Mystic Hearts (35 page)

Lungs burning and muscles screaming, she
dug the soles of her shoes into the spongy ground, pushed harder, and raced
through the knee-high grass.

Reaching the pile, she grabbed a
hand-sized rock, and pivoted.

A hand covered her mouth and an arm
pinned her stomach to a fat one, stopping her movement. “Don’t.” Foul-smelling
breath hit the back of her neck and drifted over her face. Fear shot through
her. She hauled her arms backwards and plunged the rock into Roach’s head.

He grunted, but held onto her left arm.

She smashed the heel of her hand into
his nose. Bones cracked.

The grip loosened.

She shoved off him and darted for the
wooden fence.

“Bitch, don’t run or I’ll shoot.” Roach’s
voice was a little more than breath, but the tone was deadly.

Charlene stopped half way up the boarded
fence. Guilt and regret gnarled its way up her spine, as she couldn’t leave
Henry motherless. She jumped to the ground and faced the man, sitting on a pile
of rocks and pointing a gun at her, blood dripping from his nose and the dark
circles forming under his eyes.

“You boys can’t do anything right.” With
her eyes fixed on Charlene, the purple-haired woman approached, tugging a thin
piece of plastic from her pocket and spun Charlene by the shoulder. “You,
missy, will behave yourself.” The woman looped the plastic around Charlene’s
wrists. “You run. You get hurt.”

The binding tightened. The plastic dug
into her skin.

“Understand?”

Charlene nodded.

“That’s my girl.” The woman patted
Charlene on the arm and looked down at the man Charlene bloodied. “For fuck’s
sake. Roach, go help.” The woman pointed to the field off to the right.

Charlene glimpsed a barefoot Celine
ducking into the woods. She must have run right out of her flip-flops. A thin
man, with hair pulled back in a ponytail, chased her on his four-wheeler.

“Damn, Lavender, my head hurts” Roach
whined, pressing a palm to his head.

“I don’t give a God damn what ails you.
Go.”

Roach braced the butt of the gun on the
ground to right himself then motioned for Charlene to go to the four-wheeler.
“Move,” he hissed, his eyes narrowing into angry slits.

The sound of engines roared. In the next
field over, three four-wheelers sped toward the wood line, stopped, and the
drivers rushed into the woods.

Tears stung Charlene’s eyes.
Please be okay
.

“Now,” Roach screamed from the seat of
the four-wheeler.

“I’d do what he said, honey,” Lavender
said, patting a gun she cradled to her chest.

Reluctantly, Charlene moved toward the
four-wheeler. The balancing act of steading herself on one foot without the use
of her hands made swinging her leg over the seat behind him that much harder. Tobacco
scent, dirt, and old sweat hit her nose. She gagged.

“I smell like petunias,” Roach laughed,
started the motor, and drove through an opening in the fence to the edge of the
woods to the other four-wheelers.

They reached the tree line. Roach didn’t
move, just sat there letting the motor idle. In the distance, voices erupted. A
moment later, Celine’s beautiful face came into view. Charlene’s heart
plummeted. Celine had a bruised eye, fat lip, and blood dripped out of her nose.

Tears threatened to escape, as Charlene
pulled her lips inward. This whole situation was her fault. If she and Celine
had just gotten Charlene’s car and left, instead of nosing around to find out
more about Andrew, none of this would have happened.

Two men clutched each of Celine’s elbows
and a third trailed them. Scratches and scrapes marred their faces. A third man
with two cuts on his forehead and a bleeding nose trailed them.

“What the hell happened to you fellas?”
Roach asked. “Did you run into a tree?”

The one with the cuts on his forehead
jutted his chin. “Probably the same thing that happened to your head.”

Charlene’s mouth gaped and she gazed at
Celine. A darkness etched into Celine’s face, her jaw tightening. The sweet,
carefree person Charlene grew to love had disappeared. In its place was a
person with dark eyes and hard features. Celine looked ruthless and ready to
kill. Judging by the scars on the three guys, she’d tried.

“You putz!” Lavender yelled, stopping
her four-wheeler beside them. “Why’d you mark her up?”

“She fought us! Look at my face,” Albert
yelled, binding Celine’s wrist. He grasped her shoulders and shoved her onto
the seat of a four-wheeler.

“Don’t be a pansy, Albert,” Lavender
snapped, gunning the engine and taking off.

The rest of the ATVs trailed.

Charlene grabbed the bar in the back of
the four-wheeler and hung on. The bumps and dips in the rough terrain made the
idea of her falling not only possible but probable.

The scent of pine, hay, and the smell of
musky animals intensified, upsetting her stomach.

They rode through three fields and
passed numerous buildings. Roach made a sharp turn, almost tossing her off, and
stopped near a two-story rustic building in the midst of a thick grove of pine
trees.

“You know what to do,” Lavender said.
“Meet back at the shop.”

She and two other ATVs drove away.

Roach climbed down, grasped Charlene’s
arm, and jerked her off the truck. Albert did the same to Celine.

Through tall grass, the foursome made
their way to the opening of the building. Cow manure turned dirt covered the ground.
Charlene’s tennis shoes sank in, and flakes of dirt seeped over the edges of
her shoes.

If Celine didn’t like the feel of the
composite against her bare feet or was grossed out by what they walked in, she
didn’t make it known. Her expression was stoic, yet distant.

“Up there.” Albert yanked Celine to a
ladder, leading to a small hole in the ceiling. “Go!”

Celine looked up at the ladder. “I can’t
climb with my hands tied.”

The men glanced at each other before
Albert tugged a knife from his pocket. He cut Celine’s tie, then Charlene’s.

Celine climbed the few rungs, braced her
hands on the floor above and hauled her body out of sight. Albert went next.

“Your turn,” Roach snarled. He touched Charlene’s
back and nudged her forward. “Move!”

She grasped a rung, made her way to the
next floor, and scanned the interior. While the slats in the floor butted up to
one another, the wallboards did not. Gaps of various sizes separated them. No
windows, just a four-foot closed door.

Charlene’s gaze locked on the hooks
hanging from the ceiling. She shuttered, her mind conjuring different scenarios
from horror movies.

“Albert, throw me one of those nylons,”
Roach said. “We’ll hang them by their wrists,”

Albert’s face twisted as he tugged out a
plastic tie from his pocket. “How long will they stay here?” His voice was
shockingly sympathetic.

“Until Monk arrives,” Albert said,
working on tying Celine’s hands together.

Roach grasped Charlene’s wrists..

Monk?
Who was he? She
closed her eyes and tried to remember if Larry mentioned him and came up empty.

Albert grunted.

Charlene snapped her eyes open.

Albert bent over, holding his stomach.
Celine rushed toward the opening in the floor.

Roach banded an arm around Charlene’s
chest and brandished a knife against her throat. “You do it, she’ll pay.”

Fright shot through her and butterflies
somersaulted in her stomach.

Celine paused, her shoulders stiffened,
and slowly she turned toward them, her wrists still bound in front of her

Albert coughed, held a hand to his
stomach, and straightened. “Get over here. Now!” he ordered Celine.

Celine sent Charlene a
we-better-do-something-now
look and
slithered back toward them.

“Good girl.” Roach removed the knife
from Charlene’s throat, closed the blade, and tucked the knife into his pocket.
He clutched Charlene’s waist and lifted.

Albert stepped close, his vile breath
assaulting her senses, as he maneuvered her wrists to slip over a hook.

The plastic ties cut into her skin as
she hung from the ceiling. Her feet dangled inches above the floor.

“Let’s take care of that bitch,” Roach
nodded at Celine. “Time for you to know who is boss.”

Like a shot of adrenaline pumping into
her veins, Charlene used the hook for support, swung her legs upward, wrapping
her legs around Roach’s neck, and squeezed.

Gasping, Roach hit at her legs and dug
his fingers into her thighs.

Celine charged forward, head first into
Albert’s stomach. He lost his balance and fell backwards into the wall.

“What the fuck?” Albert wheezed, curling
into a ball and rolling onto his side, moaning.

Celine popped back to her feet.

Charlene squeezed her thighs tighter,
pulling Roach closer to the hook. The strain on the binding loosened. She
lifted her hands up and off the hook, clasped them together and leaned far
enough back not to fall off but to slam her intertwined fists into the back of
his neck.

He gasped and sunk to his knees.

Charlene fell backwards, hitting the
wall and floor with a thud. Pain pierced her back and hip. The boards popped
and creaked before giving way. She plummeted through the floor onto the ground
below. A cloud of dirt sprayed her face and hair.

Celine dropped beside her, her hands
free at her side. “Can you move?”

Thanks to the pile of crap, offering a
cushion, she could move. “Yes.” Charlene eased up into a sitting position. “How
did you undo the strap?”

“Knife.” Celine cut the binding on
Charlene’s wrists. “Let’s go.”

Charlene jumped to her feet, swiped at
the dirt clinging to her face, and ran after Celine toward the two
four-wheelers.

“No keys,” Celine shouted, through heavy
breaths.

Charlene hit her hand against the other
seat. “Damn, none here either.”

“Get away from them.” Roach peered at
them from the open door on the second floor. “Get the bitches,” he ordered
Albert.

“Oh, shit,” Charlene gasped. “Come on.”

She and Celine rushed through thick
brush and briars to the right of the shed. Thorns dragged across Charlene’s
skin and snagged her clothes, but she didn’t care about the scratches stinging
her hands, or that her lungs burned with each labored breath she sucked in.
Determination lodged in her gut. She would see her son, her mother, and the one
man who rocked her world…Larry, again.

“Stop just before the clearing,” Celine
panted, pointing to a patch of grass a little ways ahead of them.

Charlene slowed, dragged her hand on a
tree, and stopped. Panting breaths escaped her on a wheeze.

“Jeez,” Celine stepped onto the patch of
grass and rested her palms on her knees, dragging in air. “I don’t know which
hurts more, my feet or lungs.”

Celine sat on the ground and examined
her blackened feet. “I bet I have shit all over me.”

“At least it’s not covering half of your
face and body.”

Celine snorted. “There is that.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Sounds of motors, nearing, pounded
adrenaline through her system again. Charlene yelled, “Go!”

They rushed from the clearing into the
thicket of woods, leaves and sticks crunching under their feet. Charlene
glanced over her shoulder, caught a glimpse of the field, and changed
directions to go deeper into the woods.

“Ouch!” Celine hopped on one foot in the
mixture of dead leaves and pine needles before bracing a hand against a tree
and examining the bottom of her foot. “I have a freaking thorn.”

“Get it out!”

“I’m trying,” Celine snapped, pinching
the skin on her foot together. “I can’t. Grab it!”

Charlene scanned Celine’s black feet and
zoomed in on the spot between her fingers. A small briar stuck out.

The engines quieted.

“Hurry!” Celine ordered.

Charlene pinched the intrusive object
between her fingernails and yanked.

“There they are. Behind the trees.”
Roach’s voice boomed.

Blood rushed through her ears, matching
the pace of her heart, and the speed of her feet. She forged ahead, listening
to Celine crunching leaves behind her.

She rushed by a tree, hit a barbed wire
fence, and flew backwards into Celine, knocking them both to the ground.

“Enough,” a deep, raspy voice ordered,
his tone frosty as his face.

A toothless man, eyes black as tar
glared at them. A bandana hung around his neck, and the all-telling Impalers
cap on his head. “On your feet!” With the barrel of his gun, he motioned for
them to move.