Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [182]
Bernsen swallowed hard. He was getting the message.
“So here’s how it’s going to go down. You’re going to tell me what I want to know and if you put up a fight—” Trent shrugged, as if he didn’t care how the kid reacted, “well so be it.” He managed a thin, humorless smile. “If you cry foul and put me up on assault charges, you know, that would be just fine with me. I don’t really give a rat’s ass.”
Bernsen spat on the polished tile. “Big deal!”
That was it. Trent snapped. His cool fled. He sprang, lunging forward, pushing the big kid up against the wall, ignoring the sound of ripping tendons in his shoulder, the anesthetic saving him from serious pain. “It is a big deal. A real big deal.” He breathed hard in the boy’s face, his words spitting through tight lips, his arm over Bernsen’s throat. “I’ve dealt with Brahman bulls and rodeo broncs and cowboys who thought they were tough as old leather. I’ve been in more emergency rooms than you have fingers. So, you don’t scare me a bit, you pansy-assed rich kid.” His nostrils were flared, every muscle tight, ready for a fight. “Go ahead, show me your store-bought martial arts, and I’ll show you how to fight with your fists and fight dirty.” He gave the kid a shake, rattling his teeth.
Bernsen tensed.
Good.
Bring it on, Trent thought, bring it the hell on!
“No one here’s gonna help you, Zach. Your leader, he’s done for. I got you on a charge of attempted murder, so unless you want to play Russian roulette and lose, you’re gonna tell me where your friends are holed up.”
“Nice try,” Bernsen snarled, spitting in Trent’s face. “I think I’ll take my chances.”
“It’s your funeral, kid.” He grabbed the boy’s left arm and twisted both cuffed arms upward, behind his back, inching them toward the ceiling, stretching ligaments, waiting to hear them pop and break free.
Bernsen squealed in agony, then fell to his knees.
Trent backed off, breathing hard. “Think about it,” he warned, shaking inside.
“Hey!” Meeker poked his head in, his expression dark. “We got company,” he said, ignoring Bernsen as the kid climbed to his knees, “And it’s not good.”
Bernsen spit on the floor, blood and spittle splashed against the tiles.
Trent backed out of the room, then locked the door behind him.
“Who?”
“The followers,” Meeker said in frustration, his balding pate glinting under the fluorescent lights. “And they brought hostages.”
CHAPTER 44
Jules shivered in the night as she was marched across the silent campus, the muzzle end of a gun shoved tight against her spine, her captors urging her, Nell, and Shaylee onward. Jules couldn’t let whatever this bunch of deranged, fanatical maniacs had planned happen. She’d heard them talking and knew they’d hoped for some kind of exchange, their lives for the damned Leader’s, whoever the hell he was.
As she trudged through the snow, her hands cuffed behind her back, her boots making fresh tracks, she tried to think of some means of escape. She, Shay, and Nell were walking abreast just far enough apart as to not touch each other, the leader’s rabid followers armed and urging them forward in the moon-washed night, one step behind.
All those tales that Shay had told her, of rogue teachers’ assistants, the worries Shay had voiced and Jules had scoffed at were true. These kids were beyond troubled; they were a tiny army of trained, fearless fanatics, ready to give their lives for their leader and his “cause,” whatever the hell that was.
Think, Jules, think. Don’t give up! There has to be a way to escape; you have to make it happen.
Shivering, her soul numb, they plowed forward in the predawn hours, crossing the white landscape that surrounded the school’s clinic. The moon was still visible,