Max was silent, watching her, weighing it all up. Then his eyes went to Alberto. ‘Get some of the boys to check out the amusement arcade, in case this is another false trail.’
Alberto’s eyes were flinty. ‘It’s done,’ he said. He glanced at Molls, back at Max. ‘We have to risk it,’ said Alberto.
‘Yeah,’ said Max. ‘We do.’
Annie felt sick with fear and she was fighting flat-out hysteria. Time had passed, and it was all a blur, a horrible nightmare. She kept telling herself this couldn’t be happening. But it was.
The taser-blast meant she’d been unable to move to begin with. She knew she was lying in the back of a car, and she could see the night sky, street lights, and buildings that were at first familiar and then unknown.
Within half an hour her arms and legs were tingling. She started tentatively moving her limbs, wondering whether she could throw open the door, jump out. There was a chance she’d be hurt, given the speed he was driving, but what other option did she have? Nauseous and terrified, she resolved that if she got the slightest chance, she would take it.
But her chance never came.
He stopped the car in a quiet side road, threw open the back door.
‘Wait!’ she managed to gasp out. ‘Just wait-’
‘Shut up,’ said Rufus, and slapped duct tape over her mouth to silence her.
Then he bound her hands and feet, and put a sack over her head. Mould and dust filled her nostrils as he hauled her bodily out of the car. Swaying sickly as he carried her, Annie heard him open doors, then she was thrown painfully down on to cold ridged metal. The impact knocked all the breath out of her. Metal doors slammed shut.
It was an effort to breathe when every fibre of her being was screaming out a message of panic, nevertheless she forced herself to keep thinking. She must be in a Transit van, something like that. An engine started up, and the van lurched and began to move.
To hold the fear in check and keep herself calm, she tried not to dwell on thoughts of where Rufus Malone was taking her, what he would do to her when they got there. Instead she filled her mind with thoughts of Layla, of Alberto, and lastly of Max. She was still in love with him. Had never been out of love with him, not even when he was at his most vicious and bitter.
Now, she was never going to see him again.
This was it. This was the end.