Encore (The Black Eagles Series Book 2) (25 page)

Amber glared down at Melissa as she gripped a chunk of her hair, so close their noses were almost touching. ‘I hate you more as each day passes.’ Her eyes were empty of any compassion. Over her shoulder Melissa could see Cassie and Jo-Jo tied in the opposite chairs. Jo-Jo was still unconscious and her head hung loosely, rocking backwards and forwards with the motion of the bus. Cassie watched her friend anxiously, unable to help her, as the blood from the wound on the back of her head began to trickle down her neck and shoulders. Melissa could see the distress on Cassie’s face. She hadn’t said a word for a long time but looked over at Melissa and mouthed the words, ‘Stay strong. We will get out of this. I promise.’

              It made Melissa feel a little easier – at least someone was keeping the faith. The bus came to a sudden stop as the brakes were hit hard and Amber almost lost her footing but managed to control the fall. Aiden appeared, looking even paler than he had before and ordered Amber to leave the bus for a private chat. He looked completely panic stricken. For now Melissa was able to breathe without Amber’s constant glare on her.

              ‘Ebony,’ Beth whispered and her bottom lip quivered. She was trying to hold herself together but her heart was breaking. ‘I hope it worked. Please let it work.’

              ‘What?’ Melissa asked and Beth quickly told her about the phone. Amber had made one big mistake. When collecting their phones she had missed Beth’s which had been tucked into her jeans pocket mistaking the one she took as her only phone. In fact it was her spare, the one she used purely for work. Despite Beth’s panic she had thought that out quickly.

              ‘You star. It gives us a little hope and they will be looking. It has to have worked,’ Melissa said, a little hope in her voice.

              There was shouting from outside the bus. Amber was unhappy about something. ‘You idiot. How did that happen, Jesus fucking Christ?’ Then their voices were muffled as they talked lower.

              Cassie was close to the door. She leaned towards it but couldn’t make anything out. ‘I’m worried this is about Megan,’ she said. Melissa didn’t want to think about it.

              The girls whispered, in complete panic, and looked around to try and find anything that might help them.

              ‘Did you hear that?’ Cassie said looking above Melissa.

              ‘No,’ Melissa looked confused. But then she heard it. Movement above her head in one of the storage compartments. The door slowly opened and all three girls were opened mouthed as a hand appeared and then a head. A young boy leaned over and covered his mouth with his finger to silence them.

              ‘Riley!’ Melissa whispered.

              ‘Shhhh,’ was all he had time to say before they heard footsteps coming back and he returned to his hiding place.

              Amber looked angry and the look she gave Aiden when he followed her in indicated she wasn’t pleased with him. She aimed her gun at Melissa and then at Beth. ‘The plan has changed. I was going to have much more fun scaring the shit out of you all but Aiden has changed the plan. So, now I’ve no time to play.’

              Aiden disappeared for a few minutes then came back with a container. All the girls gasped as they smelt the petrol when Aiden unscrewed the cap. ‘You’re not actually serious, are you?’ he asked.

              Her smirk answered his question. ‘As serious as you chucking Megan from the bus half an hour ago.’

              Melissa’s screams filled the bus and she gave way to the hysteria that had been held inside. ‘Megan. No!’

              Amber laughed and told Aiden to get on with the job. ‘Don’t worry, Lissa, you’ll all be joining her very soon.’

              Aiden didn’t look like he was on board with the plan any more, and insisted it had been an accident and he hadn’t meant it to happen. He backed off and put the petrol can down. ‘This has gone too far, Amber. Let’s just run and go our separate ways.’

              ‘No!’ Amber screamed. ‘Get on with it.’

              Aiden backed away as he looked at Beth whose baby he’d left alone. The realisation of what he’d done came crashing down on him. The guilt hit him like a train and he knew he had gone too far, this had gone too far. It was meant to be a little shake up, a little revenge and to scare them. He had never intended on murder and he regretted getting involved with Amber. He felt a bit sorry for Luke and Melissa now, seeing just what they had had to put up with. His anger towards them subsided. What he had done today and over the past few years suddenly began to eat him up and he wished he could change it all. He hadn’t always been such a selfish, arrogant man. He didn’t like himself any more. He didn’t deserve his old life. Then Megan flashed in his mind and what he’d done to her in that hotel room, and now he’d almost certainly killed her. He had never really worked out what he felt for her, not cool enough back then but he wanted her, didn’t want her, and now he couldn’t have her.

              Amber’s glare was piercing. ‘Aiden!’ she spat.

              He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t that cruel. Megan had been an accident but setting fire to a bus full of girls was a different thing all together. No. He wouldn’t do it. ‘You’re mad. We can’t do this. It’s murder.’

              ‘Don’t develop a conscious now. You’re hardly a saint.’

              Aiden couldn’t stand being there any more. He had to run and find a way to lie low for a while. ‘We shouldn’t have done it. Leaving the baby was so wrong. I’m going back for her,’ Aiden said, his comment aimed at Beth. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll find her and make sure she gets back to her dad. I’ll send help, somehow.’ He turned and leapt from the bus then ran for the trees, back the way they had come. He had to find Megan and Ebony. He had to know if they were OK, at least before he disappeared for a very long time. He hadn’t got far when he heard Amber’s vicious screams of betrayal and the shots rang out making him pick up speed. A bullet barely missed him and hit a tree as he made his getaway and disappeared into the night.

              Amber screamed in rage knowing he was gone, but wasted no time, knowing she didn’t have much left. Grabbing the petrol she poured it over Melissa who screamed and thrashed in her seat. Then she poured some over Jo-Jo. ‘That’s for the lovely Tom, who never had a nice word for me, not even at the start.’ She left Cassie and Beth, claiming that she didn’t really hate them that much and she wanted Melissa and Jo-Jo to burn faster. She used up the rest by dousing the rest of the bus.              

              The girls were hysterical, unable to do anything. ‘Amber, please don’t do this. Please...’ Melissa screamed.

              ‘You could call this my encore. Bet you never expected to see me again, or take you all out. And when I’m done here, I’ll take care of Luke. He’ll need me to help him get over it.’

              Nobody answered her. They were stunned into silence, their minds gone completely blank.

*****

It took a while for her eyes to focus, and the pain that ripped through her arm and her side made her scream out. She struggled to get up: each movement was like hot flames ripping through her. It was dark, and silent apart from her screams of pain as trees and bushes dug into her. Using a branch to pull herself up Megan eventually got to her feet and looked to the sky and thanked the lord, something she had never done before. If the wind hadn’t caught under her jacket and flicked her upwards causing her to hit the side of the bus, and flicking her into the bushes and shrubbery, she would have ended up under the bus. The thought made her stomach turn and she was sick. She thought her wrist was broken, and possibly a few ribs as it hurt to breathe in. She stepped into the muddy pathway, and saw tyre tracks showing the direction the bus had gone. If she had her phone she could try to get help but Amber had taken them. She needed Toby more than she’d ever needed him, wanting to feel his arms around her, telling her she was safe now. But she couldn’t think too much about that: she had to get help and fast. Her friends needed her to be brave even though the pain and the darkness made her want to curl up and cry. All she had to do was follow the path, back the way they’d come until she got to some kind of civilisation, no matter how long it took. Taking a a deep breath, which was agony, she started the long, lonely and painful walk.

              After about an hour she stopped and rested against a tree to catch her breath. ‘Come on, Megan, you can do this,’ she whispered to herself.

              She pushed herself forward, cradling her left wrist and using her elbow to hold her side, dulling the pain as she walked, feeling the bruises and scratches all over her body. But she kept going. How longed she’d walked for, she didn’t know – another hour, maybe. She rested her head against another tree and sobbed.

              Just as she was on the verge of curling up into a ball, freezing and feeling dizzy, she heard voices. At first she panicked thinking it was Amber and Aiden, so she crouched into
the bushes to hide herself and listened. The voices became clearer as her hearing focused on the sound. Then she heard him, his voice booming into the wind, and she suddenly felt at home.

              ‘I’m not fucking standing around here any longer discussing anything. I’m going to find our girls. You want to fucking stop me, go ahead and try, police or not, I’ll smash your face in.’               It was Toby, and Megan found the strength to move out into the open. They were in the distance but sounded fairly close. Her legs were numb with cold and the shock was setting in and she collapsed on the path. Finding her voice she screamed his name as loud as she could. The first few shouts were too low, more like whispers, but then she put all her effort into it, ignoring the pain.

              ‘Toby!’ Another breath. ‘Toby!’

*****

‘Mr Maxwell, please calm down,’ Fox said, his training kicking in. He had to keep him calm as he was the one member of the band that was ready to unravel. The rest of their road crew had joined them, all wanting to join the hunt for the girls and they stood together as one unit.

              ‘We’ll find them,’ Ken said, patting Luke on the shoulder. ‘Has anyone seen Riley?’ Ken asked. He’d not been seen since before the boys had ended their set.

              ‘Oh, fuck!’ Luke’s hands flew to his head. ‘He’s on the bus.’

              ‘What?!’

              Luke had asked Riley to head to the bus early, to put a surprise on for Melissa, just flowers and some new shoes, and he’d asked him to put them in their bunk. He was just feeling romantic. And now the lad was part of Amber’s twisted plan. ‘Great,’ he mumbled.

              ‘Shhh. Did anyone else hear that?’ one of the crew asked.

              Everyone went silent to listen. They heard a shout in the distance and it was definitely female.

              ‘Megs.’ Toby was on top of a police car in a flash trying to find the direction. ‘That’s her. It’s my Megan.’ Nobody waited for the police to give any orders. ‘If one of you find Megan before me and get her to me safely, I’ll give you five grand. Not even joking.’

              Money wasn’t in anyone’s thoughts – the only thought was getting to Megan. They scattered through the trees with Fox hopelessly trying to regain order. But he wasn’t in charge. It was clear who this group took orders from. Dale held back to stay with Ebony, but Luke and Tom were already in the trees looking for her.

              ‘Megan.’

              Shouts of ‘Megan’ were all you could hear through the trees. Every part of the team fanned out to cover as much area as possible. Ken shouted instructions to one group, Ray to another. He called out to Toby, trying to get him to calm down. It was worth a try but useless.

*****

‘Toby!’ Megan cried out, again and again. She was so cold and weak. The pain was getting worse and her energy levels were decreasing rapidly. She couldn’t get up: it hurt too much to even try. She gave in and curled up on the ground, thinking that they couldn’t hear her. Minutes passed and she could feel her eyes getting heavy. The voice in her head told her to sleep and the urge to do just that was hard to resist.

              ‘Megan!’ She heard not too far from her. It was Luke. She knew his voice as well as her boyfriend’s. She opened her eyes and could hear footsteps to her left.

              ‘Luke!’ she called out.

              Seconds later Luke came running through the trees. He saw her crumpled on the ground, clearly hurt, and almost fell on her as he came skidding to a stop by her side. He took off his jacket and covered her up. ‘Megan. Oh, thank god. What happened?’

              ‘Aiden threw me from the bus as he was driving,’ she sobbed.

              Luke tucked the jacket further around her, took her face in his hands and wiped her tears. He was sickened by Aiden, but now he was even more scared for Melissa and the others. ‘You’re safe now. Tell me where you’re hurt. Toby isn’t far away. I’ll get him. And Liss…’

              Megan told him as much as she knew, that they were all alive the last time she’d seen them. ‘Ebony, did you find Ebony? Please tell me you’ve got her…’

              ‘Yes, we’ve got her. Don’t worry, she’s safe with Dale.’