Page 29 of Creed (Rock Hard Mountain Men #3)

Kayden

The floor of the delivery truck rattled around us, as the two kids and I sat huddled in the middle of stacks of cardboard boxes. I was trying not to panic as, with every second that passed, we grew farther and farther from Creed.

He hadn’t even told me what his plan was. I could only assume that he had one, and trust that it would work. All he’d said was that I needed to stay on the truck and get off at the next delivery stop, so that’s exactly what I was going to do.

Creed had our only watch, so there was no way for us to tell the time.

Based on the sunlight I could see coming through the crack under the door, I guessed that a couple hours had passed.

I fed the children a granola bar from our bag, but I wasn’t hungry.

My stomach rolled every time I thought about what might be happening to Creed, and I feared that if I tried to eat anything, I’d just throw it right back up.

Both Robyn and Mavis had nodded off leaning against my shoulder, and I was on the way to following them, when the feeling of the truck slowing down brought me back to attention. Our journey had been a smooth trip so far, barely ever turning or changing speed, but something had definitely changed.

Had we arrived somewhere, or where we just changing direction?

The truck took several turns, and even came to a stop a few times, but it took several minutes before it came to a full stop and turned off.

We’d arrived at our destination, wherever that was. Whatever Creed’s plan had been, I hoped it was about to pan out, because I didn’t know what to do from here.

If I was smarter, I would have thought ahead, but I’d been so worried about Creed that I never considered what would happen when the truck came to a stop. Creed had said to try and stay out of sight, but the moment the delivery workers opened the door, they were clearly going to see us.

Looking around for a solution, the only thing at my disposal were the delivery packages. There weren’t enough to hide all of us, but if I stacked them in the corner, I might be able to hide the kids for a bit.

It was the best plan I had, so I went with it.

“Get behind here and stay quiet,” I told the kids as I started stacking boxes. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but if it looks like things are going bad, I’ll create a diversion and you need to run, all right?”

Robyn clung to his sister, holding the small girl in his arms. “Where should we run?”

That was a good question. One I didn’t have an answer to, but I couldn’t tell the kids that. They were already scared enough.

“Um, you should probably head to the nearest police station.”

Creed had said that the local authorities probably couldn’t be trusted, but at that moment I could think of no better option. Hopefully, we’d get lucky and the police station in this town wouldn’t be as corrupt as Creed feared.

“Okay,” Robyn nodded very seriously. “Where’s that?”

Right. Telling them to go to the police station was no help when I wasn’t even sure where we’d ended up. For all I knew, the truck had brought us to a large city, and the police station was miles away.

I could hear footsteps right outside the door. We only had a few more moments before we were discovered.

I wracked my brain for any advice I’d ever heard about what children should do if they were lost. Staying in one place and waiting for rescue was usually the answer, but that was mostly for if someone was lost out in the wilderness.

“Ah,” I said as something finally came to me. “I got it. If you have to run, then you should go up to the first adult you see that has children with them and tell them you’re lost. They should be able to then take you to the police station.”

Was that right?

I’d read it on the Internet once. It sounded right, but one never could tell with Internet advice.

The rolling door started to open. It was too late to second-guess myself now.

I shoved both kids back behind the boxes as far as I could, and placed myself right in the middle of the truck so I was the first thing the delivery drivers would see.

Hopefully, they’d be so surprised by my presence that they’d completely overlook the kids.

“What the...” one of the delivery drivers gasped when they saw me. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in there?”

“Oh, well, you know,” I stuttered and nervously scratched at the back of my head, hoping that I came off as awkwardly innocent.

“I was on a camping trip and got lost out there. Then I saw this truck and I thought, hey, that should take me to a town somewhere. So, I jumped on. Sorry about bumming a free ride, but you really helped me out.”

The delivery men were not moved by my innocent act—never mind the fact that it was mostly the truth—and stared at me with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“The door into the truck was locked. How did you get on?”

Damn.

I was hoping they wouldn’t notice that. Saying I picked the lock would just make me look suspicions, and it wasn’t even true. Creed had been the one to pick the lock. I just hopped onboard.

With no other answer to give them, I just shrugged again. “I don’t know what to tell you. It wasn’t locked when I tried the door. Maybe someone forgot to lock it.”

They didn’t like this answer. Perhaps they were the ones who had been responsible for locking the door and didn’t like that I implied they’d failed at the job, because my suggestion only made them angry.

One of them grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and yanked me off the truck.

I stumbled as I jumped down from the raised truck bed and fell to my knees on the concrete floor.

I groaned at the pain that shot through my knee. Getting older sucked, and ever since I turned forty, it seemed like I was constantly finding new aches and pains. My knee was definitely going to bother me for a while after this.

“Who are you?” the delivery driver demanded.

I raised up my hands, trying to show them that I meant no harm.

“Well, that’s a funny story, too. See, I’m a travel writer, and I?—”

I was cut off as the driver started shaking me. “Stop your babbling and give us a straight answer.”

Almost as soon as he started shaking me, the driver’s hands suddenly disappeared from my shirt, and I fell hard on my butt.

“That’ll be enough of that,” someone said.

Rubbing at my abused tailbone, I looked up to see Brody holding the driver up by the lapels, high enough that the man’s feet didn’t quite touch the ground.

“Hey, you okay?” another person asked.

At this point, I wasn’t even surprised to see Magnus kneeling at my side.

“Yeah,” I sighed as I stood up. “Just bruised all over.”

The sudden appearance of Magnus and Brody had caused my brain to stall, but after a moment, it all suddenly returned to me. Like a delayed reaction, my calm demeanor suddenly turned to panic.

“Wait. Magnus? Brody? You’re here. Where’s Creed? Did you find him?”

The other two men shared a worried look. “No. He said to meet you here. Luckily, this truck was going in the right direction, so we could meet you halfway. Otherwise, it would have taken us a lot longer to reach you.”

I grabbed each of their arms, shaking them without actually moving either of them to emphasize my panic. “Creed just ran off. I don’t know what happened to him. If he hasn’t contacted you by now, then he must have been captured again.”

Brody dropped the man he was holding, and the delivery drivers ran off. Neither Brody nor Magnus even seemed to notice as they turned their full attention on me.

Magnus gripped my arm tightly. His hand nearly encircled my biceps, which was impressive considering I wasn’t a small man.

“Tell us everything that happened. You two went on your trip, but when your return date rolled around and we didn’t hear anything from you, we knew something must have gone wrong.”

As quickly as possible, I recapped everything that had happened to us since we set off on our trip. It felt like so long ago that we were packing up for a regular camping trip, but thinking back on it, I realized that it had been less than two weeks.

“All of that just to make Creed translate Lisianthus’s journal,” Brody said once I’d finished.

He was pacing back and forth, hand on his chin as he was deep in thought.

“That seems excessive, although I suppose it depends on what they’re looking for.

Did you ever find out what the Milford sisters supposedly stole? ”

Feeling dizzy after the stress of the last few minutes, my legs gave out and I sat on the bumper of the truck.

“No. Chester Grieve obviously knew, but never said. Although, I suspect Creed might have an idea. He suddenly got squirrely about the contents of the journal while we were escaping and stopped talking about it. I think he might have figured something out, but I never asked.”

Magnus’s suddenly slammed his fist into the side of the tuck, denting the metal. “Forget about that. What matters is that Creed has been captured again. We need to find him before this cult decides he’s not worth the hassle of keeping alive.”

I looked back and forth between Magnus and Brody, hoping one of them would have an answer. “So, where do we go? Back to where they were keeping us before? I don’t even know what direction it was. Creed planned out our whole escape route.”

“Maybe,” Brody said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “But if Creed’s already escaped from there once, they may not want to take him back there again. Is there any other place you can think of where this cult might take people? Any place they mentioned, even in passing?”

I shook my head, disappointed that I couldn’t give them a better answer, but when I opened my mouth to tell them this, another voice spoke in my place.

“The lake house.”