Silence. And then, “What?” His voice is dangerously even. It betrays absolutely no emotion this time.
“You can have your stuff back, but at a price.”
“Name your terms.”
“My sister.”
“Sister?” He scoffs. “She looked nothing like you.” And I notice that he pointedly uses the past tense of the verb.
My brows pull together and heat rips down my back. I stammer, “Do we have a deal?”
“Do I look like I have a little girl somewhere on my person?”
He growls, “I forget that you humans have such poor eyesight. Let me assure you that I do not.”
“Well, your friends took her. You know where they’re going. You must know where she is,” I say firmly, though I can think of about a dozen reasons why he wouldn’t and about a hundred reasons more why he wouldn’t tell me even if he did.
“Did they look like my friends?” Something vicious simmers through his speech. Something dangerously homicidal. I just hope it’s not my death he’s plotting.
I gulp and feel a faint sheen of sweat glisten along my brow. Stubborn as a freaking ox, I say, “Tell me and you’ll get your sword back.”
“You and I both know that I’m not here for the sword.”
“Tell me where my sister is and you’ll get your sword back,” then I leverage, “help me find her, and I’ll give you back your key.”
The silence stands between us like a bridge neither of us is ready to cross. It’s toxic, effecting everything with a definite doom and gloom. The door flexes around the chair and I hear the sound of it straining. Splinters of wood and chipping lacquer flake off onto the floor. “I am asking out of courtesy, and I will only ask once more. Give me the key.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” I say, voice as loud as I dare make it. “I killed one of your kind tonight...”
“Congratulations!” He raises his voice and barks out a sharp laugh. “But an animal that defends itself is still just an animal and I will have what is mine.”
“You owe me! I saved your life.”
“Saved my life?” I imagine that if I could see him clearly now I’d be infinitely more afraid. “Dragging me into pile of garbage is your rendition of a rescue attempt?” He seems genuinely confused and somehow that confusion hurts me. Saving his life is pretty much the only decent thing I’ve done for a stranger, possibly in forever. I broke rule number eight for him.
I frown. “I could have let you get picked apart by the scavengers. I saved your life and you know it. Without me, you’d have been eaten or tortured or worse.”
“I’m a tough chew to swallow,” he whispers, “You underestimate me.”
I know that, but I don’t admit it. Instead I surge up onto my feet and brandish my sword. Well, his sword, but that’s irrelevant. If I kill him, it’ll be mine again anyways. After, I mean, after I kill him... “Maybe you’re the one underestimating me. I’ll do whatever I have to, to get my sister back and if you don’t tell me what you know about where they’ve taken her, God help me I’ll...”
Before I can finish spewing out my empty threat, the door flies open with one swift jerk and the chair beneath it snaps into pieces. The loner moves into the room and he is huge. He towers over me by a solid foot and a half but I don’t find him frightening until the moonlight washes over his flesh and illuminates the destruction that’s been waged over his form. He’s draped in violence and for the life of me, I can’t understand how he’s still standing. Still breathing, at that.
Burgundy bathes his face and covers his arms from shoulder to wrist. His legs are only halfway healed leaving bits of bloody bone protruding from his skin in a way that’s sickening. Crimson smears decorate his chest and frame gaping bullet holes, but underneath all this I see the very faint pulse of a gentle orange glow. It’s hypnotizing, that aura, but I’m distracted from it when the loner lunges across the room towards me.
He’s quick as a cobra and I just manage to avoid him by rolling backwards over the bed, putting its width between us. I feint to the left, then duck right, keeping the sword angled towards him as I charge. He’s clever, and surprisingly quick for someone his size and moves out from beneath my attack at the very last second. In the span of a breath, he kicks open the bedroom door and pushes the back of my head so that I’m propelled out into the hall and left plunging towards the staircase.
My left cheek, which is already injured, screams in pain when my face connects with the banister. I might have lost an eye had the sword not lodged itself hilt-deep into the drywall and done its work in keeping me upright. I hear him loom up behind me as I collapse onto my knees. I know I don’t have much time, but the serrated edges of the sword are caught on the wall studs and I can’t extract it. Cold touches my ankle and I look back to see that my right leg is caught between his black, steel-toed boots. I’m flat on my stomach and though I don’t have many options, I can see through his tattered black pants and I remember what the Others did to his legs earlier...
Lifting up my left heel, I smash it as hard as I can into his shin. I hear a sharp crackling sound, like bubble wrap exploding. What I don’t expect is the pained roar he releases or the weight of his massive form crashing down to the floor on top of me. I just barely manage to scramble out from under him, down the steps, in time to avoid being impaled completely.
He slinks onto his side and maybe it’s recklessness or just pure, pent-up rage, but I advance on him while he’s down and I hit him as hard as I can in the mouth. I’m pretty sure the punch hurts me more than it does him, but I’m still vindicated when I watch him swab the inside of his cheek with two fingers and pull them back, stained in blood.
I expect him to be furious, but when he looks up at me from my position a few stairs below him, he’s wearing a smile. It’s a small thing, to see him smile, but it makes my stomach clench in ways that I don’t expect.
“Tell me where he’s taken her.” I stare at him from over the tops of my fists, even though he doesn’t look like he’s up for a fight.
He rolls his eyes and eases up against the wall into a sitting position, using the sword as an armrest. Finally he says, “She’s long dead.”
Rule number one dictates that I believe him, but I’ve already broken so many rules today, I figure one more doesn’t hurt. “I don’t believe you, and I don’t give a shit. I want to know for sure.”
“Selflessness will only get you killed in this world,” he sighs, repeating the words Becks said to me not a day earlier. The sad thing is, I’m still alive and she isn’t. “Do you want to die?” His eyes look down at me and even in the non-light, they glimmer.
“I lost the last two members of my family in the span of an evening. I’m already dead.” A sudden fiery emotion blisters my throat. He cocks his head and for a second I think he’s really considering my offer. Then his eyes look past me, becoming distant.
“I’d prepare yourself. It looks like we’re about to have guests.”
I don’t hear anything myself and even though I don’t trust him, I at least trust his hearing. I curse under my breath and reach for the sword even though it’s closer to him than I care to be. I grunt as I pull, but nothing happens. Grunting louder, pulling harder, I’m still not making much progress until I feel his rough hand close around mine.
I hold my breath, preparing to defend myself, but when I glance at his face I see that he’s watching me and though I can’t name the emotion I see in his dark eyes, it’s not homicidal. At least. He gives the sword one swift jerk and hands it back to me.
I don’t know what to say, so I stand over him and mutter, “Just try and look dead or something.”
He closes his eyes and lies back on the floor with a groan.
“Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
I have half a mind to laugh at his calm, especially given that he’s mortally injured and in enemy territory, but I’m distracted from the impetus by distant hollering.
&
nbsp; “Gangs,” I whisper, gritting my teeth.
“Gang,” he corrects, “just one.”
I look down at him. His eyes are closed and a slash of moonlight cuts across his blood-covered chest to reveal no less than half a dozen gaping, bloody mounds. Bullet holes that haven’t closed up yet. Other than that, he’s got the body of a regular human guy. Well, minus the fact that he’s ripped beyond belief and also glowing. Yeah, so there’s that...
The moonlight helps disguise what is very definitely a faint orange light emanating from the space over his heart. I watch it for a moment and notice that it seems to pulse at a slow, but steady metronome. I tilt my head to the left and watch the way the light flares and dies then flares again. It fascinates me for longer than it should. Also because it’s warm. His entire chest emits a faint heat that I find intoxicating.
“Yes?” He catches me watching him, so I straighten up quickly. Too quickly.
I look away from him and am fleetingly thankful for the darkness, which I hope disguises my blush. All business, I ask him, “Can you hear them from here?”
He tilts his head to the left, as if he’s considering lying to me, then in the end decides against it. “Yes.”
“How many are there?”
He pauses, as if to think. “Seven, maybe eight.”
“Any women?” When I speak my voice is an entire octave higher.
“No.” And I shudder as his tone dips and chills, becoming as icy as the night air around us. “But I will not allow them to dishonor you. Kill you, perhaps. But dishonor you, no.”
I make a sound like a horse. “Well that’s comforting,” I say. The funny thing, is that it is.
He cocks his head towards the furthest room at the end of the hall. “You’d best be going.” And just as he says that, I hear the unmistakable crunch of porcelain on the first floor.
An excited voice calls into the space, “Johnny, I’m home.”
* * *
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The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 38
