AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She continued walking, this time much slower. And as she moved down the sidewalk, the voices grew louder, with coherent words and sentences emerging.
“Well we—how much—he’ll–”
Maddie slowed her pace again, coming to a stop.
“You don’t know—maybe they’ll—”
It wasn't enough. She needed to get closer.
She carefully prodded the way in front of her, and with each step, she could hear more and more. The volume slowly increased until finally, she could make out exactly what they were saying.
“He might not even want to bring her back with us.”
Her?
Maddie froze. Did they have the woman she was with?
“Don't be stupid. You know he will.”
“I'm not being stupid. I'm just saying it would be a lot easier to just leave her here.”
Maddie listened intently. Did she recognize any of these voices? Did any of them sound even remotely familiar?
“Well, we can't—”
“Wait—”
Suddenly, all the voices went silent.
Maddie clutched the knife so tightly in her hand that her palm ached.
“Hey,” a low male voice rumbled beside her.
She recoiled, swinging the knife in his direction.
“Whoa, hey now,” he said with a snicker, but she swore she could hear him take a step back. “Can you—” he paused for a second. “Can you not see me?”
Maddie gritted her teeth. “Stay back."
He let out a loud, barking laugh. “No fucking way." Heavy, scraping steps came toward her. “Glen, you have to see this!”
Before she had a moment to react, a rough hand snatched her wrist that was holding the knife. She tried to pull it back, but he quickly ripped it out of her grasp. Then he grabbed hold of her arm, yanking her forward.
She couldn't decide if it would be better for her to protest immediately or go willingly and try to make a game plan from there. Clearly there were other people with him, so it probably wouldn't do much good to try to fight him off.
She barely managed to swing her cane back and forth as they came to a curb just a second too fast. The ground dropped off below her feet, and she stumbled forward.
“You know each other?” a woman's voice asked, but Maddie could tell the question wasn't directed at her.
“No.”
That voice was familiar, and the spitting anger in it reminded her of when they had first crossed paths. Even so, the familiarity brought her some tiny comfort.
“Hmph,” the man beside her grunted. Then he walked her a few feet farther and shoved her down to her knees.
“Seems weird that you’d both be traveling alone here at the same time,” the woman answered.
“Who saidshewas traveling alone?” the familiar voice replied, now close beside her, to the right.
