It hadn’t come up, though. Peeing hadn’t been a big problem when we were low on water.
I didn’t have to leave camp now, though. The outhouse was right in the camp. It was dark, yes, but the stars were bright. Shane was exhausted, and it seemed silly to wake him.
I finished in the outhouse and went quietly back toward the tents, stopping at the well for the luxury of a cool drink of water. The crank made a loud squeaking noise, which might have been why I didn’t hear anything odd. Or realize that something was amiss. I didn’t even have that creepy feeling on the back of my neck that was supposed to warn of danger.
So I was both startled and horrified when I felt the air shift behind me as I was struggling to scoop some water from the bucket. A heavy hand gripped my shoulder and a low voice at my ear said, “Well now, girly-girl. Who’d a thought we’d be meeting your fine ass again so soon?”
Chapter 40—Cassie
I knew the voice, although I’d only heard it once before. The sour smell of body odor was recognizable, too. As Big Biceps biker said the words “your fine ass,” his other hand grabbed my buttocks and squeezed painfully, telling me, just in case I had any doubt, that this was not going to be a friendly encounter.
I didn’t hesitate. I was still gripping the metal water bucket in one hand; it was half full of water and attached to its thick chain. I whirled around, pulled with all my strength on the chain so the bucket flew around in a half circle and struck Biceps squarely in his left side. Too bad I hadn’t hit his head, but he was too tall for that. “Get your fucking hands off me,” I yelled, hoping Shane would wake up and hear me.
Biker guy swore loudly and grabbed me by the hair. I must have hurt him, but the pain just seemed to fire him up. He dragged me away from the well and clamped a hand over my mouth as I drew breath to scream.
“Bitch likes it rough, does she? Hey Cub, get over here. We got us a fighter. Bring some of that rope and a rag or something to stuff in her gob. Her man’s around here somewhere, but dude must have sent her out at night to fetch him water. The guy must be soft. Makes his old lady do the lifting n’ carrying.”
Shane soft? These guys would learn a thing or two about Shane if I could just get him to wake up. I was kicking and writhing and trying to bite the guy’s filthy fingers, but he was huge and I wasn’t having any success trying to squirm away from him. It only took him one hand to wrench both my arms behind my back, and then the other guy, the younger guy, was there and they were both on me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! I was more angry than scared at first. Angry at myself for not sensing that I was being stalked. Angry at Shane for not instantly perceiving I was in trouble. And most of all angry at these two creeps for making it through the earthquake unhurt and getting themselves to the same camp that Shane and I had struggled so hard to reach.
As they dragged me around the old abandoned pick-up truck where all the herbs and flowers were growing, I saw their bikes, standing there with all their chrome looking in perfect working order. What had they done for water? How long had they been here? What the fuck were they planning here, skulking in the dark?
Nothing good.
I was beginning to realize how stupid I’d been. I should have followed Shane’s directions and wakened him before going to the outhouse. But I’d been pissed off about his continuing refusal to relax and fall asleep with me. How long was he going to keep this shit up? We had been through so much together during the past few days and he still wouldn’t let me close?
Dammit! Would he have woken me up if he’d had to go? No way.
My mind was distracted from these recriminations when the other guy shoved a foul-tasting rag in my mouth. I managed to get out a bit of a cry as they were switching from the first man’s hand to the second man’s rag, but it wasn’t very loud. And it cost me a hard swat across the face that made my entire head ring.
When I felt the two of them pushing up my T shirt and tearing at the waist of my pants, I was forced to confront the reality of the situation. Two bikers were about to rape me. When they were done with that, they would probably kill me. Or kidnap me and force me to be their “old lady.” Shane was exhausted, sleeping. No one was going to help me unless I figured out a way to help myself.
Through my panic, I tried to find out a way to give myself a chance. The big guy seemed to be all the more turned on by my struggles, so I let my muscles slacken a bit. Just like in the desert, I shouldn’t waste my energy. I had to be smart.
“There now,” Biceps crooned. “I think she likes you, Cub. I think she’s gonna be a real good bitch for you. Help me lay her down, now.”
The two of them lifted me off my feet and shoved me down on my ass in the dirt. Biceps took a piece of cord the kid gave him and bound my wrists painfully behind my back. Then he pushed me down so I was lying on my bound hands. It hurt. I was breathing hard, and my heart was thundering. They were so strong. How the hell could I get away from two big hulking bikers?
Biceps was clearly the one calling the shots. The other guy, Cub, as he called him, didn’t look much older than eighteen or nineteen. He was skinny and ragged and his eyes looked a little bit scared. I probably wouldn’t even have feared him if he hadn’t been following his leader’s commands with no hesitation. Maybe he didn’t really want to do this? But he was afraid to go against the older guy’s demands?
If there hadn’t been a gag in my mouth, maybe I could have talked my way out of this. Or at least tried to set Cub against Biceps long enough so scramble away.
It wasn’t like me to let something awful happen to me without any resistance. An earthquake was one thing—you couldn’t fight that—but it burned me to see myself as a victim to these two pieces of shit.
“Pull those pants down over those shapely hips. Nice. No panties. Bet she’s real soft and sweet up there. She’ll be wet soon. Yeah, she likes you, kid. I might even let you go first so I can watch you stick it to her. If you rape the bitch real good, you might even earn your patch on this ride, boy.”
Oh God, the kid was on some kind of initiation trip for the older guy’s motorcycle club? That meant he would have to be cruel, scared or not, or risk losing the chance to join this charming fraternity.
“I’ll give it to her good, don’t you worry,” Cub said. He made a show of jerking down his pants and stroking his dick. Not much of a dick, I thought absurdly, wondering if he was even hard. The first guy was, no doubt about that. I’d felt it as soon as he’d jerked me against him, and he was stroking himself now through the leather of his biker duds.
“Damn, I want that gag out of her mouth,” the first guy said. “I wanna make her blow me while you fuck the shit out of her. Then we can trade places.”
I began to fight again. No way this was happening to me! Goddammit! Where were Metzli’s powerful gods when I needed them?
Biceps cut away the gag with a huge, ugly knife, making sure I could see it right against the side of my face. “You make one sound, bitch, and I’ll slice your throat open and drink the blood. All I wanna hear is the sound of you sucking me nice and hard while Cub here drills you.”
But what we all heard was a sound like a train roaring through as the earth rolled beneath us in a stronger aftershock than we’d had all day. Biceps, squatting beside my head now, lost his balance and fell sideways. And I screamed. Long and loud, despite the threat of the guy’s blade.
Biceps cursed and fumbled for his knife, which he’d dropped. I rolled in the other direction. The kid was holding his cock and looking scared. I screamed again and threw myself forward so I could get to my feet. My hands were still tied behind me and my pants were around my ankles, but I managed to stand up. I nearly fell again, though, as pain radiated through my ass and back. It took me a second to realize the big guy had kicked me. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled.
“You guys better run because my boyfriend is a fucking US Navy SEAL and he is going to split you both open for this,” I shrieked, trying to run, despite the pain that was rocketing along all my nerves.
The fear in Cub’s face turned real. But Biceps just kicked me again. I stumbled and fell to my knees. He had his knife back, I saw.
And he was coming at me.
Chapter 41—Shane
A distant scream in the night roused me from my sleep. “Cass.”
I scrambled out of my tent, taking my blades and my chemlights. I raced to hers but it was empty. What the fuck?
“Cass, where the fuck are you?”
Silence, complete silence. She would answer me. Something wasn’t right.
I grabbed my fixed-blade from my pocket and tried to assess which direction the scream came from.
Another scream, desperate, haunting. Fuck, I’d left her alone in the tent, snuck out like a fucking coward in the middle of the night.
I ran toward the sound of her voice. The silhouette of Metzli’s old rusted-away truck loomed in the distance. I flashed my chemlight and I saw Cassie pinned down by two bikers, one motherfucker undoing his belt, another holding his small dick.
Fuck no.
My adrenaline spiked. I was outnumbered, I had one weapon and it was a blade, not a gun. No backup.
I was trained for this, I was made for this moment. No one would touch my woman.
The older greasy biker held up a knife, a switchblade. “Some old man. She says you’re one of them SEALs, eh? If she was my woman, I’d never let her out of my sight.”
He let out a guttural laugh, motioning to the younger guy to stay near Cassie. I held my position, waited for him to come toward me.
“I’ve never killed a SEAL, that would definitely get me a new patch, what do you say Cub? You could come out with two patches tonight instead of one?”
Calm, steady, I’d done this before, but this time was the first that I was solo. The goal in a knife fight is to keep your distance, and try to disarm your attacker. But the younger guy had a knife too, and this was Cassie’s life. I wasn’t going to take any chances.
The jackass lunged toward me, I used my arm to deflect his attack. This fat-ass was at least two-hundred and fifty pounds. The carotid artery in his neck flared. As his hand jabbed toward me again, I used my free arm to hold him back and plunged the blade into his neck, immediately severing his artery. I brought my knife around his neck to the carotid on the other side, stopping blood to his brain. Thick blood squirted all over me, the rest gushing out onto the dirt. His eyes rolled back in his head, and within seconds, he fell to the ground.
The younger guy jumped up, releasing Cassie.
“No!”
He barreled toward me, clutching a knife, his arm unsteady. I had another blade in my pocket, but I didn’t have a second to grab it. I cocked my arm back and struck him with my palm. I aimed upward at the front of his nose with my hand. The impact made a swift crack and he fell back, the blade flying out of his hand. I hesitated for a second.
He grasped an unmistakable gun grip, and I knew I didn’t have a second to waste. My boot pressed into his face and a hard kick to the skull knocked the life out of him.
Did I have to kill him? The guilt washed over me; this kid was young, maybe he’d had a future in front of him outside of the club and the influence of this older guy.
Cassie sat in the dirt, silent. I squatted down beside her. “You okay?”
“No. I mean I will be, I don’t know—everything happened so fast.”
I couldn’t read her, especially not now with the adrenaline pulsing through my veins. Was she in shock? Pissed?
I put my arm around her. “I’m sorry. I should’ve slept with you. This would’ve never happened.”
She leaned into me. “You saved my life. You’re incredible.”
I kissed her on the forehead and we walked back to the tents. She allowed me to examine her. She had bruises on her wrists and across her face, and what looked like a boot print on her back. I checked her pulse for signs of shock. It was weak but steady. I pulled her to me so I could feel her heartbeat.
We didn’t speak a word, didn’t kiss, didn’t even attempt to have sex. She crawled back into her tent, and zipped the flap up. I stood there, for a second, nervous for one of the few times in my life. I stuck my finger through the flap, unzipped it.
“Can I sleep here?” I didn’t want to talk, tell her my fears of intimacy, my fear that she would be horrified to learn about the real me. But she had just witnessed me killing two men. In a way, it made me feel safe with her.
“Of course. I’d like that.” I wrapped her in a blanket.
She snuggled up to me, and I held her. I didn’t want to have sex with her, I just wanted to be close to her, listen to her breath, wake up with her in the morning, see her smile.
Cassie rolled over, her breath purring. Her body melted into mine. I wrapped my arms around her, inhaled her sweet scent, and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 42—Cassie
I think I must have been dazed by the attack, because I got all shivery. Shane wrapped me in a blanket and rubbed my arms and shoulders until my teeth stopped chattering. He came into my tent, lay down with me and held me.
I must have dozed off for a while, because I woke with a start, feeling scared. I jerked upright and realized Shane was lying next to me. We weren’t in the middle of sex, but he was right here. Beside me.
His hands were gentle on me, soothing. He lifted his head with a sleepy look, proving he’d been asleep, too. Wow, that was a first.
“Cassie? It’s okay. You’re safe.” He slung an arm around me and gently pulled me back down beside him. “I’ve got you, Cass.”
I pressed my face into his shoulder. There was an odd, coppery smell about him that I dimly recognized as blood. The horror of what had happened was all rushing back at me. Those thugs grabbing me, hitting me, tying my hands. The filthy-tasting rag in my mouth. My clothes stripped from me. Their disgusting hands on my body.
I’d wondered where the old gods of Mexico were, and they had given me their answer. The earth had moved, granting me the chance to twist away and scream. Shane had come for me. He had come when I’d needed him most.