Page 100 of Property of Rattler

The thought of her is all that keeps me going.

Stone’s behind me now, I have no idea what he’s doing. He could be aiming a gun at the back of my head for all I know, or pulling out more serious torture devices than the rudimentary bat and his fists he’d used up to now.

“Got to hurry this along,” he speaks from my rear. But whether he’s talking to me or himself, I can’t be certain.

“Your club thinks they’re so fucking clever, but I’m onto their game. I knew they’ll be tracking me through some program loaded onto my phone the moment I downloaded the pin.” He gives a chuckle worthy of any villain out of the James Bond films that I’ve seen. “They’ll come for you, but I’ve got a surprise for them.”

Now he moves into my eye line again, and he’s not empty-handed. He’s holding a box the size that you get when you buy shoes and places it on my lap. I breathe sharply when I see the wires sticking out. He taps the device, and a red light starts flashing.

I don’t need to be a genius to know it’s an explosive device.

“I’d keep very still if I were you, the slightest jostle will set this thing off.” His mouth quirks. “You can sit and hope that your brothers will come rescue you, or you can be a hero, move and just kill yourself.” He points to a corner of the room where there’s another red light, this one burning steadily. “I’ll be able to watch the show remotely. If your brothers try to disarm the bomb, I can set it off remotely.” He holds up a control. “Now, any last words?”

“You won’t get away with this,” I growl.

“Oh, I will. With luck I’ll take a good number of your club out. And the rest will have gone to the meet point where they’ll be disappointed they won’t find me. But that leaves the compound unguarded, and I’ve got Volkov’s men to help. We’ll sweep in and take Amethyst before they realise it’s a trap.”

Agony shoots through my body of the mental kind, worse than the physical. If his plan works, he’ll kill any club members mounting a rescue, and succeed in taking Ames. And I’m stuck here with a fucking bomb on my lap unable to do anything. When he duct tapes my mouth shut, desolation sweeps through me. I can’t even call out a warning, or scream. I’ve never felt this helpless, or maybe not since I was kicked out of my first foster home by the people I’d assumed were a father and mother to me.

Either deciding he’s run out of time, or he’s just fed up with taunting me, he chuckles to himself, then without sparing one last glance at me, he leaves.

Immediately after the door closes, I wonder why I hadn’t bucked that damn bomb off before he’d disappeared. I could have taken us both out, and that would have been the end of him. My chance has gone because I wasn’t brave enough.

He’s right. Brothers will be coming for me, or rather for him, they’ll have no idea he’s lured them into a trap. Do I kill myself now to save them, or hope like fuck they find some way to get me, and them, out of this?

Despite what my brothers in the club might sometimes think, I love them all. Love being part of the Kings. And Ames? Fuck, my heart fills with dread at the thought Stone’s plan might work, and he could get to her.

My mind whirls with possibilities. If I move just one inch, I would explode the bomb, and leave the club nothing to rescue. That way I’d save some of my brothers.

But that means I won’t have a chance to tell them he’s set this up to get Ames when she’s relatively unguarded by a skeleton crew left at the club.

I sit, undecided, my mind still weighing up the best thing to do, uncertain how much time has passed, when the sound of multiple engines reach me, getting closer by the second. In the end I take the coward’s way out, stay absolutely still and do nothing except wait for them and pray that somehow the bomb malfunctions and fails to explode.

The door smashes open. Oh, fuck no. Bullseye’s come himself, along with Tempest and Winchester. Desperately I try to signal with the only body parts I can move, my eyes flicking urgently up and right accompanied by the exaggerated tilt of my head, but despite my frantic attempts they take no notice. With Prez in the lead, they enter the room coming up close.

Time seems to slow. I can’t issue a warning because I’m unable to speak. Inwardly I start screaming….

The bomb comes to life in my lap, then the world goes white…

I wake screaming. My whole body contorts as I tremble uncontrollably, the movements causing pain to shoot through every part of my body.I knew I wouldn’t be making it to Heaven, but Hell is even worse that I thought.

“Rattler. Rattler.”

Oh fuck, he’s got Ames if she’s here with me.

“Rattler. Stop, oh my God, you’re really going to hurt yourself if you can’t calm down. Be still, you’re having a nightmare. Come back to me, Rattler,Flynn,it’s Ames, and I’m here.”

A nightmare?The words, the soothing, yet worried voice starts to break through the horrendous images in my head.A nightmare. Not real.Fuck. I thought I was back there.

“Ames?” I ask, hesitantly.

“I’m here.” She’s smoothing her hands over my body, lying closer, trying to warm me, physically trying to stop the tremors still racking my body. “Shush, Flynn. You’re safe. We’re in Freak’s room, in the clubhouse.”

Whether she knows she has to remind me, or whether she’s just talking to try to get through to me, I don’t know, but slowly I come back to myself. But the thrall of the nightmare has still gotten me in its hold. Air bursts out of my lungs in a huge sob, and suddenly I’m crying like a fucking baby, and I can’t stop.

“Flynn, oh, Flynn,” she murmurs, stroking my cheek. “Flynn, babe, you’re safe.”

“I was back there,” I rasp out between gulping sobs, “but this time we all died. I couldn’t warn them.”