Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy Page 22

  "We think they're going to go through every room and just shoot everyone," said another ex-Council member. "It's Hoyt's way of showing us what he'll do if we stand up to him."

  "They're looking for us, though, right?" I said.

  They nodded.

  "Jason, we've just got to go engage," I said.

  "What?" he said.

  "They're killing all these people because of us. We can't just let them die."

  "No, it is an honor to give our lives in your service," said one of the ex-Council members.

  "Maybe for you," I conceded. These guys were messed up in the head. "But not for the monks here. They don't want to die for us."

  "It's screwed up," said Jason. "We should have gone to freaking Africa!"

  "Jason, we can't let them shoot monks!"

  "There are twenty of them at the main entrance. Who knows how many of them are surrounding the monastery," said Jason. "We go out there shooting, we could maybe take down half of them. But not all of them. They'll kill us."

  I sighed. He was right. But it was sickening the amount of people who had been killed in the crossfire of this hunt for Jason and me. At the SolSolisSchool, it was one thing. At least those men had been Brothers, trained to fight and prepared for dangerous situations. These monks, however, were peaceful. They'd offered us a place to stay. They'd hidden us. I leaned against the stove, scratching at the bandage on my arm. It was still itchy.

  That reminded me that the bandage hadn't been changed recently. I planned to do it this morning. I hoped it wasn't getting infected. I tried to examine my wound through the bandage.

  "Don't play with that," Jason said.

  I dropped my arm, studying the gun in my hand. I'd already been shot once by the Sons. I didn't think I wanted to be gunned down, even if it meant that they stopped shooting monks. I was lucky they hadn't killed me at the prom—

  Lucky. "Jason," I said. "How likely is it that one of the Sons would miss a shot? You know how the Brothers are trained. If you meant to shoot someone in the head, would you miss and shoot them in the arm?"

  Jason looked at me like I was crazy. "If I shoot someone in the arm, it's because I meant to shoot them in the arm," he said.

  I held up my arm. "Why didn't they kill me? I was standing in the open. I was an easy target."

  Jason's eyes narrowed. "That is weird," he admitted. "I was so glad you were alive, I never thought to question it."

  "Maybe they're not trying to kill us," I said. "It's only hearsay that they are."

  "So then, what are they doing?" Jason said. "Why are they here with guns, shooting everything in sight?"

  I didn’t know. I had no idea.

  "Even if they don't want us dead," said Jason, "they aren't trying to do anything nice to us."

  No. I guessed they weren't. I sighed. "So, I guess we try to get out of here."

  "There was another plan?"

  No. It was just that I had wanted to minimize the violence, somehow. Keep people alive. I turned to the ex-Council members. "How many of them do you think are at the door?"

  They shrugged. They didn’t know.

  Were there more at the entrance than at this door?

  They thought so. Probably.

  "So," said Jason, seeing where I was going with this. "You think we should just try to shoot ourselves out of this door?"

  I shrugged. "Unless you have a better idea."

  We surveyed the door. It opened into the kitchen, which wasn't great. If it had opened out onto the street, we might have been able to use it as a shield. Maybe. It was a wooden door, after all. It wasn't exactly impervious to bullets. We decided to stay low. We figured the Sons outside would assume that whoever was opening the door was standing. So we would lie flat, our guns out. Jason would reach up and open the door a few inches, just enough so that we could see what we were dealing with. From there, we'd just have to see what happened.

  First we had to drag Briggs' body away from the door. His wound left a smear of blood on the floor. We were going to have to lie on the blood smear. Gross.

  Jason and I got in position. He reached up for the knob and eased the door open. Almost immediately, there was a volley of gunfire, but it went over our heads. So far, so good.

  I was watching through the opening of the door as Jason pulled it open. Quickly, I assessed the situation. There were seven members of the Sons in the street. I shot as soon as I had a clear view. Carefully aiming, and remembering to breathe, I squeezed off three shots. They hit home perfectly. Three head shots. The men I'd hit crumpled to the ground. Jason was with me. He shot the other four.

  Well. That had been easy.

  We scrambled to our feet and out the door. Jason pulled it shut behind us.

  "It's them! It's them!" yelled a voice.

  And Jason and I were immediately swarmed by at least ten more members of the Sons. We opened fire.

  They were everywhere, coming from all sides of the building. Some had been hiding behind cars. Others had been on the roof of the monastery. I got off several good shots. Jason got off even more than me. We took down at least five more of them. But there were so many.

  Then someone kicked the gun out of my hand and someone else tackled me from behind. I went down on the ground, my chin skidding against stone. I bit my tongue and tasted blood in my mouth. I cried out.

  They were on my back, handcuffing my arms and feet.

  I twisted, looking for Jason. He was fighting with a group of men who were on him, slinging punches everywhere. "Azazel!" he yelled to me.

  "Jason!" I screamed.

  The Sons who had me hoisted me into the air. Two men had my feet and another three held my head and upper torso. They were taking me away. "Jason!" I screamed again.

  The last image I saw of him was the Sons finally overpowering him and forcing him to the ground. He was struggling and yelling my name. I strained at the handcuffs. I tried to wrench my head so that I could bite at the hands of the men who held me. But I was trapped. We rounded a corner. I couldn't see him anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  To: Ian Hoyt

  From: Arabella Hoyt

  Subject: Where are you?

  What is going on? You aren't answering any of the numbers I have for you. You said you had confirmation that they were in Rome and you were moving in. So help me, if you screw this up again, Ian, I don't know what I'll do.

  I'd better hear from you soon.

  Arabella

  The Sons shoved me in the back of a car. One of them sat with me. I thrashed ineffectively, yelling at him. I don't know what I said. I was beside myself, angry, frightened, and concerned for Jason. I didn't know what they were going to do with him. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I probably threatened him. I probably begged for Jason's life. I probably swore and swore at him.

  "Can you make her shut up?" asked one of the Sons as he started the car.

  The man in the back seat with me pulled out a syringe. He plunged the needle into my arm.

  The world started to fade away into blackness.

  The last thing I remembered hearing was someone saying something about an airport . . . .

  * * *

  Everything hurt. My wrists were sore and chafed. My chin and teeth ached. The gunshot on my arm throbbed. I moaned and rolled over in bed.

  Bed?

  Where was I?

  My eyes snapped open. I was in a bedroom. There were expensive sheets on the bed I lay in. The walls were painted pink, but they had been plastered with posters. Familiar posters. Bands I liked. Movies I'd watched. They were my posters. From my old bedroom, back in Bramford. There was a bookshelf in the room too. It seemed to be filled with my books. But this wasn't Bramford, and this wasn't my old room. It was just all my stuff.

  "What the hell?" I muttered.

  "Zaza?" said a voice. Someone rushed over to me.

  "Chance?" I said.

  Chance threw himself at me and hugge
d me in bed. "Oh my God, you're okay!" he said.

  "Ow," I said. "Chance, you're killing me here."

  He sat up, perching on the bed next to me. I pushed myself into a sitting position, groaning when it hurt as bad as it did.

  "Sorry," said Chance.

  "Where am I?" I demanded.

  "It's good to see you too," he said sarcastically. "I wasn't worried about you or anything when you and Jason just disappeared from the school after the whole prom got shot up."

  "Where am I?" I repeated.

  "Grandma's," he said.

  Grandma Hoyt's house? "In New Jersey?" I said.

  Chance nodded. "Yup. That's where she lives."

  "I went to sleep in Rome," I said. I'd been out for the entirety of a fourteen-hour plane flight. Whatever that guy had given me in the car must have been really, really good. "How did I get here?"

  "Grandma said that you were in an accident and that some of her business associates in Italy found out about it. They were able to get you sent back here. But when you got here, you were totally out. I thought you were like in a coma or something."

  I threw the covers of the bed aside and got up. Jesus! That hurt even worse. That tackling thing they'd done to me must have really damaged me. "I wasn't in a coma," I said. "I was drugged. A bunch of men jumped Jason and me. They tied me up and knocked me out. And I ended up here."

  "Where is Jason?"

  "You don't know?" I asked.

  "I asked Grandma about it, and she said no one knew where he was."

  "Really?" I said, hopeful. Maybe Jason had gotten away. Maybe . . . I started for the door to the room. "I've got to find him," I said. I had my hand on the door before I realized I was wearing a frilly, full-length nightgown. I looked down at it. "Ugh," I said. "Where did Grandma Hoyt get this?"

  Chance shrugged. "It's kind of cute on you, though."

  "I'll have to change," I said. I crossed the room to the closet. It was empty. There was a chest of drawers. It was empty too. "Okay," I said. "I have no clothes."

  "Yeah," said Chance. "Well, maybe we could go to the mall. I have a credit card. We could get you something."

  "I don't have time to go to the mall," I said. "I don't know where Jason is. And the last time I saw him, he was being wrestled to the ground by like ten guys with guns. I have to find him."

  "Yeah?" said Chance. "Well, I don't know where my girlfriend is either."

  That made me pause. "Mina?" I said. I had assumed Chance and Palomino were okay. After they'd been sent home, away from us, I figured everything would be fine.

  Chance sighed. "It's my fault," he said. "She was freaked out about the baby and everything. I told Grandma about it. I thought she could help. But she called Mina's parents, and they shipped her off somewhere to one of those places where they send girls so they can have a baby and then they take it away so no one will ever know."

  "Oh my God," I said. "You're kidding."

  "I can't even call her or talk to her. They won't tell me where she is. And Grandma says I'm forbidden to ever see her again."

  "Chance, I'm so sorry," I said, hugging him. I meant it to be comforting, but it was kind of silly, since Chance was way taller than I was. He was growing like a weed. He hugged me back, though.

  "I was freaked out," he said. "I mean, we're kids. I'm not ready to be a dad. But this is just wrong. Nobody asked us. They just took her away. And they're gonna give our baby—my baby—to some strange couple somewhere. I'll never even see him!"

  "No," I said. "Chance, that is not going to happen. Once I find Jason, he and I will find Mina, and we will get her out of there. I promise you that."

  "Yeah," said Chance. "I saw the way you guys were shooting at the prom. Zaza, where did you learn to shoot guns like that?"

  I sighed. "That's a long story. For now, I just have to get out of here." Where was I going to go? How was I supposed to find Jason? I decided to concentrate on the more pressing issues. "I'm going to need to borrow some of your clothes," I said to Chance.

  He sized me up. "They're not going to fit you," he said.

  "I'll need a belt," I said. It was so annoying. I'd carried that bag with clothes and the laptop all the way out to the street outside the monastery. I must have lost in the scuffle with the Sons. I seemed to be cursed never to keep a closet full of clothes.

  Chance shrugged. "You can try, I guess," he said.

  We went to his room. He gave me a pair of his shorts. They were really long, so they fit me like pants. I cinched the waist up as best I could with a belt and threw one of his t-shirts on over the whole thing. I didn't have a bra, which really sucked, because I felt like I was wearing pajamas, flopping all over the place. But it was better than the stupid nightgown.

  As we headed down the steps, I considered my options. I didn't know where Jason was, so I was going to have to find someone who could help me find him. Who did I know who could do that? Maybe if I could get in touch with Hallam? I had no idea how to do that, though. If Jason had been captured by the Sons, though, he could very easily be—

  No. I wasn't going to think that. I'd held Jason in my arms when I thought he was dead before. I'd gotten him back. He couldn't be dead now. No.

  The important thing was to get out of this house. "I'm going to need a car," I told Chance. "Do you know where Grandma Hoyt keeps her keys?"

  "We're going to need a car," said Chance. "I'm coming with you."

  I stopped on the stairs, looking up at Chance, who was behind me. "No way," I said. "You can't come, Chance. It is way too dangerous. I can't take care of you. And I won't let anything happen to you. I have lost way too much of my family. You are all I have left. You stay here where it's safe."

  "I hate it here," said Chance. "And if you and Jason are going to get Mina, then I have to come with you. I have to help her. I can't just sit here."

  "I don't care if you do hate it here," I said. "You're not coming, and that's all there is to it." I turned and continued down the steps. Chance hurried after me.

  "You can't just leave me here," he said. "I'm going!"

  "Going where?" said a voice.

  Grandma Hoyt floated in front of the steps. She was a tall woman with gray hair, which she pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head. She always dressed impeccably. Today, she was wearing a cream-colored suit. Her arms were folded over her chest.

  "Hey Grandma," I said. "Listen, thanks for getting me out of whatever you got me out of back there. But I can't stay. I have to go. I don't know where Jason is."

  "Jason is at the Sons' headquarters in England," said Grandma Hoyt. "And you're not going anywhere. He's been arrested by their internal police. There will be a trial, and I have no doubt he'll be executed for his crimes against the organization. You'd do well to stop thinking about that boy. He's the past."

  Trial? Executed? Crimes? "Grandma," I said. "I don't think you understand."

  "No, Azazel, I don't think you understand," said Grandma Hoyt. "Your great-uncle and I have been searching for you all over Europe for the past several months. I've been beside myself with worry ever since you got mixed up with that boy. Now when Weem was heading the organization, there wasn't much I could do. But now that Ian is in charge, I've been able to get you home and safe and sound. And I've been able to do what I could to eliminate the threat of Jason."

  I was stunned. I'd known that weird things were going on with my grandmother for some time. She had ties to the Sons. And she'd been helping my brothers Gordon and Noah earlier this spring. But I hadn't thought that she thought Jason was a threat. "That's why you were helping Noah and Gordon?" I asked. "Because they were trying to kill Jason? You want him dead?

  "Child, I never wanted him conceived," said Grandma Hoyt. "Now you march back up those steps and put any ideas of getting out of here out of your head. You are my only blood descendant, and I'll be hanged before I allow you to bring shame to the Hoyt family."

  I didn't move. This was so bad. What was I going to do? "You can'
t talk to me like that," I said. "I stopped being someone's child a long time ago. I'm leaving. You can't stop me."

  "Maybe I can't personally, but I'm sure the armed guards on every door and at the gate can," she retorted. "Up the steps!"

  * * *

  Grandma Hoyt refused to actually give me any clothes. If I didn't have clothes, I couldn't run, or so she said. She forced me to attend dinner in my nightgown. We ate in the formal dining room—Chance, Grandma, and I all gathered at the end of the long, narrow table. I was going to refuse to eat. I sat sullenly at the table, staring at the elegant drapes and the garish modern art on the walls. When they put the food in front of me, however, I realized I was famished. And refusing to eat was kind of childish, anyway, wasn't it?