Page 20

Chapter Twenty: Nathan

I thought I heard her scream my name…and then, darkness.

I choked out a scream as my eyes opened, darting around at my new surroundings. One moment, I’d been crawling out of that van, Diane Hayes pointing a gun at my head, and the next…

“Where is she?” I groaned. “Where’s Abby?”

“Easy, buddy,” a guard said from beside me, trying to push me back to lie down. I was dizzy as hell, and nauseous too. “Fuck…he’s bleeding an awful lot.”

“Who the fuck is Abby?” the driver asked. “One of the guards? The agent?”

“No, that was Agent Hayes,” the guard beside me said. “And something is sketchy here, because this guy? Well, he isn’t who she said he was.”

“Excuse me?”

“Terrence Guest was scheduled to be transferred to the pen today,” he went on, then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “And this guy…?”

His hand moved along my uniform, along the shackles. I guess there was some supposed to be some kind of ID there, because his face fell. “No ID.”

“Any ideas?”

He looked me over, found where my uniform was torn across the chest…and he froze.

“Jesus,” he said.

“What?” the driver asked.

“He’s fucking Triad. Of course he’s fucking Triad, what the hell…”

I tried to compose my thoughts, tried to piece everything together. Right; Diane was dirty. She’d been sent to deliver me to my father, or kill me if that wasn’t possible. She’d put me through hell because he ordered her to do it.

I needed to rally my strength to tell them that.

Maybe then I could get a damn lawyer.

“She…” I started, my voice strangled. “She…”

“Who? Abby?”

I shook my head; it made another wave of nausea wash over me. “Need to throw up,” I hissed.

The guard produced a bag from somewhere and handed it to me just in time for me to vomit. Yeah–I was definitely concussed. My only hope was that I wasn’t bleeding internally like I’d been not days ago at the county jail.

“Didn’t…” I started again, the words halting. “Didn’t get an attorney. Need…lawyer.”

“Your friends almost killed us back there,” the driver said. “Fucking slaughtered eight of our own. Jesus…I’ve never seen anything like that–”

“Not my men,” I wrenched out. “Drive faster.”