Blind Loyalty - M J Marlow (i am reading a book .txt) 📗

head as she found herself alone on her way between Math and Science classes. She came around a corner to enter the corridor leading past the empty classrooms and he was standing there waiting for her. He smiled as she turned to run and found herself cut off by his friends. They grabbed her wrists and tied them behind her back. George brought out a handkerchief and gagged her as she struggled and kicked for release. “We’re all tired of your brothers and Murphy telling us we can’t touch you,” George said as he and his friends forced her outside and headed towards a waiting van. “As if you were some virgin goddess!” He laughed as he shoved her inside and straddled her struggling body. He nodded to his friends. “Let’s go. We will have our party at the old Cutter cabin.” His hand caressed her breast and Joanna whimpered in protest. “You’re going to be part of the entertainment, Joey.” Joanna struggled even harder at that. There was no way she was going to let this little bastard do to her what Leighton had done. He slapped her and she just got angrier. She got him off of her and scrambled back as he shook his head after having it slammed into the door. George grabbed her ankles and yanked her back down onto her back. Then he clamped his hands around her throat and squeezed until she passed out from lack of air. Aidan and the twins had seen them as they came around the corner of the school and they ran to his car as Aidan called his father. Then they followed the van. He saw the squad cars following him twenty minutes later and a familiar jeep with a convoy of SUVs. Those boys were in for it now. If they hurt Joanna, they were not going to see daylight again for a very long time. It started to snow as they followed the van and it became harder to keep sight of the white vehicle in the curtain of flakes obscuring their vision. Aidan knew where George and the others were going, however; and he relayed the information to his father and Adam so that if they got separated everyone would know where to go. The van approached the cabin on the far side of the lake and pulled into the garage. George got out and yanked Joanna out. She kicked him in the face and ran, but she was tackled by one of the other boys. He yanked her up as she struggled to free herself from his hold. George slapped her across the face and nodded. Joanna was dragged into the cabin and shoved into a small empty room. But it wasn’t empty. There were four cages in the room and three of them were already occupied. Sarah, Glory, and Sabrina were locked inside of them. Sarah raised her head as Joanna was forced to the empty cage and Joanna saw the bruises. Her cousin and their friends had not come here willingly either. “You are the prettiest girl in school, Joey,” George crooned as he stroked Joanna’s cheek. “Much too good for a pantywaist like Murphy.” Joanna tried to knee him and he laughed and twisted out of her way. “Save your energy for the games, Joey. You’re going to need it.” Joanna watched him leave and heard the door close. She moved her head back and forth and worked out the gag. Then she pulled her body through her arms so that her wrists were in front and worked on the bonds holding her wrists together. When they were finally off, she looked over at her cousin and their friends. Their expressions were every bit as fierce as she knew hers was. She looked around the room and noticed something their captors had overlooked. Behind her cage was the window. It was painted over, but it was there. She looked over at the others and they nodded. She opened the cage door that had not been locked and opened the window just wide enough for her to slip out and then she ran. “You’re first, Joey,” George stepped in ten minutes after she took off. He saw the gag and rope in the cage, the door standing wide open, and the window up. “Damn her!” He turned on his heel and the girls heard him screaming at his companions. “Find that little bitch! She’ll ruin everything!” Joanna had fallen at least five times on the slick ground and she was soaking wet. But she was not going to let anything stop her. She had to get help for Sarah and the other girls. Failing that, she could only hope that her escape would draw all of the boys out of the cabin and give the other girls a chance to free themselves. It was so cold, her body protested as she stumbled up into the hills away from the lake. She was soaking wet from her falls and the snow was coming down even faster than before. She hadn’t been wearing a coat when they had kidnapped her so she was soaking wet. She leaned against a tree for a moment and looked back to see four flashlights moving along in separate directions. Only one of them was following her at the moment. But that changed when the one found her tracks. Then all four were coming after her. “Damn!” Joanna cursed and turned to run. Her feet slid out from under her and her head slammed into a tree. She could feel something prickling at her scalp near her temple and her hand brought back blood. She’d hurt herself! She forced herself to get up on her feet and stumbled on. She could hear their voices as she fell again a few moments later. She was still trying to get to her feet when they caught up with her. George caught her around the waist and she slugged him in the eye. He dropped her and she scrambled away as he cursed. She stumbled away but ran into the other three. They shoved her against a tree and held her arms back around it as George came towards her. “You’re far too stubborn, Joey,” George hissed as his hand clamped on her throat. He nodded to his companions and they tied her wrists around the tree. “We’re going to leave you out here for awhile,” he laughed as he brought out the gag and put it on her. His friends wound more rope around her and the tree so she could not move. “You should be more agreeable after a few hours out in the snow.” He kissed her roughly and laughed as she tried to struggle out of the ropes. “You’re not going anywhere, Joey. Brad is a champion knot tier.” He looked at his friends. “Come on guys we have three other lovelies to entertain us back at the cabin.” Joanna watched as they gathered evergreen boughs and began to wipe away the tracks made up the hill. Only they would know she was up here, she realized. She pulled on the ropes hard and winced as her wrists began to chafe from the rough material holding her. She could not let this happen! She had to get loose. She was having trouble seeing now and she knew she was in trouble as the world spun around her. She tried to work the gag loose but it was not budging. She only hoped that Sarah and the others had gotten away while she was drawing the boys up the hill after her. “Somebody please help me!” Joanna sobbed when she finally got the gag out. “Please!” Her head went up as she felt her father coming closer. He was worried and he was angry. He would not let her die up here like this. Relief flooded through her and she went back to work on the ropes, sawing the one holding her wrists against the tree against the rough back. “Hurry, Father,” she cried as her vision blacked out and pain cascaded through her head. “Please hurry!” Adam knew she was in trouble and he careened around the others and entered the cabin. He heard Sarah crying for help and found her and the other girls in the small back room. He found the key and unlocked the cages. Sarah threw herself into his arms and he held her a moment until she calmed. Then he had her help him free Glory and Sabrina. The others arrived and they did what they could to calm the girls down. They got them cocoa and warm blankets and had started a fire in the fireplace when they heard George and his friends returning. Adam motioned the girls to stay where they were and the men hid. George and his friends stomped into the cabin and froze as they saw their other prisoners seated in chairs in front of the fireplace with mugs of cocoa in their hands and blankets around their bodies. The girls looked at them coldly as they approached, but they did not move. The door slammed behind them and they turned to see the Sheriff and his son, Major Jeffries and his sons, and several deputies moving in around them. “Where’s my daughter, boy?” Adam hissed as he slammed George up against the door. “She ran off, sir,” George choked. Joanna was this man’s daughter? He could see his life ending in Adam’s eyes. “We couldn’t find her so we came back in to get warm until we could go out again when its daylight.” The other three nodded agreement and they did not budge from their story. He hung his head. “She got frightened by our little game…” “Game?” Adam snarled and tightened his grip. “Is that what you call this? You abducted four girls, you little bastard. You and your friends,” he looked at the other boys in disgust, “are going to spend the rest of your lives in prison if I have anything to say about it. But,” he said, his voice deadly calm, “if anything happens to my daughter, Mr. Jensen; I will see you receive the death penalty.” He stormed out of the cabin and went to his Jeep. His team was waiting for him with his sons and Aidan. The team had seen the direction the boys had come from. “Tina, Greg, you are with me at center. The rest of you fan out from this point.” He was so worried he could not think straight. “My daughter is out there somewhere with no coat. We move fast and hard with survival gear in tow. Break out the sled and the skies.” The men and women snapped into action and they were on their way in five minutes fanning out from Adam’s point of entry. He headed up the hill at a speed that had his feet slipping but he refused to fall. He had no time to waste; his daughter needed him. He could ‘feel’ her distress and her pain and knew time was of the essence. The snow was falling even faster now and he could hardly see; but he was not giving up. He told the other members of the team to fall back if they chose, but he continued on, feeling his way to his daughter. He knew she was close and she needed him. “Somebody please help me!” “That was not my imagination,” Adam choked as the words came through the air half an hour later, soft and urgent and filled with pain and fear. He nodded to his companions and they called the rest of the team in on their position. He ran forward and found Joanna tied to the tree. She had managed to get the gag out and the rope holding her wrists was sawn through, but she was too weak from the pain of her injury and exposure to the elements to