Dark Vengeance by Kristi Belcamino (electric book reader .txt) 📕

Inside, a golden stream of sunlight poured through a window facing the beach. It was a small hut with a chipped tile floor covered in sand. I scanned the rest of the room. Something black and silver was on the floor. It was a phone.

My breath caught. I knew that phone. It was Rose’s phone. And it was crushed, the plastic smashed, the SIM card gone. She must have known it was how we found her. I glanced around looking for any clue, anything that would reveal her life here and why she’d run away from me. The hut was tiny and contained very few belongings, which she’d apparently seen fit to leave behind.

The small space held a wooden table and two chairs with a tiny kitchen and bathroom in a separate room. A small crate held a few clothing items and bottles of water. I picked up a sweater and held it to my nose. Yes. It belonged to Rose. My heart pounded. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

A beat-up surfboard was propped against one wall. In one corner was a thin futon mattress with a ratty blanket. I inhaled sharply when I saw what was lying next to it—a wadded up blanket covered with dog hair. I ran over and knelt down to see proof that Rose and her dog, Dylan, had been here.

As I crouched on the ground, I noticed something else, and my heart stopped.

Blood. Fresh blood was smeared all over the floor. My heart was pounding, and my cheeks felt ice cold.

I heard a sound behind me and whirled.

At first, I thought it was the wind howling through a crack in the bathroom wall. But it wasn’t— it was a small whimper. The same sound I’d heard outside. A crumpled heap of black fur was curled up in the corner of the bathroom floor. Oh, my God. I raced over. It was Dylan. He was bleeding.

That’s when I realized—Rose hadn’t run away from me after all.

Maybe I didn’t know Rose anymore, but I knew she would never leave her dog.

Someone had taken her.

Fear coursed through me. Rose had been kidnapped by someone who had no qualms injuring an innocent dog. I had no idea where she might be now and what she was facing—even if she was still alive.

And then horror struck me at the realization that I might just have been the one who led someone to her hiding place.

2

With Dylan in my arms, I stumbled down to the beach, heading for a bonfire in the distance. He was heavy, so I wasn’t moving very fast through the thick sand despite my efforts to do so. The group of surfers I’d seen earlier were huddled around the fire. When they first noticed me, the tall girl jumped up and ran over.

“What happened?”

“Someone took Rose. I saw the car leave. And found Dylan like this. Please,” I pleaded. “He needs to see a doctor. Is there a vet in town? I don’t have a car.”

A skinny guy with long hair in a ponytail and tattoos covering both arms stood.

“I can get a car. I’ll drive. I’ll meet you at the road,” he said and took off running.

Relief filled me.

The tall girl nodded. “I’ll come, too.”

Dylan was limp in my arms. I was worried he’d already lost too much blood. The gash across his stomach was long and deep. I’d found a rag in the hut’s makeshift kitchen and wound it around him. It was already red with blood that had seeped through.

The tall girl grabbed a Mexican blanket off the sand, and we headed back to the road.

The ponytailed guy appeared in a rusted-out pick up. He leaped out and opened the tailgate. “There’s more room back here.”

I was afraid to let go of Dylan, but I passed the dog to him while I scrambled into the bed of the truck. The boy handed Dylan back to me, wrapped in the Mexican blanket. Dylan gave a small whimper as I took him in my arms. The tall girl leaped in the back, closing the gate behind her, and we were off.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m Gia.”

“I’m Makeda,” she said. “Arrow is the one driving.”

“This is Dylan,” I said, looking down at the dog in my lap.

Makeda smiled. “I know,” then she exhaled loudly. “We knew her as Pearl, from Dylan Thomas’ love letters, you know.”

I didn’t know that. I knew Dylan Thomas was a poet, and that was about it. I didn’t even know that’s why Rose had named her dog that. Dylan was the dog we’d bought her to get her out of her dark funk, to coax her out of her bed. After Timothy was murdered, Rose had shut out the world. This dog had helped bring her back to the land of the living.

Dylan was one of the puppies from the dog she’d grown up with—Django. I’d given my own puppy, another of Django’s offspring, to my best friend in San Diego, Dante. My aunt, Eva, had taken one of the litter, too, and had it at her Italian home and training camp for female assassins.

Makeda was opening up to me now. “You think she was kidnapped?”

“Yes,” I said. “Do you think she would leave him behind injured like this?”

She frowned. “No. She wouldn’t leave without him. Or her book.”

“What book?” There were a few books stacked in one corner that I hadn’t really paid attention to at the time.

“She always had that book with her. The love letters to Pearl. I think it was her only prized possession. We live simply around here.”

As Makeda spoke she bent over Dylan, who was still in my lap. She stroked his ears. She leaned down and whispered something to him.

As soon as I got back to the hut I was going to look for that book. If it was gone, there was a chance she’d fled, leaving Dylan behind. But I knew I would find it.