Page 73 of The Twins

Through the slit of my eyes I guessed I was at some kind of farm. The ground was cobbled and littered with straw andmuck. There were trees, a green tractor, and I heard the low of cattle nearby.

This was terrible. A farm. Isolated. No one would hear me scream…if I even could scream.

I tried. No luck.

“Nearly there…fuck, you’re heavier than you look, bitch.”

I tried to flex my fingers, going for a pinch. Nothing happened.

“Hey, Reg, I was expecting you earlier, asshole.”

“These things take fucking time,” Reg said in his deep scratchy voice.

My stomach clenched anew. Who on earth was that?

Instinctively, I knew that this new person was not going to help me.

“Where is she going?” Reg said.

“You can use that room there.”

“That’s not a room, it’s a fucking stable.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, besides, it’s got a big fucking bolt on the door. When what you’ve given her wears off she can’t go anywhere.”

“What about where you keep your girls? Can’t I put her there?”

“You gonna want some privacy, right?” The other man laughed. “If what you told me you were gonna do to her you actually are.”

“Course I fucking am.”

We came to a halt. There was a scrape, a clunk, and the creak of a hinge. The smell of horses filled my nose the split second before I was dropped onto a pile of dry straw. It poked sharply at my skin, scraping my cheek and going into my ear. My limbs were at odd angles and my back twisted.

A grunt huffed from my lungs, and I attempted to sit. It was no good, I stayed where I was, but I did manage to flex my index finger. Just a little.

Was the drug starting to wear off?

I sent a prayer heavenward, not something I was prone to doing, but I needed all the help I could get. And this paralysis had to go, it was the only way I had any chance of getting myself out of here and away from Reg Jacks and his vengeful madness.

* * * *

Finn

The hawthorn hedgerows flew by in a blur of green and white flowery dots. Jamie was driving our communal vehicle at a rate of knots down the skinny lanes.

Beside me, Cillian sat with his fists clenched. He was ready to kill, the same as I was.

But first we had to find her.

“Try and keep your cool, guys,” Dalton said, turning around from the front passenger seat. “You’re famous for it and you need it on top form now.”

“I’m cool, really fucking cool,” Cillian muttered and flexed his fingers.

“About as cool as a volcano,” Phil said with a roll of his eyes. “Keep your emotions out of it, yeah.” His gun sat on his lap.

“How the hell do we do that?” I asked with a frown. “This isn’t some…” My words ran out. I couldn’t say ‘some prostitute’ or ‘some stranger’ because that undermined everything we all believed in. Women needed protection from assholes end of, and the more vulnerable they were the more they needed decent men, like us. “This is Rebecca.”

“We’ll get her.” Phil shrugged his wide shoulders and stared out of the window. “I gotta feeling.”