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I shake my head. More factoids and fragments of memories are starting to resurface in the black, turbulent ocean of my thoughts.
The SUV… Grille like bared teeth… NSYNC on the radio… “Bye, bye, bye…”
Theykidnappedme. They fucking put a bag over my head and snatched me away.
I knock Anton’s hand off my shoulder and scramble backwards on my hands like a crab. “You… you…” I wheeze. I bump into the wall and yelp, then steel myself and use it to get on my feet. Everything hurts more now that I’m standing. It’s a miracle I don’t fall back down.
The panic is real and surging so that I have to swallow it. “I don’t need to see him. I… I… I…”
Over Anton’s head, I see the glowing rectangular outline of a door that leads to the outside world. Nothing has ever looked more tempting. But I’m weak and feeble, and I don’t think—whether he’s my father’s old friend or not—that Anton is going to let me just walk out of here.
“He just needs a word, Sloanie. Don’t worry.”
Anton smiles again, but it isn’t much consolation. He can smile all he wants, but it won’t change the fact that I’m beaten and bruised, stuck in some godforsaken murder zone of a warehousewithout so much as a phone in my pocket or a way out, and I’m being guarded by someone I thought was a friend but is looking more and more like he’s the exact opposite of that.
So yeah, I am a little bit past worried. A touch beyond panicked. “Nuclear meltdown” is right around the corner, and we’re getting there in a hurry.
I look around the place, but it’s mostly cobwebby shadows and rusted metal contraptions crawling with tetanus. If this were a spy movie, maybe I’d cartwheel into a MacGyver’d ladder thingamajig and be on my merry way, with a witty quip thrown over my shoulder for good measure.
But this isn’t a spy movie.
This is real life.
And in real life, I’m fucked.
I swallow hard and focus back on my captor. “What does he want to talk to me about?”
Anton shakes his head. “That’s his business, not mine.”
“And kidnapping me was the only way to have a conversation?”
“I don’t question Bo—I mean, the Bloodhound.” He shakes his head. Long strands of greasy, stringy blond hair fall over his eyes. He’s a couple months overdue for a haircut, although he’s clean-shaven and his clothes are mostly unwrinkled.
I’m still white-knuckling the nearest windowsill, probably because it’s the only thing keeping me on my feet.
But when I hear a sound at the far end of the warehouse, my grip doubles down.
The door I was looking at as salvation just a moment ago creaks open. It drags over the concrete, screaming like nails on a chalkboard, and sunlight lances in to break up the shadows clustered there.
A foot steps through. Heavy, booted, dangerous.
Another foot.
A pair of legs. Sturdy and thick.
The waist and torso of a man. The rest of him comes through, too, though he’s silhouetted into pure black by the light behind him.
He turns and closes the door. My mouth tastes like old pennies and blood.
The door closes much more quietly than it opened. Somehow, that’s ominous. The sound of the man’s breathing is ominous. The scent of the air is ominous.
Then he turns, and a face I never wanted to see in a scenario like this broadens into a pleased smirk.
“Well, well, well.” His voice is a rasping growl, low and deep, and my skin prickles with fear. The Bloodhound knows how to use it like a weapon.
“What do you want?” They’re the only words I can manage because I am fully overcome with terror now. It’s in me from tip to toe, mixed up with the headache, a churning mess of nausea and pain and fear.
Only one thought tethers me to reality:I wish Beck was here to save me. To saveus.
