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To that, he gave me a smile that showed some teeth and, let me tell you, it was effective. "Renny, can you go get us some coffee?"
Renny looked between us and nodded, not so much as glancing at Duke on his way out.
"There. That better?" Reign asked.
"I don't have an objection to him per say. I just..." I lifted a hand a little helplessly and let it fall.
"Get it," Reign nodded, moving back a few feet at the same time that Duke moved forward. It was so perfectly timed that it was almost synchronized and, therefore, practically funny.
"How's the pain?" Duke asked, reminding me why, out of all of them I had met so far, he was the one I felt most inclined to trust.
I looked at him and answered honestly. "It feels like I got beat up."
"Well, I'd be a little worried if you felt like you had a vacation in Fiji," he said, moving toward the empty side of the bed and sitting on the edge of it, but bringing a leg up on it so he could turn to face me. "What can you tell us, baby?"
The endearment made a fluttering overtake my insides for a long second, reminding me how long it had been since a man fed me one.
I took a breath, shaking my head.
It was all so insane, so ridiculous, so unbelievable.
"I dunno. When I left Bella's I kind of felt like I was being followed. But I figured I was being paranoid because this was a new town and all. I brushed it off and went home. Then the next morning, I was walking out of the lot of my apartment building to go grab coffee... and something slammed down on the back of my head. I was out a second later. I didn't see any car or anything," I said, looking at Duke and then Reign a little apologetically.
"It's alright," Duke said with a shrug. "Did you wake back up?"
I nodded, the memories slowly coming back, blurry around the edges like a dream sequence in a movie, then slowly clearing up, getting crisper. And as that happened, the feelings seeped back in as well.
Nothing had ever felt like waking up on that cold concrete floor. Ever. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I finally understood that saying 'blood turned cold'. Mine did. I felt like ice ran through my veins, making me freeze all over, making my heart slow down and slam harder like it was trying to fight off hypothermia.
"I woke up in some abandoned building."
"How did you know it was abandoned?" Reign prompted.
"It was filthy. The floor was dirty and old leaves and dusty crates were all over."
"Did the crates have names on them?" Reign continued his gentle, but somehow also firm, interrogation.
I took a deep breath, trying to focus on them in my memory. "Um. They were a faded white and green with, ah, GG Greens written on them?" I asked, looking at Duke who shook his head like he had no idea, then to Reign who was nodding.
"It's an old farm where they used to do hayrides and scarecrow stuffing and shit. You were probably in the gift shop of it. It closed a decade ago."
I nodded, not having anything to add to that.
"Were you alone?" Duke pressed.
I shook my head, looking down at my hands for a second. "No. There were two guys there, standing half the store away and arguing quietly."
"Were they American?" Reign asked, oddly.
"American?" I asked, brows furrowing. "Like did they look cornfed?" I asked with a weird smile.
"Did they have accents, babe?" he corrected. "Or speak in another language."
"Oh. Yeah, no. They were speaking English and when they spoke to me, there was maybe a hint of a New York accent."
"What did they look like?"
See, this was the hard part.
I would sit and watch those stupid TV crime shows and they would bring the victim or witness in with one of those police sketch artists and roll my eyes or marvel at the idea of being able to describe features. I sucked at that. I once described Hugh Jackman to a coworker as 'that guy with the V-shaped face and sideburns'. It took her the better part of an hour to figure out who I meant.
"They were both tall. But, I mean, to me... everyone is tall," I said, gesturing toward my short legs. "But maybe like... Renny's height?" I guessed, brows drawing together. "But they were darker. Dark hair, dark eyes. They were white but had a bit of a tan skin tone."
"Black hair or dark brown?" Reign asked.
"Dark brown. And dark brown eyes too. Almost black, really. They had on slacks and button-ups. All dark colors. They weren't fat or thin or particularly built either. Just... average, I guess."
