Can't Save Me

Grant

It felt like we sat across from that club for days, when it was really no more than a few hours. The place was a shithole. The kind of place that had your hair standing on end just being in the vicinity of it. It looked more like an abandoned warehouse or a drug den rather than a club that any sort of respectable person would frequent. The outside was worn brick, beaten down and graffiti covered, the street surrounding the perimeter, littered with trash, debris, and a troubling looking crowd. Definitely not somewhere I'd want to be on a normal night out. Hanging from a rust covered bar above the door was one of those trashy signs that flashed 'Girls! Girls! Girls!' in neon colors. Even from across the street, one could hear the hum of the electricity it took to run the thing. I felt like we'd stepped in a completely different world than the one I was used to, a world I'd only seen on TV or in the movies. If Maddie was in fact here, I was even more worried than I was before. I had to get her out of there, out of this situation as soon as possible.

"Your phone is blowing up again," Snyder stated, as if I couldn't hear the incessant vibration from the cupholder next to me.

"I'm aware," I grumbled.

"You gotta tell em something, man," Snyder insisted. "They're just gonna keep calling."

I rolled my eyes dramatically as I took my phone out of the cup. This time the incoming call was from Danica, which was the hardest call to ignore. I'd spoken with everyone back home in only brief spurts since we'd left. I didn't want to give them too much information, and I sure didn't want to let them know where we were because I knew the second I did, Chuck and a litany of other cops would be right behind us, and I couldn't chance anything messing up my opportunity to bring Madeline home. I knew the second Eva smelled the police, any hope I had of getting Maddie out alive would disappear, so I kept every conversation I had short and sweet, and until Maddie was back by my side, that's how it would remain.

"Hey." Snyder interrupted my thoughts by nudging an elbow into my bicep. "We got movement."

My eyes yanked up from the phone in my hand and sure enough found two guys and three or four girls coming down the side alley. They were all loud and joyful, giggling like they'd just arrived for the night of their lives. The girls were scantily clad and all of them were stumbling about, already drunk or high or whatever their poison of choice had been that night. My eyes scanned the small group of people, searching for the one face I wanted to be present. But my heart sank a bit when I realized that none of the girls were Madeline. However, not all hope was lost. My attention soon focused in one of the men, short and haggard, black beady eyes glinting in the dark, but his face... his face I knew. And there was only one place I could have possibly known him from...

"That's him," I stated, keeping my eyes locked on one of the men that had invaded my home that night. I was stunned by how nonthreatening he looked. I had this vision, this idea in my head of the men that had been there that night, and they didn't look like him. He looked like no more than your run of the mill drug addict. Nothing about him was as scary or frightening as I remembered. "He's one of the ones that drug her out. He was there that night."

An almost malicious smirk curled Snyder's face and his eyes flickered in the dim street lights. He was enjoying this whole mission far more than he probably should've been, but I couldn't do it without him, so I kept my observation to myself. "Well then, I think we should probably have a little conversation, don't you?"

I gave him a firm nod, but the second my hand wrapped around the door handle, Snyder set a hand on my shoulder.

"Not you."

"What?" I asked, my eyes flitting to his with both astonishment and concern. "What do you mean?"

"He's gonna recognize you, man. If he really was there that night, he'll know you and if you go in there, we ain't getting shit out of anybody. I'll handle it." Snyder reached into the back seat and pulled out a pair of glasses and a black ball cap.