Pieces of Sky (45 page)

“This is your whore, yes?” Sancho snarled.

“Let her go.” Brady’s voice was hoarse with fear. Jessica scarcely recognized him through the blood. So much blood. “Do whatever you want to me, but let her go.”

Sancho gave a laugh that made her mind reel with terror. “I will enjoy using her like your father used my mother.” Her gorge rose as he licked the side of her face, his breath hot and rank against her skin. “I like white meat.”

Her knees threatened to buckle.

Shouting and cursing, Brady fought the ropes so hard the overhead beam groaned. “Jessica, fight! Don’t give up!”

She tried, but every time she moved, he squeezed his arm tighter around her throat.

Sancho lifted the lantern high. “If you get out of this barn alive,
pendejo,
you know where to find me and what is left of your
puta
. If not . . .”

He slung the lantern in a high arc toward the front doors. It hit with a crash of shattered glass. Flames whooshed to life, quickly fed by the straw on the floor. Within a heartbeat, hell opened at their feet.

Over the roar of flames, Sancho taunted, “If not, know that I have your woman,
pinche cabrón
. Think about what I will be doing to her while you burn.” Grabbing her breast with his free hand, he gave it a brutal squeeze.

She tried to twist away but his hold was too tight.

Brady bucked, blood running down his arms.

Laughing, Sancho dragged her toward the back of the barn.

In mindless terror, she fought him, kicking and clawing, but growing weaker by the moment. She felt herself falling, fading. Dimly she heard Brady shouting, and with the last of her strength, she twisted to look back at him.

Her eyes locked on to his. And for a single instant, everything stopped—as if there were no time or space, no sound, or pain, or fear. She watched his lips move, struggled to hear the words over the thundering in her head.

“Stay alive! I’ll come for you! Stay alive!”

Then smoke billowed up, blinding her. The last thing she saw as Sancho dragged her through the door was the loft catching fire.

 

 

THE ROPES FELL AWAY AND BRADY WAS FREE.

He floated. Sound receded. The air cooled and pinpricks of light danced overhead.
I’m dying,
he thought just before he slammed to earth.

“Breathe!” a voice shouted in his face.

Numbness exploded in choking terror. Hands pawed at him as his body convulsed, fighting for air. Slowly the spasms eased enough that he could draw breath into his burning lungs. He opened his eyes.

Buck’s face bobbed above him in a pool of starlight. “Leave off, Red. He comin’ to.” He patted Brady’s shoulder, his faded eyes filled with concern. “Easy, boy. You be jist fine.”

“Jessica.” Brady bolted up then fell back, coughing. “He’s got Jessica.”

“We gittin’ the horses now.”

“Ru . . . ?”

Red shook his head. “Bastard slit his throat. We found the hound, though. Busted bad. Iantha’s tending him.”

Dead, dying.
Jessica.

He struggled to sit up, then rolled onto his hands and knees as nausea bubbled in his throat. He hung there, head sagging, while Buck told him he’d sent for his brothers and set men working the fire, but it looked like the barn was a goner for sure.

Brady barely heard him. Groaning with the effort, he worked a knee under his body then pushed. Pain burned across his chest where he’d been cut. He slumped back, half sick. “Boots,” he told Red. Each word burned in his raw throat. “Jacket. The Colt.”

He tried again and this time made it onto his feet. He staggered for balance, found it, and breathed deep to clear his head. “My horse.” When Buck tried to argue, Brady cut him off. “Stay. Mind the fire. I’ll get her.”

Beams buckled as the barn roof fell in. Flames shot a hundred feet into the air and sparks danced through the night sky like a million fireflies.

Somewhere out there Jessica waited. He had to go. He had to find her.

“Consuelo said to put this on.” Red held out a jar of salve.

Brady scooped a gob, smeared it over the cuts on his chest and wrists, then reached for his boots. Pain shot across his shoulders, up his neck, and suddenly everything tilted.

Red shoved him back upright and held him there until Brady got his boots on. Then he handed him a shirt. By the time Brady fumbled through the buttons, the cuts had reopened and the shirt stuck to him. He pulled on the jacket then reached for the gunbelt and Colt.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Red asked.

Brady ground his teeth as he worked at the buckle. His hands wouldn’t work. His eyes wouldn’t work. Everything jumped around so bad he couldn’t get the holes lined up. He took a breath and tried again. Finally it hooked. He stood shivering, his mind spinning.

“Maybe you should wait for your brothers.”

He blinked at Red, wondering why there were two of him, why his head hurt so bad, why he was still so dizzy he could hardly balance. Touching his head where Sancho hit him, he felt a hard, sticky knot the size of a quail egg.

Buck led a skittish bay past the burning barn. It took Brady three tries to get his foot in the stirrup and pull himself into the saddle. “He took her to the cave.” He reined the nervous horse toward the moon-tipped silhouette of Blue Mesa. “Send my brothers there.”

 

 

Jessica scarcely heard him over the ringing in her ears, her mind so sluggish she had to look at everything twice before it made sense. She was surprised to see they had left the rolling flats of the valley behind and now rode into a shadowed canyon. Trees loomed darkly ahead, crowded against sheer walls that rose hundreds of feet into the starlit sky.

The horse slowed to splash its way across a rocky creek bed. As it scrambled up the other side, the upward angle threw her back against the man riding behind her. With a shudder, she jerked upright, clutching the horse’s sweaty mane in nerveless fingers.

She tried to pull her scattered thoughts together, but the pain in her temple was so intense every plodding step the horse took felt like a hammer blow inside her head. Sancho had hit her. She remembered he wanted her to get on the horse but she’d fought him because—

She clamped her eyes shut as images flooded her mind. Was he still in there? Burning? Dying? Dead? Slumping over the horse’s withers, she retched but nothing came out.

Clinging to that hope, she pushed herself upright and tried to bring her fear under control.

The horse moved silently across a thick carpet of pine needles as they climbed deeper into the canyon. Trees closed overhead, shutting out the faint glow of the moon. The scent of pine mingled with the stench of smoke and sweat and blood that came from the man behind her.

Why had he taken her? If it was just to kill her, why hadn’t he already done it? If not . . . if he intended to force her . . . God, she couldn’t endure that again.

The trail grew steeper. She leaned forward, brushing her forehead against the horse’s neck rather than let her back touch the man behind her. And still they climbed. The horse labored, its sides pumping. Its neck grew foamy with sweat.

How could Brady find them? How would he know where Sancho had taken her?

“
Estamos aquí.
” They stopped.

She looked around as Sancho dismounted. They were in a small clearing ringed by tall trees and boulders. A steep slope rose on one side. From the other came the gurgle of a stream. The air smelled of old camp smoke and garbage and urine.

Sancho yanked her from the saddle. When her legs started to buckle, he jerked her upright.

“Don’t touch me,” she ground out, pushing at his hand.

He let her go and turned to strip the weary horse. While he was distracted, she looked back the way they’d come, wondering if she could find her way in the dark. She had seen the bloodstained tear in his trousers where she had stabbed him when he had attacked Elena. He probably couldn’t go far or run as fast as she. If she could get a head start and maybe hide until—

His hand clamped over her arm. “
Vámonos
,” he snarled and started up the slope, pulling her after him.

There was no path, just a dusty track of rocks and brush that seemed to go on forever, heading nowhere. Twice she fell. He didn’t slow, but dragged her after him until she struggled back upright. She lost her slippers. Sharp rocks lacerated the soles of her feet. Blood trickled from a cut on her shin and her scraped knees burned with every step.

When they reached the top, she was panting with pain and terror, her feet on fire and her shoulder throbbing from being yanked along. Lifting her head, she saw huge boulders framing a yawning blackness. She knew then that he had taken her to his cave hideout.

Hope sparked in her mind. Brady would know that. He would find her. If he was still alive.

Sancho pushed her ahead of him into the opening. She stumbled, blinded by the dark. Terror clutched at her throat as she gulped in musty air that carried a sickly sweet smell, like the memory of decay.

A match flared. A moment later, he walked toward her with a smoking lantern in his hand. Grabbing her arm again, he pulled her toward the back. As they moved deeper, a heaviness closed around her, awakening that fear of confinement, of being tied and smothered. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming, knowing if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

They came to an opening in the back wall. He ducked inside and yanked her after him. She didn’t know to bend and struck her head on the rocky ceiling. She stumbled, but he jerked her along, muttering in Spanish under his breath. Water dripped onto her back as she followed him at a crouch. The rocky floor felt slimy under her bare feet. A sharp turn, a few more yards, then the tunnel opened into another, taller cavern. He set the lantern on a rocky shelf then shoved her toward the back corner.

She tripped on her robe and fell to her knees. Too exhausted to rise, she crawled over to the rocky wall and slumped against it, watching as he paced the small cavern.

He limped. She was right; the wound she gave him still bothered him. She wished it had festered and killed him. She wished she had stabbed him in the heart instead.

Lamplight cast wavering shadows along the walls. Shivering as the cold seeped from the rocks into her body, she pulled the tattered robe tightly around her and watched him pace back and forth, muttering, his voice whispering off the rocks, rustling across her nerves like spiders on the march. He seemed to be struggling with himself, with some decision. The way he glanced at her every few steps told her it had to do with her.

Her teeth began to chatter, whether from the cold or fear, she didn’t know. The only thing that kept her sane was the knowledge that Brady would come. He said he would and he always kept his promises.

Be alive . . . please be alive to come for me
.

She tried to picture Adrian’s face, his perfect little hands. Instead she saw flames, Brady twisting in the ropes—and her despair was so intense it sucked all hope from her mind.

Weeping, she dropped her head onto her crossed arms.
God let him be alive.

The muttering and pacing stopped.

She looked up.

Sancho crouched against the far wall, watching her with the feral intensity of a predator watching its prey. He rocked back and forth, his long hair swinging in front of his face. Through the matted tangles she saw the glitter of eyes so black they seemed without pupils, without depth or mercy. The eyes of insanity.

Her heart drummed frantically against the walls of her chest. She tried to calm it, reaching out with her mind for hope, a prayer, a plan, anything to keep her from splintering to pieces.

He stopped rocking. His gaze moved over her. She watched his tongue flick out to wet his lips, and a whimper of terror swelled in her throat. A new tension moved through the air. She felt it, and like a caged beast turning from the prod even though there was no place to run, she crawled blindly along the wall toward a shadowed corner.

Then suddenly he was on her, his hands around her neck. “Whore!” he shrieked, lifting her up and pinning her to the wall.

She clawed at his eyes. He jerked back. She kicked, trying to hit his injured leg. He kneed her in the hip. She thrashed and flailed in helpless terror, a high-pitched cry tearing from her throat.

“
Ellos están muertos.
Dead! All but you, Maria. Why?” Still gripping her throat, he slammed her again and again against the wall. “How many times do I kill you before you die?”

“I-I’m not M-Maria,” she whimpered, ears ringing, the pain in her head so intense she could hardly speak. “I’m Je-Jessica.”

Something moved behind his eyes—a shadow there then gone, replaced by a look of such unbridled fury she thought he would end it then, tighten his grip on her throat until it was over.

Then as suddenly as it came, the fury left him. His grip loosened. As Jessica gulped in air, his gaze drifted over her face. He smiled, a slow, crafty smile that showed gaps in his broken teeth. “His whore . . . now mine.”

That look
.
Oh God oh God
.

With his free hand he yanked open her robe. “Do you spread your legs for him,
puta
? Does he touch you like this?” Grabbing her breast, he twisted until she cried out. He moved his hand to her crotch and thrust at her with his fingers. “Does he put his fingers into you?”

Sobbing with terror, she tried to push him away, close her legs against his prying hand.

“Do you like it rough,
puta
?” He ground his pelvis against hers.

“D-Don’t—no—please God . . .” The rank smell of him filled her nostrils, sent bile surging in her throat. His breath was a hot blast against her face as he fumbled to open his trousers. She felt him press his body against her and something in her mind shattered. Everything went silent and still. She felt herself slipping away, drifting beyond the pain and terror.