Page 32 of Rescued Dreams (Last Chance Fire and Rescue #8)

THIRTY-ONE

A melia’s world inverted. Her face smacked against his back, against the material of a T-shirt beside the buckle of the suspenders Benson Fire Department used to hold up turnout coats.

She wriggled and tried to get off, her mind a violent haze of lightning.

Nothing but panic, sharp edges, and the bottomless fear of knowing she was trapped and there was nothing she could do to save herself.

The truck.

He stomped up steps and inside, which made her realize the bone-chilling cold had been because they were outside and she didn’t have a jacket on. Her head swam, and her stomach threatened to deposit the last thing she’d eaten on the floor.

He moved down hallways, through rooms, until her mind spun so much her eyes started to roll back in her head.

Then he bent his knees and flipped her onto her back. A clang reverberated around her, and Amelia found herself surrounded by bars.

A cage barely big enough for her to turn around in, or sit up.

The ceiling stretched high above her, almost like a ballroom. Lights glared down, filling the room with a yellow glow that should’ve been soothing but cut knives through her eyes. She wanted to squeeze them shut but had to know.

Amelia lifted her head off the floor of the cage and looked at him.

Nicholas stared down at her.

She heard someone whimper, and it wasn’t her. A glance to her right showed her another cage with Cherry inside. Her blonde hair matted and ruffled, her face pale, and her eyes wide—bright with tears.

Amelia whipped her head back around to him. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this.” Her voice was barely audible.

Nicholas sneered down at her. “You think you have a say here? In any of this?” He waved his arm.

She followed the sweep of it. More cages to her left. Who knew how many? Amelia’s breath shuddered. They might be empty right now. But who was he planning to have occupy them?

“What do you want?”

His lips curled up into a terrible grin, but he said nothing. He just walked out through an open doorway, out of sight.

Amelia let out a breath. She twisted around and spotted a thin pad under her, a mat. This had to be a cage for a big dog. She couldn’t stretch out in it. She tucked her knees up to her chest and tried to sit, leaning against the back of the cage.

“Cherry?” She cleared her throat. “Cherry, look at me.”

The other woman stared at the empty doorway.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Cherry turned to her then, an angry expression on her face. “This is all your fault.”

“Tell me what’s happening.” She curled her fingers through the metal wire enclosing her. Nothing in her life had ever been this bad.

She had no idea what would happen next and no idea what she would be subjected to.

But Cherry was pregnant. There wasn’t much she and her baby would be able to survive unscathed. Amelia had to take the punishment he intended for Cherry, to save the mother and child from harm.

And maybe that was the point.

“We both angered him.” Amelia didn’t want to say it, but she had to. “This is about revenge.”

“It’s about you . Everything is always about you.”

Amelia bit her lip.

“It’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because of you. Now I’m going to die, and that will be because of you too.” The words echoed in the huge room.

All the way to Amelia’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” she told Cherry. “I’m sorry you’re in harm’s way because of me.”

“You should be sorry.”

“Can you tell me if he’s said anything to you?” The need to know was a desperate thing that swelled in her like a wave.

Cherry looked away, leaning against the far corner of her cage. Dejected. Out of hope or the strength to talk to Amelia.

“What is going to happen to us, Cherry?”

“He’ll kill us.” Cherry shifted a little. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Amelia closed her eyes for a second, the pain in her head almost overwhelming. She pursed her lips and blew out a long breath. An image of Ridge crossed her mind.

The twins.

Maria and Kane.

Meg, her best friend and the closest thing to a sister Amelia would ever have.

Her coworkers, who were like family to her even though they had families of their own. Were they dead? Was Ridge gone? Amelia felt the burn of tears behind her eyelids. The twins would lose their anchor.

They would be devastated.

She sniffed. Don’t do that to them.

She didn’t know how this thing worked, but right now, it seemed so natural to talk to someone who could help. Maybe the only person—Being—who could.

I know You’re listening.

Okay, so that sounded like a threat. But if her friends were right and there was a God, then He knew who He was dealing with.

Are they all correct? Because I’m kind of out of options here, and I could use some help. Cherry and her baby need You to…swoop down and save them. However You’d like to do that.

Yeah, she was terrible at this. But it wasn’t like she’d ever prayed before.

In fact, had she ever done the right thing? Or had she simply spent years doing whatever was best for her , with no regard for any kind of higher power or where she fit in some grand plan.

This wasn’t really the time to have existential thoughts. She needed to figure out a way to rescue herself and Cherry.

She shifted over to the door, pushing on the wire. A padlock on the latch kept it secured, but if she could bend it far enough, she might be able to climb free. Maybe not, but she couldn’t lose hope. That would only lead to giving up, and then she’d never get out of here.

If she wanted to get back to her life, such as it was, she had to get free.

Amelia kept pushing on the bottom edge of the door, even though she’d never fit. Between the padlock and the hinge on the other side, she wouldn’t be able to create a gap big enough to wiggle through.

She sighed aloud and quit pushing.

Amelia backed up again, her movements awkward in the cramped space. She checked her pockets and everywhere she could think but had nothing on her except jeans, a T-shirt and thin sweater, and her socks and flat canvas shoes.

It wasn’t like she carried weapons on her day off, but that would have come in handy in the bank.

Elam .

He had to have been working with Nicholas, or they had some kind of arrangement. The timing of the bank incident and the truck blowing with her in the rig was a little too coincidental for her to believe otherwise.

Not that it mattered now. She was here.

Amelia turned and looked at the other woman. Cherry stared back at her, betrayal and anger in her features. There was no one else here, and she needed to blame someone. It made sense that person was Amelia.

“I don’t understand why I’m here. I wanted out. I left him, and I got away.”

“I did the same thing.” Amelia tried to show this scared young woman empathy, when she really wanted to tell her that she should have simply kept running. That she never should have stopped.

“It’s you he wants. Why am I here?” She sniffed and swiped at her cheek.

Leverage.

It was the thought that popped into Amelia’s mind.

Relief flooded her that she hadn’t said it aloud.

This woman didn’t need to know that Nicholas and his mind games would likely pit the two women against each other.

He knew Amelia wouldn’t let an innocent mother and her child suffer, and so he would threaten Cherry and her child in order to get Amelia to comply.

He would use items like those explosives Elam had in the bank—definitely supplied by Nicholas and his connections. She had no doubts about that.

But what would he want her to do?

Her stomach churned, but she forced her thoughts to focus on nothing so that she didn’t think about it.

She needed to be reassuring. “Cherry, I don’t think he would hurt his own baby. He wants a child that will take after him, someone he can mold.” Twist. Corrupt. Like her father had done with Elam. She knew how that worked because she’d lived it. “He’s not going to risk losing that.”

She caught the look on Cherry’s face.

“Is the baby his?”

Cherry’s head jerked around. “It doesn’t matter. We’re both in danger.”

“How did you get involved with him?”

She looked away, a hard expression on her face.

It’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because of you.

“Cherry…” Amelia needed her to start telling the whole truth.

“How did you get involved with him?” She looked like Amelia.

A strong enough resemblance that Amelia would believe he’d stuck to his type.

And with the added bonus of the pregnancy, she’d be sympathetic when this woman showed up needing help. “You came here purposely to dupe me?”

“He said he’d give me five grand.” Cherry sniffed.

And now she was a target. A pawn. “I’m sorry.”

“You should do what he wants. Then I’ll be able to go free.”

Amelia wasn’t so sure about that, but Cherry needed to believe in something. “I’m praying we can figure a way out of this. That someone will find us and help us.”

“Praying?” Cherry scoffed.

“Maybe you should try it as well. Increase our chances.” Two prayers were better than one, right? No matter how Cherry felt about religion, she knew as well as Amelia did that they needed help.

Nicholas’s form darkened the doorway.

Cherry whimpered and curled into a smaller ball in the cage.

Amelia watched him wander into the room and scanned his features now that she could think more clearly.

His hair was a little longer than regulation, as if he didn’t care to cut it.

The dark strands were nearly chin length.

Mussed from where he’d run his hands through it, far too excited to be calm.

Anticipating what was going to happen next.

That same gleam in his eyes, but a little different.

More reminiscent of the calls Truck 14 went on where they met drug addicts, whether on the street or squatting in a house.

They helped everyone they could, passing on information about local services available to help those who wanted to change their lives. So many were stuck in a hopeless cycle.

He had that same edge in his gaze.

“What do you want?” She held herself very still.

“You’ll find out.” He stared at her, so still that she had to move just to break the anxiety-filled tension.

Amelia’s sore muscles protested.

The knot on her head pounded through her skull.

She bit the inside of her lip. “Just tell me. You owe me that much.”

His eyes flashed. “I do owe you. But not what you think. This is going to be the worst punishment you’ve ever received.”

“Why? I’ve been gone for years. I have nothing to do with you—not anymore.”

“You cost me everything. You ruined my life.”

“I didn’t do that.” She had to say it. “You did that to yourself.”

“You’ll pay.”

He turned and strode out of the room, his footsteps echoing up to the ceiling. She heard a heavy door shut, the thud practically shaking the house. A few moments later, headlights flashed across the front of the house, moving across the floor through the open front window.

Freedom, so close she could see it.

But there was no way out…back to Ridge. Where she could finally tell him that she was in love with him.

God, help us.