This chapter has a bit of swearing in it, so I hope it doesn't bother anyone. It's not meant to be disrespectful, just realistic

Enjoy!

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

Kenny raced along the back trail leading to the broken-down church, sneakers pounding the ground in beat with his worried heart. As rivers of sweat ran down his face, he cursed the infernal heat. Why does it have to be so damned hot all the time? If someone told him they lived over the hottest part of Hell, he sure as heck wouldn’t doubt them.

 

Johnny barreled through a stand of small saplings ahead of Kenny, and he threw up his arms to protect his face. Johnny had always been the fastest, and he might have a crack at the Olympics if this place didn’t chew him up first. Teenagers talked about leaving their small towns—most of the time it didn’t happen—but if you didn’t leave this one, you might just die before your nineteenth birthday.

 

Tommy huffed behind him, breath forced from his lungs sounding like a dragon with a sore throat. “Ouch, dang it, watch the limbs,” he gasped out as one smacked him in the face.

 

Kenny didn’t have time to worry about tree branches or who they smacked. What had happened to Lizzie? If they’ve hurt her, I’ll tear this town apart with my bare hands.

 

Johnny stopped and bent over with his hands on his knees. “Dude, stop.” He sucked in a lungful of scorched air. “We’re not going to do Elizabeth any good if we have a heatstroke in this sauna they call the south.” He rose and took another huge lungful of oxygen. “Besides she’s not there. We checked yesterday. Remember?”

 

“I’m fine,” Kenny yelled over his shoulder as he breezed past without slowing down. He crashed into the clearing before the church and stopped, staring at the ominous house of God. He shouldn’t have let his two friends convince him to leave here last night. Lizzie might have returned.

 

Taking the steps two at a time, he reached the door and cursed at the broken lock. How the hell did they find her? Had he truly expected things to be different in the morning light? Expected the lock to be in one piece?

 

Then a chilling thought occurred to him. How did they get past the church? It’s sacred ground.

 

Shit.

 

If the townsmen could get in here, all the angels in Heaven wouldn’t be able to stop them elsewhere.

 

He wrenched the door open and ran down the aisle. “Elizabeth,” he yelled. He slung her bed covers back as if he thought he might find her hiding beneath them.

 

“Lizzie, where are you?” He turned in a circle, glancing in every corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of her—hoping his desperate prayers from last night had been answered.

 

Those damn sons-of-bitches took her. He ran an angry hand through his hair, yanking his fingers through the tangles. You don’t know that. She could have walked out on her own. She was getting restless.

 

The lock was broken from the outside, you idiot. “They took her,” he yelled at the faded cross behind the pulpit. “And you allowed it.” He glowered at the figure on the crucifix, anger bursting from a well-spring deep inside his heart. He kicked an empty Styrofoam food carton, and then stomped on it, squashing it flat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Damn it. Shit.

 

Tears burned his eyes, and he let out another streak of curses. It was the only way to keep from crying. A sob lodged in his throat, and he choked it back down.

 

With a furious, unintelligible shout, he flung himself into the front pew and held his head between his hands, gritting his teeth and trying not to foul the church with any more of his language. Cursing at God and blaming Him certainly wasn’t going to help the situation.

 

Tommy and Johnny trudged inside and flopped down beside him.

 

“See, I told you she wouldn’t be here this morning anymore than she was last night,” Tommy said, shivering in the cool of the building.

 

How the hell could he stand to be cold all of the time? Couldn’t the doctors fix his temperature? Kenny glared at him. “Well, I just happen to have this little thing called hope. It’s useful. You might want to try it sometime.” His mouth twisted into a sarcastic grin with no humor in it.

 

“Come on, Kenny, this isn’t Tommy’s fault. Maybe she got away.” Johnny rose and started folding the sheets. “How’s that for hope?”

 

“You and I both know that’s not possible.” Kenny yanked a pillow out of Johnny’s hands. “Don’t touch her stuff. She’s coming back.”

 

Tommy stood and moved around the church picking up trash and shoving it into a garbage bag. “Maybe we need help. This whole thing is too big for us. We’re just kids.” He tied a knot in the bag and tossed it into a corner.

 

Johnny flopped down on the bed and stretched out placing his hands behind his head “I wonder if any other teens have tried to stop what’s happening here.”

 

Kenny kicked his Nikes. “Git off her bed, you moron, you’re soiling the covers.” When he still didn’t move, he reared back and kicked him in the thigh. “Now! Damn it!”

 

Johnny yelped and rolled onto the floor, rubbing his leg. “Shit, man, you need anger management classes or something.” He glared at Kenny. “Kick me like that again, and I’ll break your fucking nose.”

 

“Guys. Language. We’re in a church.” Tommy glanced around as if scared God might rush out of a corner and whack them in the head with a big stick for being bad, and he’d get a whacking because he was with them—guilt by association.

 

“Okay. Okay.” Kenny paced back and forth. “We need to find Lizzie.” Just calm down and think with a level head. They might not hurt her. They may only want the baby she’s carrying. Oh, shit.

 

“Guys, we gotta find her.” Kenny turned, fighting tears again. If he weren’t so danged tired, maybe he wouldn’t feel so hopeless. Suck it up and act like a fucking man.

 

“I think those men messed her mind up big time, so even if she managed to escape, she’s not going to be an easy find.” Johnny scratched his head, and then studied his fingernails.

 

Kenny stopped. “That might be good. Maybe they won’t be able to find her either—assuming she even got away.” She’s pregnant, for God’s sake. Would the men hurt a woman carrying a child? You know the answer to that, bucko.

 

Oh, God, what if they cut the baby out of her while she’s still alive. A chill scuttled across his skin as if his core temperature had sank to Tommy’s normal temp of 93 degrees. Stop it with the damned morbid thoughts, would you?

 

“I still think we should see if that guy and sexy babe will help us.” Tommy grinned, staring off into space, with a goofy grin, as if he lived on a fantasy island where he could have anything he wanted, including the sexy babe. “They’re not from around here.”

 

Kenny cast him an irritated glance. “Her name’s Sharla, and she’s waaaaay too old for you.”

 

Tommy scowled. “Yeah, well, same to you there, too, Romeo.”

 

Johnny smacked them both on the back. “If you two sissies don’t stop bitching at each other, I’m going to toss you both outside and kick your asses.”

 

“Johnny you say one more cuss word in this church, and I’m going to flatten your lip.” Tommy held his fists up and danced around like a boxer.

 

Johnny laughed. “Oooh, I’m scared Mr. Lustful Thoughts. It’s fatten, you idiot. Not flatten.”

 

“Either way, it’s going to be mush.”

 

“Both of you cool it. This is not helping find Lizzie.”

 

Tommy dropped his fists. “Do you suppose the ghosts might know where she is?”

 

A stunned silence filled the church.

 

“What ghosts?” Johnny asked.

 

Tommy shrugged. “One’s been following me around a lot lately.” He hesitated and then said, “I think I know who she is.”

 

“Who?” Kenny leaned forward intent on his answer.

 

“Mary Beth Blakely.”

 

“The freshman who disappeared from the high school parking lot last year?” Stunned Kenny resumed pacing, fiddling with his lip.

 

“I guess we can rule out her running away like they suspected.” Johnny slumped onto a church bench. “But why is she wandering around, following you everywhere Tommy?”

 

Tommy turned beet red. “We used to play doctor when we were five years old.”

 

Johnny burst out laughing. “But still that wouldn’t be a strong enough reason for her to attach herself to you.”

 

“How do you know?” Tommy clenched his fists in anger. He was hiding something, Kenny would bet on it.

 

“He’s right. It wouldn’t be,” a stranger’s voice said.

 

All heads whipped toward the entrance where a man stood with a shotgun dangling from his fingers.

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