If he hadn’t been born, maybe everything and everyone would have been better.
All Griffin knew about Cheyenne and how she was doing now was what he had seen in the media, pictures of her hurrying away from cameras, a baseball cap pulled low, with a woman he didn’t think was her stepmom always a half step behind. Sometimes Cheyenne held a cane in her hand; other times it was Phantom’s harness.
His stomach churned. He tried to swallow it back down, but bitterness flooded his mouth.
“What are you going to do to her? Kidnap her, too?”
“Don’t worry. She’s coming to us of her own free will. Or should I say, to you. You’re two little lovebirds.”
Griffin hated having to ask, hated how it made him look weak, but he didn’t have any choice. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s been talking to you on Facebook.”
“But I’m not on Facebook.” Griffin had joined for a while, back when he was still going to school, but then he had gotten tired of seeing people’s happy statuses. Seeing how good their lives were, at least on-screen. It had made him realize just how much his sucked.
Dwayne smirked. “We’ve been messaging each other on Facebook. Only her photo and her user name belong to her dog. And she thinks I’m you.”
Griffin groaned as the implications of what Dwayne was saying sank in.
“She’s coming to see you right now.” Dwayne pointed a finger at him and then turned it to stab himself in the chest. “And she’s going to find me.” TJ cleared his throat, and Dwayne amended it to “Find us.”
Griffin couldn’t let this happen. Not another terrible problem with him at the center. “She’ll cause a ruckus if she shows up and finds you instead. If you want to keep her quiet, you should let me help, at least until you can get her out of sight.” If they thought he was on their side, he might be able to figure out how they could get away. Or at least how Cheyenne could.
“Good try,” Dwayne said, and cuffed his shoulder. Not as hard as the last time he hit him. It might even have been meant to signal affection.
The only reason they hadn’t hurt him—so far—was that he was his father’s son. Dwayne still had some faint family loyalty to Griffin, at least when it came to spilling blood.
But Cheyenne was a stranger. Her life or death would mean nothing to Dwayne. Instead, she was the one he blamed for this whole mess.
So Griffin thought it likely that once they had her, they would kill her.
The last time Griffin had tried to talk to Cheyenne, six months ago, she had said they couldn’t stay in touch. Made it sound like they never could. If he had known that she might change her mind, would that have changed things for him? Would he have been more rooted, less rudderless?
A few hours after it got dark, Dwayne and TJ left. Before they did, Dwayne slapped duct tape across Griffin’s mouth to keep him quiet.
Griffin had seen a mouse caught in a glue trap once. Squirming, trying to get its feet free. Trying so hard that its heart finally gave out and it slumped over.
That’s how Griffin felt now. In the dark, he twisted his hands. He was careful not to press the cuffs against anything. He had already discovered the hard way that if you did that, the cuff would ratchet tighter. But there was still some room in the right one. And to get out of here, all he needed to do was get out of one. If he could just fold his thumb in tight enough. His wrists were wet with sweat. Or blood. If he could use the wetness to lubricate the cuffs, then maybe he could scrape them off.
Maybe.
He just knew he couldn’t give up.
CHAPTER 19
ANOTHER VICTIM
CHEYENNE
The car door was wrenched open, and strong hands dragged Cheyenne out. She screamed, even though she knew there was no one to hear. No one but Duke, and he was dead.
As soon as she got her feet under her, she put her right hand on top of her attacker’s, just as Jaydra had taught her. Because she could feel his thumb, she knew how he was standing in relation to her. She began to twist the wrist he was holding so that she could grip his forearm with the same arm he had just grabbed, all the while keeping his hand pressed against her wrist. Done correctly, it would break his wrist.
But, Cheyenne realized a second too late, there was another man behind her.
The second man wrenched her right arm back, his breath hot on her neck as he pushed it up between her shoulder blades. Cold metal ratcheted around her wrist. A handcuff. As long as he had only one of her wrists, she might still be able to escape. She tried to twist free. But the man just grabbed her other wrist and forced it behind her. The second cuff snapped closed.
Lacing her fingers together to make her hands as bony as possible, Cheyenne tried to strike him in the crotch. Her only reward was a coarse laugh in her ear.
“You nearly broke my wrist!” the man in front of her said. Amazement colored his high-pitched voice.
Cheyenne recognized it immediately from her nightmares. TJ Meadors. Found too crazy to participate in his own trial. Although apparently not too crazy to figure out how to escape the mental hospital.
“You killed Duke!”
“That wasn’t me. It was Dwayne!”
So the man behind her wasn’t Roy, even if he sounded a lot like him.
“Stop yakking and help me carry her,” Dwayne commanded.
When TJ’s hands fumbled at her ankles, Cheyenne managed to kick him under the chin, making him grunt and stagger back. She tried to wrench free from Dwayne, but he just grabbed her under the arms. And this time when TJ bent down to seize her ankles, he succeeded.
They lifted her into the air and began to carry her. Cheyenne twisted and bucked, hoping to get at least one foot free. With one foot, she could kick again. Given one foot, she might gain two. And then she could run. Her collapsible cane was still in her pocket, although there was probably no way to use it with her hands cuffed behind her.
But when they finally let her go, it was to throw her into a vehicle. The metal floor made a hollow sound when she landed painfully on her left shoulder. A door banged closed, trapping her inside.
“Go get her purse out of the car and bring it back here,” Dwayne said on the other side of the door. “But first turn off her phone.”
“Sure,” TJ said. “I want to check out that car.” He sounded eager.
“There’s no time for that. They’re coming for her, and we need to get out of here before they show up. Just get her purse, turn off her phone, and that’s all.”
She willed TJ to argue, but instead he was silent. A few seconds later, through the walls of her new prison, she heard the front doors of the vehicle open and close. The engine started up, and then they began to move.
Cheyenne lay on her side, panting openmouthed. Her heart was a broken-winged bird trapped in the cage of her ribs.
She took stock. She had been kidnapped. Handcuffed. She was in the back of some kind of delivery van. At least it wasn’t the trunk of a car, she told herself. The space was bigger than that. She could move around, maybe figure out a way to surprise the two men when they opened the door again. Through the front wall, she could hear them talking to each other, but the sounds were muffled.
What she couldn’t let herself think about was how she had ended up here. About how Griffin had betrayed her.
All those things he had messaged her had been lies. About how he missed her and thought she was beautiful and couldn’t wait to see her again. Even back in the woods, it must all have been a lie. He must have encouraged her to keep going knowing his dad would catch her. Griffin hadn’t expected her to turn the tables on Roy.
He had spun a pretty web of lies, and she had thrown herself into it. Just as her dad and Danielle had warned her, Griffin would always be his father’s son. Her guilt at having tried to kill him must have colored how she remembered things in the woods. The Griffin she remembered, the Griffin she had built up in her head—that Griffin did not exist.
The van took a sharp turn,
and Cheyenne rolled into something.
Not something. Someone.
She let out a screech and pushed herself away.
“Hello? Who are you?”
No answer. But it had to be another victim. Maybe too traumatized to speak.
“Talk to me. Maybe the two of us can figure out a way to get out of here. I can’t see you because I’m blind.”
She held her breath, waiting for a word or a whisper, but none came. With a sickening twist of the gut, she recalled what she had barely registered when she first felt it. Whatever—whoever—it was had been covered by a stiff and crackly layer. Plastic of some kind.
Cheyenne managed to sit up. Even though her hands were cuffed behind her, she needed them to tell her if what she was afraid of was true. She found she could scoot backward if she pointed her hands straight toward her bottom, transferred her weight to her palms and heels, and then inched herself back. Each time she repositioned her hands, she first patted the air behind her. Finally her fingers touched whatever it was she had rolled against.
With one finger, she poked it again. It gave a little at her touch. Definitely flesh, wrapped up in what felt like a plastic tarp. Trembling, she ran her palm over the part she was closest to. Something round, maybe four inches across. It did not move in response to her handling. And she registered what she hadn’t before—that the flesh under the tarp was cool.
So whatever she was touching was dead. Could it be an animal? A dead animal? Cheyenne thought of the gunshot and the terrible sound Duke had made. Could they have wrapped up his body and thrown it inside right before they came for her?
But wouldn’t he still be warm? Besides, Cheyenne didn’t think it was an animal. It was too big. Too big to be anything but a person. Was it another girl? A dead girl? As she would be soon?
Then she had another thought, even worse. Did the body belong to Griffin? Had they tricked him into helping them and then killed him when they didn’t need him anymore?
Cheyenne had to know. She couldn’t bear to know. But she had to.
Or—the thought filled her with a surge of hope—maybe she was imagining it, thinking that something so large had to be human. Maybe it was a deer, shot out of season. That thing she had thought was an arm might have been a deer’s slender leg. Maybe.
The more rational part of her brain reminded her that it was more likely Griffin. At the thought, it was as if she could see the Griffin she had built in her mind, the Griffin with dark hair and dark eyes and the scar around his neck, lying pale and still beneath a blue plastic tarp.
Her thoughts ran in circles until finally they stopped altogether. She forced herself to grab a fold of tarp and tug. Scoot forward and tug, scoot forward and tug, until she felt the tarp slide halfway off. Then she scooted back to the body.
Disturbing the tarp had released the metallic smell of blood. It filled her nostrils, stronger even than the smell of the diesel exhaust.
Cheyenne lifted her hands as high as she could and then slowly brought her palms down.
It was an arm. Definitely an arm, not some animal’s leg. She swiped her fingers sideways to be sure and touched cool, curled fingers. A whimper was ripped from her throat.
She crabbed farther up. She needed to feel the face. No matter how much she feared it.
But when she reached out, she touched the chest. It was definitely a man, the chest muscled and flat. Blood sticky beneath her fingers. Her index finger slipped into a small hole. With a cry she pulled it out. Whoever it was, he had been shot to death.
She scooted higher, found the dead man’s face. Her fingers traced a strong nose. Griffin’s nose had been strong. As tears burned her eyes, she made herself amend the thought. Yes, Griffin had a strong nose. So did a lot of men. That didn’t mean this was Griffin.
And underneath the nose, her fingers found a mustache. The last time she had seen Griffin he had been clean shaven. And he was only seventeen. This mustache was so bristly it felt like it had been growing for years. Cheyenne traced its shape with her fingers. It bracketed the mouth and went all the way down to the chin in a narrow line on either side. Not a typical shape for a mustache.
But something about it was familiar. Familiar from before, from when she had still been able to see. Someone in her life had had a mustache like that.
And then it came to her. Danielle talking about Octavio. Thinking he must be sick. Why he wasn’t answering his phone.
Now Cheyenne knew the answer. It was Octavio who was dead in this van, not another girl, not Griffin. Which meant she had to accept the truth—that Griffin had lied to her, lured her to what most likely would be her death.
When the van went around a sharp turn, she lost her balance and tipped over next to Octavio’s body. She curled up in a fetal position and let the tears come.
CHAPTER 20
RUN AWAY SCREAMING
CHEYENNE
Cheyenne heard Jaydra’s voice in her head. A small amount of adrenaline can help you. Too much prepares you to die.
When she had set out to save Griffin, Cheyenne’s adrenaline must have been in what Jaydra said was the yellow zone, which left you ready to fight, but still able to think. Once the men showed up, she had entered the red zone, her body no longer analyzing, just reacting. Now she lay curled on the metal floor of the van, a fine tremble washing over her. Without urgency, Cheyenne thought she must be moving into the gray zone, where she would be unable to think, and barely able to act.
She vaguely knew that she needed to get things under control before she went into the black zone, where she would lose even gross motor skills. Jaydra said the black zone was meant to be protective, your body’s last-ditch effort to keep you from being noticed, or at least from doing something stupid. She would be frozen, in shock. Unable to do anything while the men could do whatever they wanted to her.
That thought finally reached Cheyenne. The idea of TJ touching her, murmuring into her ear the way he had six months ago, shot through her like an electric shock. No! She couldn’t let that happen.
The antidote to adrenaline is oxygen, Jaydra whispered in her head. Remember your four-count breathing. Four counts in, hold four counts, four counts out, hold four counts. It would stop her adrenaline from spiking to the point where it rendered her useless.
Cheyenne forced herself to breathe from her belly until she stopped shaking, stopped hearing her heartbeat slamming in her ears. She twisted her hand until she could check her Braille watch. It was a few minutes after two in the morning. She had been in the back of the van for about twenty minutes.
With a groan, she pushed herself to a sitting position. She needed to get out of these handcuffs before the men opened the door to the van. Jaydra had warned her about what she called the increasing quality of incarceration. First you’re in handcuffs in the trunk of a car. Then you’ll be in a locked room chained by your ankle to a bed. Every time you change locations, it will be harder to escape. So the sooner you do, the better.
Jaydra said the first step was to take stock of what you had on hand that you could use to help yourself. But Cheyenne didn’t have anything. Her purse was up front with the men. The fob, which was heavy enough it might have had some utility, was back in the car. In the pockets of her raincoat were just her folded cane, some plastic bags for dog poop, and a handful of kibble.
Kibble made her think of Duke, of how he had died trying to protect her. She forced herself to blink away the tears. She didn’t have time for them now.
Jaydra always carried a handcuff key tucked behind the label on her pants, held in place with Velcro. When she had told Cheyenne that, she had thought it was the most ridiculous, paranoid thing she had ever heard. She had drawn the line at that, so Jaydra had encouraged her to always clip her hair back with a bobby pin or metal hair clip that could be broken and repurposed. Unfortunately, Cheyenne hadn’t listened to that advice, either.
Jaydra had taught Cheyenne how to get out of duct tape and zip ties and ropes, but they had spent the
most time on handcuffs. If you knew what you were doing, you could open them using almost any small, thin piece of metal: bobby pins, safety pins, binder clips, paper clips, even a dipstick. One way was to use the metal as a shim. You slid it between the cuff and the bumpy part—the rachet. As you pressed both the cuff and the shim in, the piece of metal would block the teeth of the ratchet so that you could swing the cuff open. Or you could bend the piece of metal in a specific way and use it like a handcuff key. Handcuffs are simply a control device, Jaydra had said. They’re not meant to keep you permanently locked up. The design hasn’t changed much for a century, and they all work the same way.
It had been fun to figure out how to do it, but once Cheyenne had, her interest had diminished. It all seemed like crazy overkill.
At least until now.
Then she thought of her coat. It closed with a zipper. And the zipper pull was small, flat, and made of metal. Maybe she could use it to shim open the cuffs! Her heart thrilled until she twisted enough to touch it. It was far too wide. She checked the one on her pants. It was smaller, but still too wide to fit between the notched edge of the rachet and the handcuff.
Her only hope was that sometime in the van’s years of use, some small piece of metal had landed on the floor and been left there. Starting in one corner, she began to search, sweeping with her fingers. With each pass, she overlapped the area she’d just swept. But all too soon, she had to acknowledge that there was nothing she could use, either to get out of her cuffs or as a weapon. No thin pieces of metal. No jumper cables. Not even a handy bag of wrenches.
The van was empty, except for her and Octavio.
That left Octavio.
If touching Octavio’s face and the bullet hole in his chest had been bad, searching through his pockets was going to be worse. And tricky, since Cheyenne had to work behind her back with her hands cuffed together. She muttered, “Sorry,” as she started to worm her fingers into the pants pocket nearest her.