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We start up a stairway and the men dragging my lifeless body make no attempt to compensate for the fact the wooden stairs dig into my bare ankles with every step.
“Ow!” One of my shoes is knocked off, then the other a third of the way up the stairs. Son of a— Okay, so going limp was a bad idea.
“Just wait a second, let me get my feet under m—”
They don’t wait.
Bastards.
I lift my feet up so they’ll clear the sharp-edged steps and try to pull out of their hold again as soon as we get to the top of the stairs. I cry out after the man on my left roughly jerks me forward again.
“Let her go.” The command is boomed from a figure down the hall. Even though the two men holding me release their grip, I can’t help taking a step back with them.
The inside of the place is dark. There are tons of windows, but they’re all covered with heavy drapes that create a dark, suffocating atmosphere. From the outside, the building was huge—far too big to be a single residence. My first thought that it’s a resort seems to be correct. Downstairs I briefly glimpsed a huge open common room that might have once been used as a bar or for dancing. Up here there’s a long hallway with doors at regular intervals like rooms at an inn.
In the middle of nowhere. Abandoned.
Just like in The Shining.
Oh God, I’m going to die with an axe buried in my chest.
Because at the other end of the hallway is a huge, hulking man who in the dim light is just a giant silhouette.
The size of him is enough to scare the shit out of me. But I don’t know the half of it.
The next second he takes several steps forward. The light from the single wall sconce barely illuminates his face.
Just enough to see that if this is all a nightmare from hell, then he might be the devil himself.
Four
Big. Huge. Monster.
Shit. Shit! This is the client?
His face. The left side is… the skin looks melted with angry pink lines spidering across his cheek down into his jaw that has a heavy five o’clock shadow. The skin of his left eyebrow is slanted across the corner so that he’s eternally squinting and I’m shocked the eyeball seems still intact. Not to mention that his ear—he wears his thick, dark brown wavy hair long on that side but most of the ear is just—gone.
I can’t help taking a step backward. He’s huge. The hallway looks too small compared to him. He’s got to be what, 6’4 or even 6’5, with shoulders so broad he looks like he might have to turn sideways to fit through doors.
I can’t— I have to get the hell out of here—
“Leave,” the giant, disfigured man barks. The two men behind me immediately flee down the stairs. I take another step backward, about to join them.
“Not you.”
His booming voice freezes me in my tracks.
“There. The doctor’s waiting.” He thrusts an arm out toward the second door on the right down the hall.
Unlike the hallway, the room is brightly lit. It casts a rectangle of yellow light on the otherwise dark hallway.
There’s another person here? Maybe they can help me? If I can just let them know that I’m being kept here against my will, they could—
But what about Dad?
Wait, so do I really think the deal is still on after they blindfolded and manhandled me here?
I still hurry inside the room. Anything is welcome if it means getting away from the terrifying beast in the hallway.
“Examine her,” his low voice demands from behind me.
I startle forward even quicker into the bright light of the room.
The room, like everything else in the place, is all wood, but the window dressing and bedding is done in whites and grays.
My eyes quickly zero in on the petite brunette woman in her mid-forties, dressed in scrubs. She has a small table full of instruments and is standing beside the large bed that dominates the center of the room.
She looks past me and nods, I assume at the giant, then steps back and gestures toward the bed. “You’ll need to remove your clothing for the examination.”
My mouth drops open. And then I feel my cheeks flame.
Bracing myself, I turn back to the door. I keep my eyes somewhere in the vicinity of his giant chest. The dark-gray and blue flannel shirt he’s wearing appears to be straining at the seams to contain his biceps.
Oh God, oh God, what have I done by putting my life in this man’s hands? Still I manage to find my voice. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yes.”
One word is all I get.
I steel myself. “Where is my father being taken?”
“To a place where he’ll be free of the reach of the United States government. And anyone else who might wish him harm.”
