Well, Hattie and Pepper and I did.

Axl shoved through us, growling, “Do not leave this area.” He then pushed swiftly through the doors, finishing, “Call Mag.”

I had my phone out and turned on when Hattie whispered, “Oh my God. Someone’s got Ryn.”

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” I chanted, whisking my thumb over my screen to go to my calls and engage Mag.

I put it to my ear just as I let out a little scream, right along with Hattie, because we heard gunshots outside.

“What’s happening?” Pepper shouted.

I was stuck, frozen, unsure what to do when Mag’s voice came into my ear.

“Forget something, babe?”

“Someone has Ryn! And I think they’re shooting at—!”

I didn’t finish.

My phone was yanked viciously out of my hand.

I whirled on whoever did that just in time to hear both Hattie and Pepper make distinct noises that conveyed the same message.

Fear.

And panic.

My arm was seized, and I began struggling.

I stopped when my wrist was wrenched up my back and I had a different voice in my ear.

“You make trouble, she dies, he dies, you all die.”

I stopped struggling.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Initiation

Evie

This just cut it.

I was tied to another chair.

Tied to another…fucking…chair!

Worse!

All my girlfriends were tied to chairs with me.

Like Steve and Robin from Stranger Things when the Soviets got ahold of them, but without being injected with truth serum that made us giggle and everything seem funny.

Tied to chairs, back to back.

I was attached to Ryn. Pepper at my side, Hattie to her back.

Ryn had been brought in later by a set of bad guys different than the three who took Pepper, Hattie and me.

And they didn’t handle her very gently.

Not like the guys who took me, Pepper and Hattie were gallant, but the ones who pulled in Ryn seemed pissed off and they were rough with her.

But she was alive, breathing, she didn’t appear injured, though she was obviously spitting mad.

Which was good (ish, though not the mad part).

However, this meant they had numbers.

Which was bad (totally).

We’d been kidnapped.

Fucking kidnapped.

All of us.

Me and my friends.

Kidnapped and tied to chairs.

I got my friends kidnapped and tied to chairs.

No.

My brother did.

And due to the decree of the meathead who was guarding us that we couldn’t talk, I hadn’t been able to ask Ryn about Axl.

God, if I was still talking to Mick, I’d quit talking to him. I’d then cut him out of every picture I had that he was in. After that, I didn’t know. Possibly sew a voodoo doll of him and stick pins in it. Or perhaps burn him in effigy.

Something.

On this thought, the meathead who kept telling us to shut up if we tried to speak got a call. Since I had a view to the door, I watched as he looked at the screen on his phone and then moved out of the room.

A desolate room, by the way.

Four walls.

Wood floor.

No windows.

And four chairs with our asses tied to them.

Oh, and there wasn’t a lot of heat, something I was learning was de rigueur with kidnappings.

It wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t toasty warm either.

In fact, my fingers were getting numb from the cold.

They’d put us in hoods after they stuffed us in their cars, so I had no idea where we were.

That was fun.

Not.

I watched him go, and the instant the door closed behind him, I twisted my neck and asked Ryn, “You okay?”

“I take kickboxing. I got a good one to the balls of one of them. So now we can say he’s not my biggest fan,” she replied.

“But otherwise, you’re okay?” I pushed.

“Well, if being tied to a chair but doing it breathing and without any broken bones is okay, then yeah. I’m okay,” she said.

Yes.

That was our new definition of okay.

“Axl?” I went on.

There was a beat of silence.

My heart thumped hard.

“Ryn!” I hissed, returning my attention to the door.

“There was a firefight. I mean, like, lots of bullets were exchanged. I think he worried I would get caught in the crossfire. And, you know, I was worried too. He stopped shooting, shouted ‘cease fire’ about a million times, and showed himself, lifting his hands. My guess, he thought, since we were in freaking Cherry Creek mall’s parking garage and someone had to have called the cops, seeing as there were people shooting at each other and hitting cars and windows were exploding and such, those assholes might feel in the mood to negotiate before the cops got there. But when Axl showed himself, he didn’t have his gun. They opened fire on him and, and…”

As she trailed off, there was a beat of nothing, though my blood pressure skyrocketed through it, before I heard a muffled sob and felt our chairs move with her body bucking.

Oh no.

No.

I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

“They shot him?” Hattie whispered, her voice not only quiet, but husky with emotion.

So.

Totally.

Into Axl.

“I-I don’t know. He went d-down, and…and I d-didn’t see him again,” Ryn told her brokenly.

I lifted my head, opened my eyes and focused on the door.

“Maybe he hit the deck so he wouldn’t be shot,” Pepper suggested.

“M-maybe,” Ryn muttered.

I stared at the door.

“Think positive, sweets,” Pepper urged.

Ryn didn’t reply.

I continued to stare at the door.

After a few seconds, Hattie asked, “They’re gonna come and rescue us. The boys are? They’re gonna come get us, right?”

They were.

Absolutely.

They would just because that was who they were.

But Auggie was into Pepper.

And Axl was into Hattie.

Not to mention Boone’s brain had already claimed Ryn as his even if Boone as a whole had not.

And I was Mag’s.

Definitely.

We were moving in together.

We were discussing the proper placement of kitchen items.

We both liked John Wick and Iron Giant. And I’d recently discovered, although the film was hotly debated, we both were on the same side and thought Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a masterpiece.

Not to mention, the last time I caught him on his laptop, he wasn’t looking at homes. He was looking at awesome, top-of-the-line turntables. This meant he liked vinyl. And I liked vinyl. But more, he wanted to make it so we could listen to vinyl.

Together.

He was going to buy a house and I was going to boho the shit out of it and we were gonna live there, listening to vinyl.

And okay, maybe after Mag asked me if I wanted kids, I’d secretly started daydreaming about little boys with electric-blue eyes and little girls with dark curls.

They were good daydreams.

The best.

I mean, Mag teaching little boys to be men like him?

And Mag spoiling little girls like they should be spoiled?

I’d never had better daydreams and I knew I never would.