The Wilde Expedition

11. taser tag team

Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved.

〮CHAPTER ELEVEN 〮

As it happened, Gavin came back. I half expected him not to—I mean, if a stranger talked like that to me, I'd be sketched out. But not Gavin. His Volkswagen pulled up behind the semi trailer again, only this time, I was stuck with Ash, who, with the help of the bearded leader, dragged Jonah's body towards the front of the trailer. Ash had drugged me earlier, so I was pretty out of it up until the vague moment I started to pick up on the crunch of tires against gravel. Between the time they drugged me and Gavin arrived, fifteen minutes passed. The drug was wearing off.

Even still, I couldn't move in fear of Ash seeing me. And even if I did move, I felt groggy and incoherent. This was definitely a stronger dose, but still, I wondered why Jonah was still out cold.

Footsteps passed the trailer and approached the front of the semi where pseudo-Luke greeted him, asking if he had the supplies. Gavin answered with an energetic affirmative and asked if he could help haul the equipment out of the back of his van. They walked back to the Volkswagen, just the two of them, no one else. A minute later, I couldn't hear a thing—it seemed like an eternity crawled before footsteps crossed back to the front of the truck.

"Hey, I need more hands. Can you two help me out?" They followed Gavin back to the Volkswagen, commenting to each other, "Jesus, how much did this guy buy?" Gavin overheard it and told them it was either this or paying a tow truck to haul their asses to the next town, and he was sure that wouldn't be an easy task. He was walking behind them, and I knew that because his voice trailed along after their whiney comments.

At the end of the trailer, there were a few exclamations before they simmered out. Two bodies hit the ground. But there was something else that both Ash and I caught before it happened, and it sounded a lot like a vibrating cell phone. Not even a second later someone was jangling around with the hatch.

Ash was already on his feet when a strip of light cracked open, and later, a hand came under to heave it all the way up. Still blinded by the impossibly white light, I could only hear Ash shout at him, "Who do you think-" before an ear-rattling noise cut him off, making his entire body convulse, disrupting his speech into a shutter.

He hit the ground and nearly fell straight out of the trailer if whoever was out there didn't catch him. "Dammit," the voice muttered, and even though a wall of metal was no longer between us, I recognized it as Gavin fucking Wilde. Hero extraordinaire—or maybe not quite.

He started falling to the ground under the weight of Ash, and ended up having him topple onto the gravel. The entire time he struggled to push the body off of him, he was muttering panicked gibberish that I could tell was due to the shaking in his hands when he struggled to climb onto the ledge of the semi trailer.

I didn't think he saw me, because he was too preoccupied staring at Jonah's body, so when I exclaimed, "Hey, over here!" he screamed and had to catch his balance on the wall of the semi.

"Jesus. Holy Mother of God," he cried out, holding onto his chest, about to head towards me when I declared that he needed the key, the key that Ash had. I demanded he return to the body that just fell out of the semi, and fetch the key. I needed the key. A fucking taser wasn't going to keep them all asleep, especially not pseudo-Luke. He'd snap out of it any second.

And besides, a taser seemed rather dangerous in the inside of a semi.

After jumping out of the trailer and returning, he clambered over to me, giving me my first decent look at him as he knelt down, pale as a ghost, and started fumbling around with the keyhole at the outside of my ankles. I would have suggested I did it, but my arms felt like jello when I tried to sit up, so I figured my muscles were still recovering from the shot.

He seemed pretty upset about what conspired outside the trailer, and just kept babbling, saying things like, "Hi, this is kinda awkward. Um, but my name's Gavin. Gavin Wilde, and I can safely say that I've never done this before. Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Oh my God your ankles—do they hurt? I'm not exactly a body builder but I'll carry you if you can't walk-"

"I'm fine," I managed, subconsciously reaching down to rub the raw skin there after the cuff had broken loose. Cool air instantly collected on my skin, like after ripping a bandaid off that had been there for a day. "I'm Emma. I heard you earlier—I didn't think you'd come back."

"I wouldn't have if I hadn't heard you banging on the wall. Does that guy need help too? I mean, he looks kinda-"

"No. I knocked him out. Let's go," I said, inhaling sharply and exhaling as I heaved myself off the ground and swayed until my hand found the wall. Gavin Wilde, for all he lacked in physical intimidation, he made up in the polite way he offered his hand and walked me to the end of the trailer, telling me that he'd already notified the police before he pulled over. If we stuck around, the EMTs could take a look at me, I could file a report, lock the guys up for good.

"No, we need to leave. Like, right now. Pronto." He didn't object to it, and I appreciated that he didn't pry.

Near the entrance, Gavin hopped down first, keeping one hand latched onto mine in order to assist my jump down. Walking the length of the semi seemed to have stabilized me, and I truthfully didn't need his help jumping down, but I was mostly flattered by the act of comfort. I was about to lower myself down when Gavin shouted something just seconds before a hand clamped onto my ankle.

"Fuckin' bitch, you're gonna pay for-" It was Jonah, and his words were so slurred that I hardly even bothered translating it before dropping Gavin's hand, whirling around, and kicking the guy in the first place my toe hit. His chest. I guess that served him right.

He fell back coughing, seeming to be still out of it from the drug, so I swiftly jumped off the platform and urged Gavin to hurry up—I was already preparing to haul Ash up into the trailer when I realized I wasn't wearing a sweatshirt, and maybe that was why Gavin was hesitating to do much. I looked down at myself before declaring that I swore I had a shirt, I just needed to find it. After a split second to recover, Gavin shook his head and reached for Ash's arms. "I must be dreaming. This is a dream. It has to be a dream, right?" Gavin kept repeating as he started hauling the body up into the semi.

While he did that, I ran up front and grabbed my sweatshirt from the seat, as well as a wallet I found in one of the cupholders. When I came back, I ended up helping Gavin up with Ash's body, which then crushed Jonah's hand in the process. He cursed out loud, and it echoed throughout the trailer as Gavin and I set to work with the others.

Pseudo-Luke was the hardest, because he was by far the heaviest of the set, and the scariest to confront in fear of his eyes suddenly popping wide open, red and angry. Eventually, though, we managed to get him into the trailer just as everyone started stirring, only to be trapped by the door shutting their light out, and later, locked with a rope from Gavin's Volkswagen.

"A present for the cops needs a bow, right?" he told me when he took his sweet time touching up the loops on the handle.

He told me I could sit in front, but I had to, and I quote, "Watch your feet, no dirt on the carpet. And also, drinks and beverages need cozies. Oh yeah, and no feet on the dashboard, and no looking in the glove compartment. Make yourself comfortable, though!"

"Joy," I muttered as I swung open the passenger's door and slid inside.

And so commenced my first real look at Gavin Wilde, and all that compelled him to tangle himself up with the kidnapped girl named Emmalyn Austen. He didn't know the half of it.