"Nooooooo!" Mac screamed as she ran for the car that was engulfed in flames. Her dark hair spun in circles about her face as the wind caught it. That was it, the end of a friendship and a young life that didn't need to end so violently. She thought staring at the flames as they licked at the wind. Her finger tightened around the gun in her hand. Through the flames she saw him, the sadistic maniac who'd turned the compact Volkswagen into a very large Molotov cocktail. Raising her gun and taking aim at the man through the flames on the burning car, anger balled in her. "Never again," she breathed squeezing the trigger of her weapon.
A weapon discharge had never sounded so loud to her, as it did in that moment. And never had placing a bullet between someone's eyes been so fulfilling to her. So sure that her aim was true and that her mark had fallen, Mackenzie turned to face her long time friend Judson Cross as he came into view of the car. Stepping to the side she let him through. Dropping her weapon to the ground Mac caught one of the extinguishers Judson was carrying as he ran toward the car.
"He lied to us," she said sliding pin from the head of the extinguisher.
"I heard." He did the same. "Where's Gabe?" He caught her blue eyes and all of the anger that was held there. "Where is he, Mac?" His voice was harder than it had been the first time he asked. He could see the look of desperation as her mouth moved but the words failed to pass her tender lips. He wanted to hold her, to make things better and to tell her that Gabe would be fine. However he knew that he couldn't. Not with Gabe missing.
"In the car." She let the foam flow freely from the canister she held as though it were a life preserver. There was no way that he could've survived that, she thought as she and Judson tried frantically to douse the flames with the extinguishers.
The memory coursed through Mac faster than any other before. It was the nightmare that wouldn't go away, haunting her even in her waking hours.
"Gabe?" she whispered, crushing the gray leather beneath her as she leaned closer to the figure seated in the back of the car. Her blue eyes carefully studying the tall thin frame of the young man in the seat. The dark locks covering his head were a bit shorter than when she last saw him, but his eyes were the same hazel green that she knew so well. But there was something wrong in those eyes. There was a spark missing, like someone had stolen something from deep within him.
Erik was uncomfortable with her staring at him as though she knew him. His father had warned him that she and her friend might believe him to be their friend. He wanted his father to make her leave. The way she was looking at him, as though he were a bug under a magnifying glass, made him want to leave the car and run back to the hotel, or anywhere that the blue eyed beauty wasn't.
"Erik," Merrill said softly, catching the young man's attention. "She can't hurt you." He took a few steps towardMackenzie.
"Well if isn't Gavin Merrill?" The voice nearly made Merrill jump through his skin. He'd known that Judson Cross would be hanging around, after all it was a friend of his that had died.
"There's someone in this car that you need to see," Mac said climbing out of the front seat of the car.
"Really?" Judson cocked his head to the side trying to peer through the open front door and into the back seat.