Mila’s throat closed up. That meant several things. It meant that she had evidence and it meant that any clean-up crew to hide any evidence had to have noticed that she might have recorded everything. It wasn’t paranoid to think someone might be might after her. It was logical, especially with her so generously leaving all her identification behind at the scene of the crime.
Accounting didn’t seem like a concern anymore. Balancing a check book and remembering the difference between Accrual Based Accounting and Cash Basis Accounting dropped off the priority list. Time for pride to take a back seat. If she had her phone, she would have called her dad. Even he, the cold sonnovabitch, had to want to help his only daughter out of this mess. Mila knew the rules. If someone was coming after you, make it as annoying as possible for them. Hiding up in a house might sound like a good idea until they learned where you lived and came for you without anyone to see. No. She had to get her stuff and bail immediately. Keep near witnesses. Move unexpectedly. Notify the authorities. The idea made her sick. Before, it was mostly fear talking. Now, fear and logic had teamed up. Not only was it possible that someone was after her, but it was reasonable to imagine some werewolf lackeys tracking her even as she opened the door to her apartment.
Mila doubled over and gagged from the nerves. The concrete floor seemed far away as Mila remembered the howls of the fight. Her brain jumped aboard the Freak Mila The Fuck Out bandwagon and conjured vivid scenes of the great shaggy beast looming over her and reaching down and…
Mila straightened. Fear helped sometimes, like it had when she was running away from the fight. Without that adrenaline pumping through her brain, she would have remembered that her conditioning was wildly unimpressive, and she got winded walking to her truck before work sometimes. Her elf genetics helped her stay in shape without having to do much, but really…her conditioning wasn’t nearly as good as she had liked to tell herself. Of course, for every time fear had helped her out, it had thwarted her much more often, from the first time that she’d taken a driving test and was so nervous that she’d accelerated straight into the DMV office to the time she overthought a scholarship acceptance speech to the point where she walked up in front of everyone and awkwardly said, “um, I, um,” and walked off in humiliated defeat.
This was one of the times where fear was more an adversary than a help. Letting it get int other head would drive her insane. She had to be smart, not paranoid. Paranoid people made poor decisions and ended up getting themselves in bad situations, and there was still a chance that nobody saw the camera. They would have had to have noticed before the fight because after someone landed on the front, it had been crushed. Mila sighed. Overthinking. It was a deadly curse. The worst thing she could do was stand outside in the open. In or out.
Mila opened the door to her apartment. Illumination filled the room, which is what she expected. She left the lights on when she went to work sometimes so people wouldn’t know when she saw home. Nothing moved, which was odd.
“Sir Pugsly!” She chirped to the living room as she closed the door and locked it. “Sir Pugsly, I’m here, buddy!”
The sound of paws frantically hauling towards her made her smile despite all the stuff she’d been through. No matter what, Sir Pugsly the Third was there for her. She tracked the frenzied footsteps until he broke into her sight by the couch. The pudgy, pampered pug lost control of his movement like a race car with a blowout and skidded into the coffee table, which he hit with a delightful wheeze and a grunt. Not to be deterred, he kicked it into third gear and sprinted as best as he could over to Mila, licking her legs and yipping proudly. Mila crouched and played with the little fella, who was far too excited that she was back to stay still for even a second.
“Hey, hey.” She gently booped his nose. “Calm down, Pugsly. You’re going to get tired.”
Sir Pugsly the Third didn’t care if he got tired. Sir Pugsly couldn’t control himself and he was fine with everyone knowing, running laps around Mila’s ankles and licking her kneecaps, which felt strange, but it seemed to please him to do it, so Mila had finally given up trying to stop him. She’d had him for close to two years. When she first moved into the flaTs, she decided to get a guard dog to protect her since it was an isolated neighbourhood and they allowed pets. She’d gone down to the shelter with the intention of finding a German Shepherd or a Bulldog or something that would scare away intruders. And yet…she would never forget the first time she saw Sir Pugsly the Third, sitting in a kennel with his bugged-out pug eyes facing different directions, panting without a care in the world and with the stupidest happy expression.
She left that day not with a ferocious guard dog but with a loyal companion. She ceremoniously named him Sir Pugsly the Third because it was a regal name and he needed all the help he could get in that regard. For all his annoying quirks, Mila wouldn’t have traded him for anything. Once, Mila made the mistake of buying a night stand and replacing her old one without consulting first with Sir Pugsly. For a solid month, every night Mila woke up at random hours to Sir Pugsly sounding the alarm to warn her of the terrible threat near her bed. During the day, it was regarded with suspicion but not direct violence. During the night, it was an assassin after Mila’s own life. The amount of times she’d had to pull his furious, ineffective body away from the unlucky nightstand was through the roof. Sir Pugsly and the nightstand had an uneasy truce now, but Mila lived in constant fear that one day, their legendary battles would again commence.
No, Sir Pugsly was not a guard dog. He sounded the alarm at literally everything not threatening, from Mila pouring cereal to a suspicious backpack leaning against the wall, but he tended to fail otherwise.
So, it didn’t come entirely as a surprise that he hadn’t warned her of the man standing in the doorway of her bedroom.
Chapter 5
Mila’s heart caught in her throat and her petting came to a gentle stop. Sir Pugsly missed the dread in her eyes and happily used his miniature tongue to lick on her fingers while she was held hostage in her own apartment.
A man watched her from the inside of her room. He must’ve been snooping, or at least waiting for her to get home and staying out of sight. Mila refused to believe this was happening. This was like an episode of NCIS and the viewer was grimacing in preparation for Mila to get strangled. She opened her mouth to scream out, but the man gestured silently to the chrome handgun in his hand. A warning. He stepped into the light to show himself more… and he was not what Mila expected.
The first thing Mila noticed was the gun and the silencer on the end. The second thing was that he was built like a professional line-backer in an expensive silk onyx suit, lean and brawny with a defined jaw that was strong enough to fight its own battles. The last thing that stood out was the variety of dog treats in one hand, with white dog hair that seemed suspiciously like Pugsly’s strewn across his chest. He looked like the sort of guy she’d love to have in her apartment if he wasn’t holding a gun and hadn’t broken in.
Mila’s first reaction was fear, but right after that came anger at Pugsly, who was supposed to protect the apartment but who had apparently been bought out by the treats. Pugsly remained perfectly unaware of what’d he’d done wrong and stared blankly at Mila.
Mila stood up and took a step to the door slowly. He hadn’t shot her yet, so probably he didn’t want to. That was the bet, anyway. The stranger’s sharp golden eyes gave him away as a werewolf if Mila had any doubt why he was there.
He wagged the tip of the gun at her. “Don’t make a sound.”
Mila focused on his face. If he was willing to shoot her, this was the time to tell. She couldn’t read him. He was stone-facing her, so Mila was forced to try to talk her way out of it. That or fight but fighting a werewolf would not end well for her.
“I’m here to talk.”
Mila glared at Sir Pugsly, who at this point still panted stupidly without a care in the world. “Yeah? Funny way to talk. I’m free tomorrow. Coffee?”
Whene
ver Mila got nervous, she started talking. It was part of why she worked in a bar; she wasn’t your average gal, and unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time someone had pointed a gun at her. It was, however, the first time without witnesses in her apartment.
He took a step towards her. “Stop. Moving. You’ll force my hand. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Mila held her hands out to her sides and kept maintaining eye contact with him. She’d read somewhere that if she managed to establish a connection, he would be less likely to attack. Or was that bears? “I’m not doing anything.”
Mila’s eyes darted to the side, to the tiny kitchen. More specially, she looked past the dirty dishes and sticky notes on the fridge to the knife rack. Could she make it to it in time? This was just like one of those self-defence classes she’d taken, but this time it was the real deal. No time for screwing up, and her apartment wasn’t big enough for him to transform and not have to crouch. She’d be fighting him as a man, which didn’t seem like a great idea, but it sounded a hell of a lot better than going with whatever he wanted. Yeah…talk. Talk about killing her.
She bought time. “I’m listening.”
“I represent the Deadwoods.”
“The Deadwoods?” Her voice shuddered with fear and she dropped to her knees. “P-please don’t hurt me!”
Mila didn’t give a damn who he worked for, but she was pulling the ole’ switcheroo. The worst thing she could do was act non-compliant. Deadwood werewolves were one of the oldest and most secretive clans around, which meant they practically lived like emperors. They were used to people cowering in front of them and besides, the more she could act like a whimpering mess, the less he’d watch what she was doing with her hands. It worked…partially. He faltered, but he didn’t lower the gun. The personality change was too abrupt. Time to sell it some more.
“A-are you here to kill me?” She sounded straight out of a horror movie, complete with the hint of a tear starting to appear in the corners of her eyes.
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Obviously it wasn’t working completely. He hadn’t bought it. He was still shopping. She could tell the cogs in his mind were still turning. He took a suspicious step towards her, gun lowered. At least he’d decided she wasn’t a threat, which was a good first step. Mila cowered from him, finding it easier than she’d hoped to fake the fear, and scrambled away from the front door towards the rest of the kitchen. In the moment where she was hidden from him because of the miniature island, she grabbed a weapon. She wasn’t near the knives, unfortunately, but what she was close to was the rolling pin someone had given her for her eighteenth birthday, imported straight from Italy. She wasn’t much of a pie person, so she’d left it to chill between the oven and the cabinet to not make the gift-giver feel bad.
Sir Pugsly finally pieced together that Mila was upset and scared, but instead of correctly labelling the scary intruder as the reason, he gave Mila’s kneecap a reassuring lick before barking at the Crock-Pot on the counter.
“Get up. You don’t have much time.”
“Do I have a ch-choice?”
“No.”
“Leave me alone!” She begged, doing her best impression of a sobbing hostage. All she had to do was think about what Bianca might do in her situation and it came naturally.
Finally, it happened. The werewolf grabbed at her. She knew it was only a matter of time because he kept getting closer and closer using soothing words so she wouldn’t yell, but once he could silence her, that’s when he would surely do his dirty work.
Mila curled into a ball, as defenceless as a kitten and hiding the rolling pin against her chest. “Why are you doing this?”
“You saw something you shouldn’t have.” His voice was tight and pained. Mila felt the cold barrel of the gun press against her temple and it suddenly got a lot easier to act scared. “For what it’s worth…I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do it this way.” The werewolf stood over her, jaw clenched and gun at her head. “Get up. You’re coming with me. Comply, and you will be unharmed.”
Mila didn’t comply. In fact, Mila did the exact opposite of comply. There was about a thirty percent chance he wanted to talk it out and that he didn’t intend to shoot her, that she would be taken elsewhere and treated to a polite discussion. There was also about a seventy percent chance that wherever she was going would be much worse than doing what she did: fight back.
The thing about hitting someone with a rolling pin that Mila learned was that it mattered where you hit them. A big, tough guy like him wouldn’t be hurt if she whacked him in the arm. However, fighting fair didn’t exist and the situation was already in his favour as much as possible, so she swung approximately twelve inches of authentic Italian culture as hard as she could up between his spread legs.
He let out a gasp and doubled over. Mila didn’t stand around. She took advantage of the opportunity by rearing back the pin again and whacking him across the face with it like she was Babe Ruth swinging for the fences. The unexpectedly resilient pin knocked his jaw to the side and staggered him. It had less impact on him than Mila had hoped, but it was still enough for her to knock the gun out of his hand and run after it. The weapon skittered across the floor and came to a stop under the coffee table, about fifteen feet away.
Rolling pins. Tazer. Pepper spray. All of them were things you used against someone to deter them and, at the moment, the intruder was pretty well deterred. Mila made a mad dash across the floor towards the gun, knowing it was the only thing that would keep him from killing her once the pain from his nuts and jaw wore off. She snatched the gun and turned to level it at her attempted killer victoriously.
Mila didn’t like using dirty tactics like that. One time, she’d had a romantic partner who enjoyed getting ball-busted and Mila got uncomfortably aware of how much a good whack to a man’s sack could hurt. A strike like that from the bowling pin would keep any man down for a little while at least, so when she turned she expected to see the guy still doubled over and cursing and possibly crying, where she’d calmly hold him at gunpoint until she could think of a better plan.
She did not.
She saw him about two feet away, charging her with a furious expression.
Mila didn’t have time to fire a shot before he tackled her like a rugby player. In the next half a second, time stopped, and she looked down at the man with his shoulder in her chest and the momentum he brought from his charge. This…this was going to hurt. She guessed the man to be an easy two hundred pounds, and she was about to take all of him landing on her. She directed the gun at his head in the crawling time, thinking quite rationally with her adrenaline-filled mind. He would stun her, but she could shoot him before, and then he couldn’t do anything to her. The barrel turned closer. Closer. An inch, then half an inch. The end moved to the back of his head and Mila squeezed the trigger.
They landed. More specifically, Mila landed, and the guy landed like a two-ton gorilla on her chest. All the air in her lungs whooshed out and the two rolled to the floor. The gun went off with a silenced Pff and hit one of the walls.
Mila’s lungs screamed for oxygen and she got none. The gun fell out of her hand from the shock of landing and she slumped like a ragdoll. Coughing and gasping, she rolled up and hugged her chest. It didn’t feel like she’d broken anything, just that she wouldn’t be able to breathe or think for a while.
The werewolf stumbled up, one hand firmly grasping his crotch. A thin stream of blood dripped onto his well-trimmed beard from the rolling pin earlier. “Fuck! I’m trying to protect you! Stop fighting!”
Mila gasped for air and a concerned Sir Pugsly came over and licked her nose as the werewolf massaged his sack. If she was capable, she would’ve gotten up and kept struggling. “You’re great at it.”
“You weren’t supposed to fight!” He produced a blindfold and tried to wrap it around her eyes.
Mila squirmed away from him, which was the most impressive physical activity she could
manage at the time. “Fuck you!”
Despite her best efforts, he secured her hands behind her back and roped her ankles together until, finally, it was time for her face. He held her head still. Sir Pugsly still utterly failed to do anything as her kidnapper promptly tied her up and went in for the gag.
“Wait, wait!” This time, her pleas weren’t fake. She was beaten. She couldn’t even move her legs, because he was sitting on her chest and pinning her. The physical route hadn’t worked. She met his eyes and searched for some sign of humanity in those bright irises. “Please. Whatever you’re getting paid, it’s not worth it. I haven’t done anything wrong! I won’t say anything!”
He could have easily forced her to bite the gag. She wasn’t nearly as strong as him and, as helpless as she was, it would’ve been easy. Instead, he held back. “I told you I wanted to talk. I only used my gun when you wouldn’t stop running.”
Mila expected him to lie, or threaten her, or honestly, anything. She was completely vulnerable, and she knew a whole bunch of guys who would hop on that opportunity. Her arms and legs were already tied up, and she was pretty sure she could feel his junk pressed against her chest while he pinned her.
Instead, a truth shone in his voice when he spoke gently, even while wincing from what she assumed was the crotch shot earlier. “You’ll understand later. Trust me. I’m saving your life.”
Pugsly bit on his hands as Mila tried to hold him off from putting the gag on her mouth by twisting, but he didn’t strike the pug or do anything.
The Deadwolves' Prisoner Page 4
