Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy (23 page)

Chapter Twelve

September 5, 1990
Arabella Hoyt has opened my eyes. In the
time we spent with her, I have realized that I have been completely wrong about
everything I thought about Ted. He has used me. He destroyed me. And the thing
that may be growing inside me is not a force of good. It is a force of pure
evil. I have been deceived. I must do what I can to end this horridness.

Jason sat up straight in bed. "Did you hear
that?"
I was up too. It was midmorning. The sun was up. Streams of light came in
through the narrow windows, drawing bright rectangles on the floor.
Jason was on his feet, shrugging into a shirt and checking to make sure his gun
was loaded. I followed suit. I wished my hair was longer. I would have liked to
pull it back into a ponytail. Instead, I just shoved it behind my ears. Our
guns drawn, we crept to our door. Jason kept me behind him as he opened the
door. The hallway outside our room was silent. We listened again.
"I heard shooting," Jason said to me.
"So did
I
," I said, peering around him.
We listened. There wasn't any noise now, but it wasn't dead silent. We could
hear the sounds of the streets coming from behind us.
Cars
beeping.
People chattering in Italian as they passed
by.
But within the monastery, we heard nothing. Jason pulled the door
shut.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"Maybe nothing's wrong," said Jason. "Maybe it was a firework or
a car backfiring or something."
"Maybe," I said.
 
Another gunshot.
A scream.
"No," I said. "That was a gun."
"Yeah," said Jason. He took a deep breath. "Okay, then. Say
goodbye to your clothes."
I glared at him. "Are we going to try to go out the front door?"
"Don't see why not," he said.
I grabbed a bag and shoved some clothes and one of the laptops into it.
"Let's just try to take some stuff with us, okay?"
"Whatever," said
Jason.
"Let's
go."
He opened the door again and we eased out of the room. Our backs against the
wall (well, my stuffed-full bag against the wall, anyway), we crept down the
hall, holding our guns. We didn't see anyone.
 
Our room was relatively close to the entrance. We only had to go down one hall,
make a left, and then we'd be right at the door. We moved quickly but
cautiously, glancing around for danger. At the end of the hallway, Jason
stopped me. He peered around, gun out.
We heard another gunshot, much closer now.
 
Jason snapped back around the corner. "The Sons," he reported.
"You can see them?" I asked.
"They're at the entrance," he said. "They shot a bunch of
monks."
"Oh my God," I breathed. "I thought we were safe here. I thought
this whole city was sanctuary."
"They attacked us in a church before," said Jason. "I don't
think sanctuary much matters where we're concerned."
"
How many?"
I asked.
"I don't know," said Jason.
"But a lot.
Maybe twenty.
And who knows if they don't have
reinforcements waiting somewhere."
"Should we kiss and try to drive them crazy?" I asked, trying to make
a joke.
Jason grabbed me by the neck and kissed me fiercely. "No," he said,
pulling back. "I think we should look for a back door."
He grabbed my hand, and we fled back down the hall. It had been a while since
Jason and I had lived in this monastery. Still, we knew our way around pretty
well. I didn't remember there being a back door, though. "What back door
are you talking about?" I asked Jason.
He shot a look over his shoulder as we ran. "The kitchen," he said.
"There's a door in the kitchen."
"Well, we're going the wrong way!" I said.
 
Jason yanked me to the right, hard, and we emerged in the cloister. The
cloister was a covered walkway that surrounded a square courtyard. I pointed
across the courtyard to the other side of the monastery. "The kitchen is
over there," I said.
"Yeah," said Jason. "We're going across the courtyard." And
he pulled me along with him.
More gunshots echoed from inside the monastery. Jason and I scurried across the
courtyard and back inside the monastery. We emerged in a small hallway. The
door to the kitchen was right in front of us. We could hear the sound of
screams from the main entrance. Jason threw the door open, and we rushed
inside.
 
We were greeted by the sight of several ex-members of the Council cowering in
front of the sink. At the sight of us, they immediately bowed their heads.
Geez.
They were in fear for their lives, and they were still
doing the bowing thing?
 
Jason pulled me forward. "Ignore them," he said. We headed for the
door.
"Don't!" said one of the ex-Council members.
"They've sealed off all the exits," said another.
Jason stopped short as we saw that there was body in front of our exit.
Immediately, he pulled me away from it. We clattered into the stove. He
addressed the ex-Council members. "They're outside the door?" he
asked.
They nodded. "Briggs tried to get out. They shot him."
"This is
 
sanctuary
," said Jason.
"What is Hoyt thinking?"
"We think they're going to go through every room and just shoot
everyone," said another ex-Council member. "It's Hoyt's way of
showing us what he'll do if we stand up to him."
"They're looking for us, though, right?" I said.
They nodded.
"Jason, we've just got to go engage," I said.
"What?" he said.
"They're killing all these people because of us. We can't just let them
die."
"No, it is an honor to give our lives in your service," said one of
the ex-Council members.
"Maybe for you," I conceded. These guys were messed up in the head.
"But not for the monks here. They don't want to die for us."
"It's screwed up," said Jason. "We should have gone to freaking
Africa
!"
"Jason, we can't let them shoot monks!"
"There are twenty of them at the main entrance. Who knows how many of them
are surrounding the monastery," said Jason. "We go out there
shooting,
we could maybe take down half of them.
But not all of them.
They'll kill us."
I sighed. He was right. But it was sickening the amount of people who had been
killed in the crossfire of this hunt for Jason and me. At the
Sol
Solis
School
, it was one thing. At least those
men had been Brothers, trained to fight and prepared for dangerous situations.
These monks, however, were peaceful. They'd offered us a place to stay. They'd
hidden us. I leaned against the stove, scratching at the bandage on my arm. It
was still itchy.
That reminded me that the bandage hadn't been changed recently. I planned to do
it this morning. I hoped it wasn't getting infected. I tried to examine my
wound through the bandage.
"Don't play with that," Jason said.
 
I dropped my arm, studying the gun in my hand. I'd already been shot once by
the Sons. I didn't think I wanted to be gunned down, even if it meant that they
stopped shooting monks. I was lucky they hadn't killed me at the prom—
Lucky. "Jason," I said. "How likely is it that one of the Sons would
miss a shot? You know how the Brothers are trained. If you meant to shoot
someone in the head, would you miss and shoot them in the arm?"
Jason looked at me like I was crazy. "If I shoot someone in the arm, it's
because I meant to shoot them in the arm," he said.
I held up my arm. "Why didn't they kill me? I was standing in the open. I
was an easy target."
Jason's eyes narrowed. "That is weird," he admitted. "I was so
glad you were alive, I never thought to question it."
"Maybe they're not trying to kill us," I said. "It's only
hearsay that they are."
"So then, what are they doing?" Jason said. "Why are they here
with guns, shooting everything in sight?"
I didn’t know. I had no idea.
"Even if they don't want us dead," said Jason, "they aren't trying
to do anything nice to us."
No. I guessed they weren't. I sighed. "So, I guess we try to get out of
here."
"There was another plan?"
No. It was just that I had wanted to minimize the violence, somehow. Keep
people alive. I turned to the ex-Council members. "How many of them do you
think are at the door?"
They shrugged. They didn’t know.
Were there more at the entrance than at this door?
 
They thought so.
Probably.
"So," said Jason, seeing where I was going with this. "You think
we should just try to shoot ourselves out of this door?"
I shrugged.
"Unless you have a better idea."
We surveyed the door. It opened into the kitchen, which wasn't great. If it had
opened out onto the street, we might have been able to use it as a shield.
Maybe.
It was a wooden door, after all. It wasn't exactly
impervious to bullets. We decided to stay low. We figured the Sons outside
would assume that whoever was opening the door was standing. So we would lie
flat, our guns out. Jason would reach up and open the door a few inches, just
enough so that we could see what we were dealing with. From there, we'd just
have to see what happened.
First we had to drag Briggs' body away from the door. His wound left a smear of
blood on the floor. We were going to have to lie on the blood smear. Gross.
 
Jason and I got in position. He reached up for the knob and eased the door
open. Almost immediately, there was a volley of gunfire, but it went over our
heads.
So far, so good.
I was watching through the opening of the door as Jason pulled it open.
Quickly, I assessed the situation. There were seven members of the Sons in the
street. I shot as soon as I had a clear view. Carefully aiming, and remembering
to breathe, I squeezed off three shots. They hit home perfectly. Three head shots.
The men I'd hit crumpled to the ground. Jason was with me. He shot the other
four.
 
Well. That had been easy.
We scrambled to our feet and out the door. Jason pulled it shut behind us.
 
"It's them! It's them!" yelled a voice.
And Jason and I were immediately swarmed by at least ten more members of the
Sons. We opened fire.
They were everywhere, coming from all sides of the building. Some had been
hiding behind cars. Others had been on the roof of the monastery. I got off
several good shots. Jason got off even more than me. We took down at least five
more of them. But there were so many.
Then someone kicked the gun out of my hand and someone else tackled me from
behind. I went down on the ground, my chin skidding against stone. I bit my
tongue and tasted blood in my mouth. I cried out.
They were on my back, handcuffing my arms and feet.
 
I twisted, looking for Jason. He was fighting with a group of men who were on
him, slinging punches everywhere. "Azazel!" he yelled to me.
"Jason!" I screamed.
The Sons who had me hoisted me into the air. Two men had my feet and another
three held my head and upper torso. They were taking me away.
"Jason!" I screamed again.
The last image I saw of him was the Sons finally overpowering him and forcing
him to the ground. He was struggling and yelling my name. I strained at the
handcuffs. I tried to wrench my head so that I could bite at the hands of the
men who held me. But I was trapped. We rounded a corner. I couldn't see him
anymore.

Chapter Thirteen

To: Ian Hoyt
From: Arabella Hoyt
Subject: Where are you?
What is going on? You aren't answering any of the numbers I have for you. You
said you had confirmation that they were in
Rome
and you were moving in. So help me, if
you screw this up again, Ian, I don't know what I'll do.
I'd better hear from you soon.
Arabella

The Sons shoved me in the back of a car. One of them
sat with me. I thrashed ineffectively, yelling at him. I don't know what I
said. I was beside myself, angry, frightened, and concerned for Jason. I didn't
know what they were going to do with him. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I
probably threatened him. I probably begged for Jason's life. I probably swore
and swore at him.
"Can you make her shut up?" asked one of the Sons as he started the
car.
The man in the back seat with me pulled out a syringe. He plunged the needle
into my arm.
 
The world started to fade away into blackness.
 
The last thing I remembered hearing was someone saying something about an
airport . . . .

* * *

Everything hurt. My wrists were sore and chafed. My
chin and teeth ached. The gunshot on my arm throbbed. I moaned and rolled over
in bed.
 
Bed?
Where was I?
My eyes snapped open. I was in a bedroom. There were expensive sheets on the
bed I lay in. The walls were painted pink, but they had been plastered with
posters.
Familiar posters.
Bands I liked. Movies I'd
watched. They were
 
my
 
posters.
From my old bedroom, back in Bramford.
There was a
bookshelf in the room too. It seemed to be filled with
 
my
 
books. But this wasn't Bramford, and
this wasn't my old room. It was just all my stuff.
 
"What the hell?" I muttered.
"Zaza?" said a voice. Someone rushed over to me.
"Chance?"
I said.
Chance threw himself at me and hugged me in bed. "Oh my God, you're
okay!" he said.
 
"Ow," I said. "Chance, you're killing me here."
He sat up, perching on the bed next to me. I pushed myself into a sitting
position, groaning when it hurt as bad as it did.
 
"Sorry," said Chance.
"Where am I?" I demanded.
"It's good to see you too," he said sarcastically. "I wasn't
worried about you or anything when you and Jason just disappeared from the
school after the whole prom got shot up."
"Where am I?" I repeated.
"Grandma's," he said.
 
Grandma Hoyt's house?
"In
New Jersey
?"
I said.
Chance nodded.
"Yup.
That's where she
lives."
"I went to sleep in
Rome
,"
I said. I'd been out for the entirety of a fourteen-hour plane flight. Whatever
that guy had given me in the car must have been really, really good. "How
did I get here?"
"Grandma said that you were in an accident and that some of her business
associates in
Italy
found out about it. They were able to get you sent back here. But when you got
here, you were totally out. I thought you were like in a coma or
something."
I threw the covers of the bed aside and got up. Jesus! That hurt even worse.
That tackling thing they'd done to me must have really damaged me. "I
wasn't in a coma," I said. "I was drugged. A bunch of men jumped
Jason and me. They tied me up and knocked me out. And I ended up here."
"Where is Jason?"
"You don't know?" I asked.
"I asked Grandma about it, and she said no one knew where he was."
"
Really?"
I said, hopeful. Maybe Jason had
gotten away. Maybe . . . I started for the door to the room. "I've got to
find him," I said. I had my hand on the door before I realized I was
wearing a frilly, full-length nightgown. I looked down at it. "Ugh,"
I said. "Where did Grandma Hoyt get this?"
Chance shrugged. "It's kind of cute on you, though."
"I'll have to change," I said. I crossed the room to the closet. It
was empty. There was a chest of drawers. It was empty too. "Okay," I
said. "I have no clothes."
"Yeah," said Chance. "Well, maybe we could go to the mall. I
have a credit card. We could get you something."
"I don't have time to go to the mall," I said. "I don't know
where Jason is. And the last time I saw him, he was being wrestled to the
ground by like ten guys with guns. I have to find him."
"Yeah?" said Chance. "Well, I don't know where my girlfriend is
either."
That made me pause. "Mina?" I said. I had assumed Chance and Palomino
were okay. After they'd been sent home, away from us, I figured everything
would be fine.
Chance sighed. "It's my fault," he said. "She was freaked out
about the baby and everything. I told Grandma about it. I thought she could
help. But she called Mina's parents, and they shipped her off somewhere to one
of those places where they send girls so they can have a baby and then they
take it away so no one will ever know."
"Oh my God," I said. "You're kidding."
"I can't even call her or talk to her. They won't tell me where she is.
And Grandma says I'm forbidden to ever see her again."
"Chance, I'm so sorry," I said, hugging him. I meant it to be
comforting, but it was kind of silly, since Chance was way taller than I was.
He was growing like a weed. He hugged me back, though.
 
"I was freaked out," he said. "I mean, we're kids. I'm not ready
to be a dad. But this is just wrong. Nobody asked us. They just took her away.
And they're gonna give our baby—my baby—to some strange couple somewhere. I'll
never even see him!"
"No," I said. "
Chance, that
is not
going to happen. Once I find Jason, he and I will find Mina, and we will get
her out of there. I promise you that."
"Yeah," said Chance. "I saw the way you guys were shooting at
the prom. Zaza, where did you learn to shoot guns like that?"
I sighed. "That's a long story. For now, I just have to get out of
here." Where was I going to go? How was I supposed to find Jason? I
decided to concentrate on the more pressing issues. "I'm going to need to
borrow some of your clothes," I said to Chance.
He sized me up. "They're not going to fit you," he said.
"I'll need a belt," I said. It was so annoying. I'd carried that bag
with clothes and the laptop all the way out to the street outside the
monastery. I must have lost in the scuffle with the Sons. I seemed to be cursed
never to keep a closet full of clothes.
Chance shrugged. "You can try, I guess," he said.
We went to his room. He gave me a pair of his shorts. They were really long, so
they fit me like pants. I cinched the waist up as best I could with a belt and
threw one of his t-shirts on over the whole thing. I didn't have a bra, which
really sucked, because I felt like I was wearing pajamas, flopping all over the
place. But it was better than the stupid nightgown.
 
As we headed down the steps, I considered my options. I didn't know where Jason
was, so I was going to have to find someone who could help me find him. Who did
I know who could do that? Maybe if I could get in touch with Hallam? I had no
idea how to do that, though. If Jason had been captured by the Sons, though, he
could very easily be—
No. I wasn't going to think that. I'd held Jason in my arms when I thought he
was dead before. I'd gotten him back. He couldn't be dead now. No.
The important thing was to get out of this house. "I'm going to need a
car," I told Chance. "Do you know where Grandma Hoyt keeps her
keys?"
"
We're
 
going to need a car," said
Chance. "I'm coming with you."
I stopped on the stairs, looking up at Chance, who was behind me. "No
way," I said. "You can't come, Chance. It is way too dangerous. I
can't take care of you. And I won't let anything happen to you. I have lost way
too much of my family. You are all I have left. You stay here where it's
safe."
"I hate it here," said Chance. "And if you and Jason are going
to get Mina, then I have to come with you. I have to help her. I can't just sit
here."
"I don't care if you do hate it here," I said. "You're not
coming, and that's all there is to it." I turned and continued down the
steps. Chance hurried after me.
"You can't just leave me here," he said. "I'm going!"
"Going where?" said a voice.
Grandma Hoyt floated in front of the steps. She was a tall woman with gray
hair, which she pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head. She always
dressed impeccably. Today, she was wearing a cream-colored suit. Her arms were
folded over her chest.
"Hey Grandma," I said. "Listen, thanks for getting me out of
whatever you got me out of back there. But I can't stay. I have to go. I don't
know where Jason is."
"Jason is at the Sons' headquarters in
England
," said Grandma Hoyt.
"And you're not going anywhere. He's been arrested by their internal
police. There will be a trial, and I have no doubt he'll be executed for his
crimes against the organization. You'd do well to stop thinking about that boy.
He's the past."
Trial?
Executed?
Crimes?
"Grandma," I said. "I don't think you understand."
"No, Azazel, I don't think you understand," said Grandma Hoyt.
"Your great-uncle and I have been searching for you all over
Europe
for the past several months. I've been beside
myself with worry ever since you got mixed up with that boy. Now when Weem was
heading the organization, there wasn't much I could do. But now that Ian is in
charge, I've been able to get you home and safe and sound. And I've been able
to do what I could to eliminate the threat of Jason."
I was stunned. I'd known that weird things were going on with my grandmother
for some time. She had ties to the Sons. And she'd been helping my brothers
Gordon and Noah earlier this spring. But I hadn't thought that she thought
Jason was a threat. "That's why you were helping Noah and Gordon?" I
asked.
"Because they were trying to kill Jason?
You want him dead?
"Child, I never wanted him conceived," said Grandma Hoyt. "Now
you march back up those steps and put any ideas of getting out of here out of
your head. You are my only blood descendant, and I'll be hanged before I allow
you to bring shame to the Hoyt family."
I didn't move. This was so bad. What was I going to do? "You can't talk to
me like that," I said. "I stopped being someone's child a long time
ago. I'm leaving. You can't stop me."
"Maybe I can't personally, but I'm sure the armed guards on every door and
at the gate can," she retorted.
"Up the steps!"