Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 74

-Caleb-

I was getting tired of trunks. Fed up to my eyeballs, really. Exactly how many times and by how many nefarious organizations could a person reasonably be expected to be kidnapped? I was sure Jacey and I were approaching some kind of record.

Jacey.

My stomach churned at the thought of having left her in the crossfire at the sheik’s hacienda. Was she okay? Was she with the sheik?

Maybe Masterson had just punked me and had sent someone to go grab Jacey after. A man could hope.

After a long stretch of what I would have called highway, by the feel of it, we were suddenly bumping along worse than on the cobblestone in Spain. I rolled around the trunk, knowing I was getting the ever-loving hell bruised out of me, but not able to do a whole lot about it.

One particularly deep rut actually made me hit the trunk lid.

We stopped shortly thereafter. I stifled a groan of pain. Maybe it was me trying to be a bit too manly, but I didn’t want any of the sons of bitches having the satisfaction of knowing they’d hurt me.

The trunk lid popped open, and I looked up into a thousand stars. Then a flashlight beamed right in my face, and I winced reflexively.

“You had to bring him in the trunk?” a voice I didn’t recognize asked. It was a woman, by the tone.

“It’s more fun that way. Besides, they always ask inane questions when you take them in the back seat,” Brandon replied. “And I hate telling people over and over that I don’t know a damn thing.”

“Still… oh, and you knocked him around a bit, too, I see,” the woman sighed, poking her head into the light.

She was blonde, skinny, and dressed in a professional blouse and jacket. She shook her head as she looked down at me. “Brandon, Jesus, could you just once, just once, bring one of them to me in one piece?!”

“Um… hi, I’m Caleb?” I interjected.

“Yes, I know who you are,” the woman replied testily.

“Bea, come on. It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t end up roughing them up a little. Besides, Masterson ordered it,” Brandon said.

She let out a slow, seething breath. “Just get him in the house.”

“No can do. Delivery stops at this point. He can still walk, though. I think. Well, I suppose if you undo the duct tape around his ankles,” Brandon shrugged.

Her eyes narrowed on Brandon. “And if he can’t? It’s not like I can carry him, Brandon.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” he replied and took out his switchblade, none-too-carefully slitting the tape at my ankles.

“Hey! Careful with the merchandise!” Bea protested.

He put his knife away then grabbed me by the hair and dragged me out of the trunk. “Can you stand?” he grunted.

I wobbled as I got my feet under me, but I stood, naked and barefoot, in the middle of some woods. If I ever stopped being passed around like the bad guys were playing hot potato, I was never going camping again. I’d seen enough woods to last me a lifetime.

“Walk with me,” she ordered, still glaring at Brandon. “I’ll be reaching out to your superiors about this.”

He just flipped her the bird then got back into the car and drove away.

“Fucker,” she muttered. “Well, come along. We haven’t got all night!”

“I can’t see where I’m walking,” I replied. “And I’m barefoot.”

Bea paused then shined her own flashlight just ahead of both of us so I could see the ground where I was walking. “Better?”

“Much.” I carefully walked with her down a long dirt-and-grass drive that curved around into the woods. It reminded me a little bit of the drive leading up to the safehouse where Darren had died.

Poor Darren.

I wondered just how many fucking people I was going to lose by the time this ended and if one of them was going to be Jacey.

“You’ll be staying here until the next team comes to get you,” Bea said as we rounded the bend, and I saw a huge Adirondack-style cabin. The big A-line windows looked down upon the drive here. I didn’t see any kind of lake, so I guessed the back windows looked out into the woods.

“Great. More woods,” I grumbled.

“This is actually a senator’s summer house, donated for the occasion. I’d be grateful, if I were you. I could have put you in a little cement box of a basement apartment,” she snapped back.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Bad Guy, I really should be more grateful,” I snarked.

She stopped. “What makes you think I’m with the bad guys?”

“Aren’t you?” I asked, suddenly unsure.

Bea tucked the flashlight under her arm and reached into her jacket pocket. She tossed me a leather wallet that I caught and curiously flipped open.

“You’re FBI,” I gaped.

She snatched her badge back. “Yes. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to get that duct tape off of you and get to bed. We have a special solution so we don’t rip your skin off, but it’s in the house.”

“I’m sorry about Darren,” I said quietly as we walked up wooden steps to a long, wraparound deck. The door was centered in the middle of the house, excluding the garage that was connected off to the left. It must have been at least a four-car garage.

“Yes, well, he knew the risks,” she sniffed, squaring her shoulders. She unlocked the door and opened it.

I saw movement at the perimeter, just inside the darkness not penetrated by the house’s lights, and I froze. “I think we’ve got company,” I whispered.

Bea touched her ear. “Dale, wave. You’re scaring the kid.”

A man with a big gun, wearing combat gear, stepped just into the light and waved. Then he stepped back into the darkness.

“Well-spotted, though. We don’t get many who notice the perimeter guard. Which, of course, is the whole point,” she said.

“I learned from experience to start checking my six,” I replied.

“No doubt. All right, in we go.” She held the door open, so I stepped inside first.

The cabin, or rather summer home, had an open floor plan. I saw two more agents sitting at the dining table off from the kitchen eating sandwiches.

“Egads, Bea, I thought he’d never get here!” one said around a mouthful of food.

“Chew and swallow, Mike,” she answered. “And yeah, it feels like Brandon took the long way just so he could mess with the kid some more.”

“He’s a dick,” the other man grunted.

She snorted. “No argument here. Okay, so, where’s the anti-gummy solution? We’ve got to get this tape off him.”

The men took a second look at me then. “He’s naked,” Mike observed.

“No shit,” she said. “Ed? You know where the solution is?”

“Guest bathroom, top shelf of the medicine cabinet,” he responded.

Bea nodded and led me into the living room. “Sit down,” she said, pointing to a, thankfully, cloth-upholstered sofa. “I’ll get the stuff and get you out of that duct tape.”

“Thanks,” I said, sitting down while she walked off. I took note of where the guest bathroom was because I was going to need it soon.

She returned shortly thereafter with a bottle, a small pair of scissors, and cotton swabs. “All right. If I do this right, this should be relatively painless.”

“Sounds good. I’m sure Masterson was just planning to rip it off me when we got back to his place,” I replied.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” She cut the tape holding my wrists together so I could separate them at least, then got to work swabbing and peeling.

It didn’t take long for her to remove the duct tape, and all that was left in its wake was a tiny bit of stickiness and some redness from them putting it on. Taking it off really hadn’t hurt at all.

“Thanks,” I said again.

“You’re welcome. Now, I’d suggest hopping in the shower and then getting some sleep. We won’t have movement again for another thirteen hours,” she informed me. “Mike will lend you some clothes.”

Mike spluttered around his sandwich. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the right build, idiot.” She rolled her eyes.

“Oh.” Mike blushed at his stupid question.

Ed just started to laugh.

“Okay, you two knuckleheads. Let’s get it together. You two taking first watch?” she asked.

It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes, boss,” Ed responded.

“Good.” She motioned for me to get up and to follow her. “The windows in this place are bulletproof, so don’t start freaking out when you see your room.”

It was good that she warned me. I entered my room, and the whole wall facing the forest was glass.

“Bulletproof?” I wheezed.

“Bulletproof,” she confirmed. “Your bathroom’s through there. It has a shower. Mike’ll drop some clothes in here while you’re in there.” She paused at the door as she was leaving. “Do try to get some rest. Everything will look better tomorrow.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know how that was going to be possible without Jacey, but I figured that was a problem for the next day.

Bea left, and I went to go shower. By the time I got out, Mike had left me a couple of pairs of boxers, sweatpants, socks, and a T-shirt on the hope chest at the foot of the bed.

I pulled on a pair of boxers and left the others folded and ready for tomorrow. Then I slid into what must have been some very high thread count sheets.

Still, I couldn’t make myself sleep. I tossed and turned, but it was no use. Without Jacey there, the bed felt empty. And that made me replay over and over in my head being torn away from her while bullets were flying.

Sitting up, I finally gave up and started playing with the remote next to the bed. A television popped out of the foot of the bed.

“That works,” I mumbled, turning it on and scrolling through to a streaming service.

I ended up watching a cake baking show where they tried to tell the difference between fondant cake and the real object it was created to look like. It was just the kind of mindless TV I needed to take my mind off Jacey. As best I could, anyway.

Morning dawned beautiful and fiery red over the tops of the pine trees after a few hours. I paused the cake baking show to watch.

My heart ached. I wished more than anything I could share this with Jacey.