculously, I didn’t seem to have broken anything in the crash. Perhaps it had been all the cushioning of dead guards that saved me? Whatever the reason, I wasn’t sticking around to question it.
“Wes,” I called out. “You okay?”
For a heart-stopping second, there was no reply. Then came the low moan from somewhere under a tangle of black-clad limbs.
Not one to be caught unawares, I scrambled to find a gun and had just grabbed one when Wesley popped out of the mess. A deep sigh of relief sagged my shoulders when I saw it was him and not one of these other assholes.
“Are you okay?” I asked again, scrambling closer to him to help move the dead weight that had pinned him down.
“I’m alive,” he groaned. “That’s good enough.”
“Quick,” I encouraged. “Let’s get out of here in case one of those two made it.” I nodded at the two guards in the front of the crumpled van.
“They wouldn’t have,” Wesley informed me, crawling free and joining me at the doors. “I think I shot them both. But we should go before anyone comes to help.”
Nodding, I tried the door and was pleased to find it opened easily. I guessed they didn’t really expect their prisoners to get this far. It got stuck about six inches open, so I kicked it a couple of times before it swung fully open.
“Fuck, that explains all the rolling,” I muttered, looking up the rocky incline to where our van had crashed through the guard rail. “We probably should have waited for a flatter area.” Giving Wes a small smile so he’d know I was teasing, I clambered out of the wreckage and got out of the way.
“Yeah, well,” he huffed, climbing out himself but favoring his left leg. “I couldn’t see this side. The other side looked like a nice place to crash, though.”
I snorted a laugh, and he grabbed me by the cuffed hand.
“That was scary as shit, sweetheart,” he murmured, then kissed me fast and hard. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Together, we helped one another climb the rocky incline back to the road, praying we wouldn’t find Simon waiting for us at the top. That’d be some seriously shitty luck. Their car had left before our van though, so I’d banked on the fact that they wouldn’t notice we were gone until it was too late.
“Now we just need to work out how the hell to get these cuffs off,” I called back to Wes as I dragged myself up and over the lip of the last huge boulder, “I seriously doubt my lock-picking skills are going to come in handy this time.”
“Agreed,” he puffed, joining me and collapsing on the ground to catch his breath. After the impressive display he’d put on in the van, I’d almost forgot he wasn’t really used to active duty.
Thankfully, the road was clear. No one had seen us crash and stuck around to help, but most importantly, no Simon. Yet.
2
Wes and I only needed to walk about twenty minutes down the road before we came across a gas station/diner combo.
“Perfect,” Wesley grinned when it came into view. “They’ll have a payphone for sure. We can call the guys to get picked up.”
“How? We don’t have a credit card or coins.” I arched an eyebrow at him, glancing to his bare feet. “Or shoes.”
“It’s a basic payphone, sweetheart,” he replied with a grin. “If I can’t handle that, I’m a pretty shitty tech guy, right?”