Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [181]
For a second Trent closed his eyes, fear consuming him. To be this close, to make love to Jules for hours…only to have her stripped away. His fist clenched. He wouldn’t let this happen; not while there was a breath of life in his body.
If those bastards killed Jules, then they would pay. Each and every one of those twisted sickos. Trent had no sympathy. “Troubled teens” were one thing, psychopaths another.
The door to the detox room holding Bernsen opened. Meeker stepped into the hallway, then locked the door behind him.
“Where are they?” Trent demanded.
Meeker, looking tired as hell, shook his head. “Don’t know. Yet.” Meeker’s tired gaze met Trent’s. “Bernsen won’t budge. He’ll only talk, he says, if he gets to walk away scot free. No prison time.”
“Then he needs to be convinced.”
“Won’t be.”
Trent felt his lips twist. “Let me talk to him.” Then to Ayres he said, “We’re done here, right?”
“I’ve given it my best shot,” she said, smoothing tape over his bandage.
“Good.” He climbed off the table and walked across the polished tile floor to the locked detox center.
Meeker apparently read the set of Trent’s jaw, the narrowing of his eyes. “You think this is a good idea?”
“You got a better one?” They both knew they were on their own; communication with the outside world still only a wish and a prayer.
“No.”
“Then stay out,” he warned, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. “And lock the door.”
Shay wanted to scream, but she held her tongue. She couldn’t let that jerk-wad Rolfe see how he’d humiliated her. How had she been so foolish as to fall into his trap? She was smarter than this! Damn it all to hell! Not taking her eyes off the creep, she struggled in her handcuffs, trying to wiggle her fingers free, determined, once she’d slipped out of the manacles, to not only lift the snowmobile’s keys from Missy but to personally deal with Eric Rolfe.
He had no idea who he’d crossed, but he was about to find out. She watched him carefully. Felt the sting on her cheek, where he’d punched her, tasted her own blood. Saw the fear in Nell’s eyes.
Shay met Jules’s gaze. Silently communicated. Neither one of them would go down without one helluva fight.
Bernsen eyed him warily as Trent walked into the detox room, the door clicking loudly behind him.
Puffing up, trying like crazy to look as if he were still in command, Zach stood in a corner, his hands cuffed behind his back, his jaw thrust forward, his lips compressed. Challenge sparked in his eyes.
Trent wasn’t buying the bravado. Not for a second. The kid was scared; putting up a fake front. With his back pressed to the door, Trent waited for a few minutes, not breaking the silence, Bernsen caught in his uncompromising glare.
Finally he pushed off from the door and didn’t wince, though his shoulder ached as the anesthesia was beginning to wear thin. “Look, Zach,” he said evenly. “I’m not messin’ around, you got it? Either you tell me where the rest of your group is, or I’m going to handle you the way I did your goddamned leader.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Like hell. Try me.” Trent stared the kid down with dead calm. “You remember what that leader of yours looks like, right? His face is damn near melted off, his lips peeled back, his eyes slits and he’s still on fire, you know. Wishing that God he keeps talking about will take his wretched, ugly soul.”
“So what?” Bernsen snarled, holding onto his pride, not flinching a bit. Just like some of those fake bad ass cowpokes he’d dealt with during his days riding bulls.
“I’ll tell you what.” Trent didn’t raise his voice. “You see, Frank Meeker, he’s a family man, a paid deputy, sworn to uphold the law and play by the rules.”
Zach paled a little; saw where this was going.
“But I’m not,” Trent said. “I can do anything I want to you.”
For a second, the boy’s eyes flickered with fear.
“And it’s worse