She shook her head in wonderment, Could shy little Kaem Seba have grown up to be a player?
She reached up for the door handle on her truck…
A hand snaked around her neck from behind as a body slammed hers up against the truck.
Something dug into her ribs.
A voice snarled, “Cooperate and live. Fight and die.”
Incongruously, Dez thought, I shoulda made that Stade armor my first priority.
Surprised that she wasn’t frightened out of her wits, she sucked in the breath the guy’d smashed out of her and asked, “What do you want?”
Assuming the answer was rape, she slipped her hand into the open top of her purse—hanging from its shoulder strap next to her right hip. Her fingers curled around the grip of her little Glock 43. There’s no way to point this back at him, she thought.
The guy’s arm tightened around her throat as he snarled again, “I want you to shut up.” He pushed her forward. “Make noise and die.”
She wondered whether Kaem had noticed what was going on. Whether he might try to rescue her and whether that’d be a good idea… or just get both of them killed.
As she was pushed past the front of her truck, she saw motion to her right. Worrying that Kaem was coming around to tackle the guy and not knowing the man had a gun, she looked over.
As best she could tell, another guy had Kaem locked up the same way this guy was holding her. Probably not a rape, then, she thought.
Her eyes roamed the parking lot for onlookers that might be calling the cops.
She couldn’t see anyone.
They stopped beside the front door of an old car parked on the other side of the row nose-to-nose with her truck. The guy growled, “Get in.”
Realizing they’d purposefully parked in front of her truck, she thought, They followed us here! This is about Staze.
She opened the door—noticing the dome light didn’t come on, which suggested they were well prepared for this—and got in, taking her hand out of her purse as she did so. She didn’t want the guy to notice her hand in it and wonder what it was doing in there. The guy squatted down in the open doorframe; his gun pointed at her. She wondered, If this is about Staze, what can they be hoping for? Surely, they don’t think we’re taking Staze’s money with us out to dinner!
The opposite front door of the car opened. Kaem got in, looking pissed. He asked, “What do you guys want?”
The guy outside his door waved a gun at him and said, “Shut the hell up!” He closed Kaem’s door and got in behind him.
Dez’s guy closed her door and got in behind her. She felt for a handle on the door beside her but couldn’t find one. She chanced looking down for it and realized it’d been removed. She put her finger on the button for the window but turned to look out of the corner of her eye at the guys behind her before pushing it.
The window didn’t move. She tried rocking the switch the other way. Still nothing. Disabled! They’ve done this before! she thought. She twisted further in the seat to look back at them, sliding her purse around the front of her body to the center console as she did so.
Kaem turned toward her, but the guy behind him reached up and smacked him hard on the side of the head with the barrel of his gun. He barked, “Face front!” Then he spoke to the car, telling it to take them “home.”
As Dez turned further, scooting her back against the door, the first thing she noticed was that there was a third guy in the middle of the back seat. That guy looked wimpy and wasn’t holding a gun like the other two. The second thing she noticed was that they were all wearing masks. Flesh-colored so they weren’t easily noticeable, but something that would make it hard for her to recognize them later. That’s good, I hope, she thought. Maybe it means they aren’t planning to kill us so we can’t talk.
Forcing a pleasant tone into her voice—while at the same time slipping her hand back into her purse and around her pistol—Dez said, “What do you fellas need? You can have our money. Not that we have a lot, but you’re welcome to what we’ve got.” She glanced at Kaem, worried he might protest her offering his money. He was holding his hand to the right side of his head, but blood was seeping between his fingers. The guy hit him harder than I thought!
The guy behind Kaem said, “We just need this asshole,” he waved his gun at Kaem, “to fix our stazer so it works without having to be connected to the internet.” He gave a nasty grin, “Then you two can go do the nasty like you was plannin’.”
Kaem said, “It won’t work without an internet conn…”
Dez thought, Don’t tell them that!
The guy leaned forward and whipped the side of Kaem’s head with the barrel of his gun. This blow seemed vicious compared to the first time he’d hit Kaem.
Dez’s world seemed to slow.
A gun roared three times.
The guy’s arm flailed and his gun fell to the floorboards.
Shit! I shot
