One of them pointed, the others howled with laughter.
“Dibs!” another one yelled. “She’s mine.”
In that split second, I wasn’t sure if I should run toward the Leatherbacks or the frat party from hell. Neither option looked good, but at least the second group didn’t have guns drawn. Yet.
I ducked low and ran, angling toward the chain-link at the back of the lot, shoes dangling from my fingers. My chest ached, my feet were numb, but I didn’t stop until I hit the fence. It rattled under my grip. I climbed, the wire cutting into my hands, and flopped over the top. Thelast thing I heard was Vulture’s voice, raised and mocking: “You run, princess. We’ll find you.”
I tumbled to the other side, mud smearing my knees, and crawled into the scrub at the edge of the woods. My head throbbed, my mouth tasted like pennies, but I was alive.
The woods behind Los Alamos Cemetery were mostly just more cemetery. Beyond the chain-link was a ditch choked with weeds and those tiny, vicious red ants that bit like motherfuckers, then a patch of hardpan clay, then a whole new section of upright marble slabs.
I scuttled between the closest headstones, heart hammering, feet sinking into the sodden dirt. The world was silent except for the ringing in my ears, and the distant roar of a diesel truck a mile off on the highway. For a blissful, idiotic second, I thought maybe I’d lost everyone. Maybe Vulture and his goons would get bored, pop a few wheelies, and fuck off back to Durango. Maybe the local drunk idiots would forget about me in favor of a fifth of Popov and a packet of Marlboros.
Maybe I’d sprout angel wings and fly out of here.
A branch snapped to my left. I froze, pressing myself against a toppled gravestone. Moss tickled the inside of my thigh. My breath came in tiny shivers, the sound embarrassingly loud in the mist.
“C’mon, girl. I saw you jump. Don’t make me chase.”
The voice was thick with cigarettes and bourbon and something more desperate. I counted two, maybe three silhouettes weaving through the stones. They moved like they’d done this before—like hunters, or at least the kind of rednecks who hunted more than deer.
I dropped lower, crawling, ankles and knees soaked through. The purse was gone. My phone was gone. All I had left was a pair of ruined pantyhose and the Louboutins, which I clung to like a life raft. Fuck it. If they caught me, I’d use the heels as weapons.
The world shrank to a tunnel: one step, then another, dodging between markers, every muscle screaming to run. I’d almost made it to the end of the row when a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
The first guy—balding, forty, sweat-stained—yanked me upright so hard my vision went black. His breath was a gas station restroom.
“Look at this. Fancy bitch got herself lost.” He squeezed, digging thumb and knuckle into the fragile bones of my wrist. I swung the shoe, heel first, and it caught him just below the eye. Blood sprayed, a perfect line, and he howled. “Fucking cunt!” He slapped me, open-palm, across the face.
A spark of red behind my eyelids, the taste of iron on my tongue. I spat, and then I screamed, all the rage and terror compressed into one staccato blast. It barely slowed him.
The second man closed in, taller, missing half his front teeth. He laughed and circled behind me, pinning my arms to my sides. I flailed, useless, but he just squeezed tighter, breath hot and sour on my neck.
“She fights good,” the toothless one said. “Bet she tastes good too.”
The third one—a kid, barely old enough to shave, with a face like a sack of rocks—hung back, watching with wide eyes. There was a fourth, somewhere, or maybe that was just the fog playing tricks.
Baldy wiped the blood from his cheek, then ripped at my blouse. Buttons skittered across the ground, lost among the dandelions. He stared at my chest, at the tiny tremors of my ribcage, and grinned. “Sweet tits.”
I headbutted him. It hurt like hell, but his nose made a satisfying crunch, and he reeled backward, cursing.
Toothless twisted me around and slammed me against the cold granite. “You like rough, huh?”
He pressed himself against me, grinding with his hips, one hand working at his belt buckle. I kicked, caught him in the shin, and he lost his grip for a split second. I tried torun, but Baldy caught me by the hair and yanked me back so hard my neck cracked.
They shoved me onto my knees. The moss was freezing, the ground gritty with pebbles. I tasted bile.
Toothless unzipped, fingers fumbling. “Open up.”
“Go to hell,” I snarled, and drove the stiletto heel straight into his thigh.
He shrieked, collapsed onto his side. Blood oozed around the leather. He punched my ribs, hard, and the world pinwheeled for a moment. I doubled over, gasping, and tried to crawl away, but Baldy was on top of me in a flash.
“Bitch, you just signed your death warrant.”
He shoved my face into the dirt, grinding my cheekbone against the stone. His weight was suffocating; I could barely move, could barely breathe. My legs flailed uselessly. Hands clawed at my hips, at my ass, tearing the fabric to shreds.
A fourth man appeared, laughing, voice nasally and high. “Save some for me,” he yelled.