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“Wild thing—”
She steps out—no, she’spushedout by someone else who holds her from behind, his hand covering her mouth.
“Mr. Crone, a feisty little thing you got here,” the raspy low voice says, sending chills all the way to my core.
A dozen thoughts flicker in my mind all at once.
Who is he?
How?
He’s not supposed to be here.
What the fuck is his fucking hand doing on Kat’s mouth?
My stomach lurches. I register his bleeding nose before Kat’s eyes widen at something behind me, and she struggles against his hand and makes an articulate sound in an attempt to scream.
There’s a momentary soft sound of hurried footsteps behind me.
A rustling of clothes.
That pungent smell is suddenly too strong.
I start turning, but something collides with my head, searing me with sharp pain, and I sink into darkness.
50
KAT
It doesn’t matterhow much you are trained to avoid danger, nothing prepares you for a sudden assault from behind.
I open my eyes and blink, trying to adjust to the bright lightbulb above me.
It’s the only thing hanging on a wire off a dark-gray ceiling.
It’s cold, I’m on my side, my shoulder numb, my body unusually heavy, and my hands won’t spread too far. There’s a sound of metal clinking against a hard surface—handcuffs. I’m handcuffed and chained to something!
I close my eyes, trying to fight through the sharp pain in my head that almost makes me lose consciousness again. The smell of chloroform is still in my nostrils, strong and pungent. I manage all my strength and sit up, slowly blinking, trying to adjust to the light.
Archer’s on the floor next to me. His strong body is clad only in board shorts and seems lifeless.
“Archer?”
It all slowly comes back to me through the haze in my brain. The thugs. The nasty hand over my mouth. Me headbutting one of them. Guns.“Be quiet, or I’ll hurt him.”
Then darkness.
Now I look at Archer’s body on a concrete floor and try to shake the sight off like it’s a bad dream.
“Archer,” I whisper, then get on all fours and crawl toward him. “Archer!” I shake him.
There’s blood in his hair—they hit him on his head, but as I shake him again, a grunt escapes him, and he moves.
I sit on my haunches and wait for him as he slowly comes to it, grunting, and rises to sit up. He stares at the handcuffs around his wrists, then the chain—both of them lead to the wall, attached to a metal hook—then at me.
“We were kidnapped,” I say and look around.
Something is not right with my body—I feel sedated, weak. Chloroform won’t do it, it’s a short-term drug, and my body is numb like I’ve been lying here for hours.
