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Chapter Twenty-Five

Sawyer

“ Wake up! Please, wake up. Oh—you’re not TJ. Please wake up. ”

The whispering was fine, but the poking and touching my face I could have done without. My head was pounding, and when I opened my eyes, it was pitch-black—as in I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It was fucking scary.

I knocked on whatever I was lying on, and it echoed like metal. I reached behind me and sat up, grabbing the hand that continued to push against my face before I was poked in the eye.

“Mr. Middleton, it’s Sawyer. Are you okay? There’s no light in here, wherever we are. TJ?” I moved his hand to my shoulder and helped him sit next to me. I had no idea where we were or what had happened.

“TJ isn’t here. Someone took him.”

Mr. Middleton knocked on something, and it echoed. It was tall enough so I could sit up, and as I felt around the bottom under me. It was smooth. There was a fourth surface above my head, and there was about two feet of space over my head before I touched it. I couldn’t stand up but I could kneel. It wasn’t a car trunk.

I bounced to see if it moved—like maybe it was a panel truck or something that had tires, but it didn’t shift. “Let’s stay calm, Mr. Middleton. I got hit on the head with something and it knocked me out. What happened to you and TJ?”

I crawled along the floor of the container, feeling against the walls. I held out my arms and was able to touch both sides of the thing, and my arm span was eighty-one inches, so the thing was about six feet wide.

When I got to the front—or maybe it was the back—the wall was solid with no way in or out. No light leaked in from any small spots like hinges or doors. Were we in a solid box? What about air? How was air getting in?

“I’m standing up now. There has to be a way out, right? I’ll see if I can feel anything.” He shuffled his feet as he walked from the end where I was kneeling to the other end, gently knocking on the walls and ceiling as he went.

“Are you having to bend your neck? I’m trying to figure out how big the box is.”

“Yes. The top of my back is brushing against the ceiling. Do you hear anything?” Mr. Middleton stopped, and I concentrated to see if I could hear anything outside, but there was nothing.

“I don’t hear anything, Mr. Middleton.” I stood, leaning forward so I didn’t bang my head. I moved to the middle—or what I guessed was the middle—and I pushed with my hands as hard as I could.

Something rattled on top and the ceiling lifted, but I couldn’t open it. It was then I felt a break in the ceiling. I moved over to the side and dragged my fingers against the angle where the ceiling and the side wall met. There was the space of a strand of hair between them with what I assumed were crude welds attaching them to each other. I guessed the top opened somehow.

“I think the top opens, Mr. Middleton.” I pushed again, and it sounded as though something wobbled on top.

“Something is on top of us, but it must be very heavy because I can’t force it open. Where the fuck are we?”

As I ran my hands along the ceiling where the opening was, I felt a couple of bolts about a foot apart. I still couldn’t figure out what the hell we were in, but I was getting claustrophobic.

“Mr. Middleton, can you tell me what happened after we came out of the store?” Coming out of Walmart was the last memory I had after stopping at Carberry Square shopping center to pick up some bedding for my bedroom where my parents would be staying.

Suddenly, there was a square of light illuminating from Mr. Middleton’s wrist. “What’s that?” I hurried in his direction and grabbed his arm. He flinched, so I knew I’d scared him.

“It’s my smartwatch. See.” He held his arm out in front of him and pressed a button on the side.

“The time is zero four thirty. Your alarm is set for zero seven thirty. You have no appointments on your calendar today.” The feminine voice was choppy, as if it was AI or digitized.

“Can you call anyone on that thing?” God, I hope so .

The light moved and illuminated Mr. Middleton’s lips. “Call TJ.” We heard the phone ringing four times before it went to voicemail.

“Can it dial a number you don’t ordinarily call?” I crossed my fingers.

“Yes. Call number… You have to tell me the number,” Mr. Middleton said. I could imagine him rolling his eyes.

I racked my brain for a number I could remember, and except for my parents, I drew a blank. “Okay, uh, eight-five-eight—”

“Call number eight-five-eight…” I finished giving him the number and then he stuck his watch out and I leaned over to speak.

The phone rang four times before my father answered. “Someone better be fucking dead.” I exhaled.

“Dad, it’s me. I’ve got a problem. Someone knocked me on the head and took Mr. Middleton and me. We’re in a metal box of some kind. It’s pitch-dark, but thankfully, Mr. Middleton has a smartwatch.”

“Is this Sawyer?” Who the fuck did he think it was? He and Mom only had one kid.

“Yes, Dad, it’s me. Your only child. I need you to call Derson and have him trace this number that called you because we have no idea where we are.”

“Is he hurt?” That was my mother.

“I have a headache, Mom. Other than that, we’re okay. We’re getting air, somehow, and there’s something on top of the box that’s holding the door closed. Can you call Spider or Ders? We’d like to get out.”

“Shit. Yeah, uh, give me a minute. Did you or the man with you see anything to help locate you?” I rolled my eyes.

“Dad, I was knocked out, and Mr. Middleton has lost his sight. We don’t know where TJ is. We’ve gotta find him. He’s got a fight on Friday night. I’m sure they’ll—” I stopped talking. Mr. Middleton didn’t need to know what I thought they’d do to his grandson. The kid was his only living resident.

“Okay. Don’t go—never mind. I’ll call Spider.” Dad hung up and I noticed Mr. Middleton’s watch didn’t have much juice left in the battery. I hoped to fuck they found us before the damn thing went dead.

“How does TJ make money? He hasn’t said anything about where he works. He has to have a job to be able to send me money that helps pay my bills.”

Fuck no! I was not going to tell the old guy his grandson was a sex worker. The kid wasn’t doing anything wrong, and he was making an honest living doing it. End of the day, it wasn’t my story to tell.

“He uh, he works for one of the businesses the Steel Cowboys own. He’s also a sparring partner at a boxing gym in town. He’s got a fight on Friday night that I know he wanted to participate in. I hope we can find him so he doesn’t miss it.” I quickly remembered the old man hadn’t told me what happened after they knocked me out.

“What happened after they knocked me out, do you remember? Did they knock you out, too?”

Mr. Middleton sighed. “No, they didn’t. TJ told them not to hurt me or he wouldn’t do what they wanted. They figured out I was sightless, so they just tied my hands, but one of the guys cut me loose before they shoved me in here. I thought they shoved TJ in behind me, but apparently, they didn’t.”

“Could you tell how many of them there were?” I had to hope it took more than one of them to take me down. It would hurt my pride if it was only one guy.

“I think there were three of them. I heard three different voices, and one of them—I shouldn’t tell you this. Maybe he was just showing off for his friends.”

Fucking hell. “Mr. Middleton, please tell me what you heard. I’d rather know what’s going on than not. If they told you anything that might help me identify them, I can try to protect you.”

I glanced at his smartwatch to see there wasn’t much green left on the battery icon in the upper right corner. I hoped the hell someone was able to trace the phone. I wasn’t sure what our chances were of getting out of a big metal box, but I fucking hoped luck was on my side.

“Do you know someone named Sawyer? TJ said your name is Bones,” Mr. Middleton asked.

“Sawyer is my given name. Bones is my club nickname. What did the guy say about Sawyer?”

“He said he was gonna put a bullet in Sawyer’s head. Keller promised him the presidency, and he was going to collect what he’d been cheated out of by the Abbott family once and for all. He said, ‘After I kill Sawyer, I’m going to gut the man and give his heart to Abner before I shoot that lying fuck in the dome.’ That was a quote. I’m sorry, young man. It sounds like someone wants to kill you and this Abner person.”

I smirked, though neither of us could see it in the fucking dark, though it seemed mean to think it when Mr. Middleton wouldn’t be able to see again. Hell, the way my luck was going, I might not see the light of day again.

As far as I knew, not many people were familiar with my given name or that of my father. Most people we interacted with called us by our nicknames. Not everyone had a nickname, either.

Dad’s club nickname had been Abner—after the old Li’l Abner comic strip because my father was tall with dark brown hair—and the old-timers still called him that, though there weren’t many of them around anymore.

I had a feeling who was behind our kidnapping and who had TJ. I just hoped they didn’t kill him before we could find him.

Hell, I’d told Fitz not to get killed when we went to pick up Mr. Middleton. “Be careful, Fitz. You and I are on the brink of something. Don’t leave me hanging.”

Now, I was on the verge of doing it to him.

I woke to the sound of motors—large motors but not from a bike. There was a lot of shouting, and then, a clanging sound. Fuck it I knew what it was, but I began pounding on the side of the box.

I gently moved Mr. Middleton off my thigh where he’d fallen asleep at some point. My neck was stiff, and my head hurt like a motherfucker. There was a knot the size of a fist on the back of my skull, and I wanted to puke.

I had no idea what the fuck was happening when the metal box began lifting. I grabbed Mr. Middleton and held him so he wouldn’t fall because the motion wasn’t gentle. Suddenly, the top—the doors—opened, and a man wearing a hard hat stared at us. “What the fuck?”

He didn’t look familiar, so I was leery of what to say. “Some guy we don’t know put us in here as a fucking joke. Thanks for letting us out. I held my hand up to block my eyes because the sun was rising and the angle the box was in had the light piercing my eyeballs.

“Where the hell are we?” I asked the guy staring at us like we were at fault for being trapped in the big metal box.

“This is the expansion build at the Cactus Hills Casino off Buffalo Drive. What the fuck are you doing in our gang box and why was the electrical wire spool on top?” He pointed to a gigantic wooden spindle that was being held in the air by a crane as a bulldozer was parked behind the box, likely having flipped it over.

I exhaled. “I can’t tell you what happened because I was knocked out. I’m damn pissed about this. I’m calling the cops because how else would anyone have gotten through that fence? It had to be someone on your crew. My boyfriend’s father was scared to death, and I got knocked out.”

I reached behind me as if I was going for my phone, but the guy shook his head. “No, no, no. Please don’t call the police. If the security guards were on a break and went for food, they might have left the gate open.” He pointed to the fence and the security shack a few yards away. “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. The guys working here are all hard workers, but they’re always up to something. They work hard. Leave, and I won’t let them charge you with trespassing on private property.”

I took Mr. Middleton’s hand. “Fine, man, but warn your crew that if they come after me again, they’ll be sorry.”

Before we could get to the gate, Ders and Hobie pulled up in Hobie’s SUV with Fitz following behind them in his truck. I wasn’t surprised when Officer Chet Crane pulled in behind Fitz, though he didn’t have the cherries twirling or the siren blaring. Thankfully.

Fitz hopped out of his truck and stomped over to me, a man on a mission. He touched my shoulders as I held Mr. Middleton’s hand. “Are you okay, Sawyer?”

“I’ve got a hell of a headache, but I’ll be fine. Has anyone heard anything from TJ? They stuck us here and took him.”

Fitz pulled me into his arms and wrapped them around my waist tightly. “Fuck, sugar. I thought you were dead.” His whispered words brought tears to my eyes.

“Me too. I couldn’t figure out where the fuck we were, but we’re okay. Let’s get out of here, please. We need to find TJ. I think it was Ricky Marlow and the Scorpions who kidnapped us.”

My sweet guy leaned closer and kissed my lips. “No more. We’ve gotta figure out something else that doesn’t have you living at the compound and me worrying about you when you’re not around. I don’t want to be away from you anymore, sugar. For now, let’s take you and Mr. Middleton to my place. We’ll find TJ. What time do your folks get in?”

Fitz was gentle and caring, but at that moment, it wasn’t what I needed. I gave him Mr. Middleton’s hand and stomped over to Hobie. “Where the fuck is Ricky Marlow? He’s part of this shit, I know it.”

“Bones, man, he’s been a loyal member of the club for years. Your father patched him in. Let’s check things out before we shoot him, okay?”

I smirked. “He wants to cut out my heart and give it to Abner before he shoots him in the head. You wanna ignore that? You want me to ignore that shit?”

Hobie stared at me as though I’d lost my fucking mind. Maybe I had…

“Ask Mr. Middleton. He heard those words come out of someone’s mouth, Hobie.” I turned and stormed off.

I couldn’t fucking understand why my best friend didn’t believe me when I told him Ricky Marlow was a danger to the club. To me. To my father.

Was I missing something? Did he know something he wasn’t sharing?