“Hi, Nandi. Mind telling me why you keep grimacing when you move?”
“I hurt my head.” Her upper lip twitches. “I’m fine, though.”
Hundred bucks says she ain’t. “You good enough to help me get these women out of here?”
Hollers and squeals come from the top of the stairs where the skinny girl’s presumably been caught. Something in my gut tells me the freckled inquisitor would have got away. Like recognizes like, and I know well the kind of raw-dogged determination I found in her eyes.
“How do we know we can trust you to do what you say?” Nandi asks, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How do we know you won’t just steal us for yourselves?”
“I opened the door, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” the brunette quips. “But you haven’t let us out yet.”
I turn my head toward her. “Were you going to sit quietly and listen to what I had to say if I had?” I ask. “Because I get the weirdest feeling that you might not have.”
“The man who put you here is on his way back,” Darko informs the women. “We can leave you here for him if you like?”
“Which one?” the brunette asks.
I frown, exchanging a look with Darko before asking, “What do you mean?”
“There are two of them,” Nandi fills in. “They take turns.”
Fuck.“We need to hurry this up,” Darko says, phone in one hand, weeping redhead in the other. “They’ll be here any minute.”
I cast my eye over the women in the room. “You might not trust me yet, but I’m gonna need to trust you if we’re going to pull this off. Do as I say—ask questions later. No fucking running. Andnofucking biting.” I stare at the brunette. “Think you lot can do that?”
She sighs, and then helps the child to her feet. “Can’t be any worse than what’ll happen if we stay.”
Going off the stain on the floor, I’d say it can’t be any worse than what’salreadyhappened.
I take a step back and nod toward the stairs. “You might want to run.”
FIVE
JENNA
Fuck,my head hurts.Sharp stones hidden amongst the grass press through the thin soles of my shoes as I sprint across the field.
The heavy thud of boots belonging to one solid son-of-a-bitch thunder behind me. And much to my frustration, he closes in with each stride I take, the lack of proper nutrition over the past week quickly draining my energy reserves. There’s fuck all on the horizon apart from more shadowy houses in the night, yet I can make out the distant glow of streetlights, which must mean a main road.
People.
A chance to get somewhere protected.
The asshole behind me latches on to my shirt, and his arm wraps around my middle mid-flight, a veritable log bending to encompass my burning ribcage as he uses his weight to take us to the ground. I land roughly half on him and immediately claw the grass to pull away, dirt pushing beneath my nails.
“No! I’m not fucking going back!” I shift tactics when his mass prevents me from going anywhere and gouge my nails into his arm, bucking in his hold. “Let me go.”
“I’m not taking you back.” Like the way he growledthatdoesn’t promise something equally as bad.
He rolls to his back, using both arms to restrain me as I continue to fight. “Sure, buddy.” Gaze fixed on the inked skin banded across my collarbone, I duck my chin, open my mouth, and use the weapons God gave me.
“The hell?” He exclaims as I sink my teeth in. Asshole pulls his arms toward himself, forcing it deeper into my jaw and weakening my bite force. “Just fuckin’ listen for a second, would you?”
“Ligh-en?” I argue around the meat pinned against my tongue and teeth. “Ah oo er reel?”
“We’re not from the same club as the one who probably brought you here, okay?” He manhandles me so that we’re seated together, me pinned sideways over his legs to presumably look me in the eye while we bicker.
