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Grunting and groaning, Brooks got Indio into the wheelbarrow, but it wasn’t easy. Once Indio was in, with his arms and legs hanging limply over the sides of the thing, Brooks whistled as he pushed the wheelbarrow west around the stand of trees.
Carefully, Sel got to his hand and knees, crawling on the grass to follow him. When he got to the trees, he stopped and peered around them, seeing the jeep Brooks had mentioned.
Wherever he was taking Indio, it wasn’t so close that he could cart him there in the wheelbarrow. Sel knew he had to follow somehow but didn’t know how he’d accomplish it.
More grunting as Brooks hefted a knocked-out Indio into the back of the jeep. He pushed the wheelbarrow off into some weeds before he got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Sel knew that was his only chance, and he crouched low, running to get behind the jeep, climbing onto the bumper and holding onto the back of the vehicle.
Holding on tightly, he could peer over the tailgate to see Indio. Indio’s lips were parted as he slept, breathing slowly. When Sel saw the dart, he realized what he’d heard.
He’d been shot with a tranquilizer gun. That was the woosh of air, like an air rifle. “Mother fucker,” he whispered to himself as Brooks got music going, singing along with some 90s tune.
Sel grabbed the dart and threw it to the ground just as the jeep started rolling, and Brooks called back to the still sleeping Indio, “A little bumpy, us not being on the roads, but I don’t think you’ll mind.”
What a sadistic fuck he was, Sel thought. Sel couldn’t lift his head much without being seen in the rearview mirror, but it was enough to watch Indio. He could so easily take the gun from his waistband and kill the fucker, but if it was true, if he’d taken others, Sel needed to first see where they were headed.
It wasn’t an easy ride. It was terribly bumpy and each time they hit a bump, he was jarred badly, having to clutch onto the tailgate harder. His foot threatened to slip and leave him dragging behind the jeep, but he used every bit of his strength to hold on and he kept his eyes on Indio to do just that. Oh, the jabbing Indio would give him if he was trying so hard to be some idiot hero and fell off the jeep, leaving him without knowing where Brooks was taking him, and likely being sent back to LA before he’d know if Indio survived.
They were moving for less than fifteen minutes, and they weren’t going very fast. Sel thought, once they stopped, they were driving around twenty miles an hour, which would have taken them less than five miles, give or take. No, math had never been his best subject, but he knew distance. He knew driving, having three professional drivers giving him lessons when he was turning sixteen.
When they stopped, Sel hopped off the bumper as the engine cut, and he waited to see which way Brooks would walk before he moved from behind the vehicle. Straight back from the driver’s side came Brooks, so Sel moved around to the passenger side, keeping as low as he could while still being able to move.
Brooks quickly checked on Indio to ensure he was still unconscious and then walked away from the jeep altogether. Sel figured he had another wheelbarrow nearby to help move the sleeping man. When he was out of sight, Sel got to Indio and patted his face, getting progressively more violent to try to wake him. “Indio! Indio, get up! Get up! Dammit!”
He couldn’t scream in the man’s face like he wanted to, and even the slaps made too much noise. “Indio, please! I’ll let you be a total asshole to me whenever you want if you just wake up right now and run away from this freak.”
In tears, Sel shook Indio, begging, but he heard Brooks returning, the clattering of something he was dragging loud in the otherwise quiet night.
Sel ran off to a small stand of trees a few feet from the jeep and waited there, hunched and ready to run if he was seen.
Instead of a wheelbarrow, Brooks had a wheeled creeper that mechanics used to lie on and wheel themselves easily under cars to work on them. Helpless but to watch, Sel saw him hefting Indio off the back of the jeep to fall in a hard thud to the ground, then he moved him onto the creeper that had a rope to pull it.
Indio laid on it backward, so his head was off the thing and dragging in the dirt. Sel’s heart hurt watching it, knowing he’d wake to a nasty headache or worse.
And that was if he lived long enough to wake up at all.
Sel followed at a distance, staying crouched low, and he watched Brooks take Indio around more trees that were at the base of a long, short hill. It wasn’t much more than a giant mound in the otherwise flat earth.
As Sel got around to the other side, he watched in awe as a big square of the ground that was the rise of the front of the mound break off and open.
“It’s another fucking bunker!”
The thick door traveled slowly until it opened fully, the floor of the place he was entering flush with the ground where Brooks stood, and he pulled Indio onto it, chipperly informing the unconscious man, “Welcome to your new and final home, biker trash.”
Watching them disappear into the entrance, Sel knew the door would close and no matter what they did, they’d never get it opened if Brooks didn’t want it open. Indio and whoever else Brooks had kidnapped would be in there, unarmed, helpless, and prey to the evil predator.
Sel dug in his pocket for the GPS and the tablet. The tablet had no signal, but it would be like a breadcrumb, hopefully. He left them both under a tree, hidden as well as could be without burying them, and he waited for the door to start to close before he rushed inside, backed against the wall so he wouldn’t be seen as the thick metal door closed him inside, and closed any hope he had for rescue out.
Chapter Seventeen
Dante was watching the tablet like he’d lose his eyes if he looked away. In the bunkhouse, where they’d made the temporary headquarters for the operation, other men were milling around, watching the tablets too, on the phone with the volunteers or other tasks.
Blaine was drinking coffee beside him and asked, “More coffee, honey?”
“Yes, please, BB.”
“Dante, I get it. You’re worried, but you haven’t taken that map off the farmhouse in an hour.”
“I have to make sure he’s safe. Call it…uncle’s intuition.”
