Red Paint: Proceed with Caution
Page 8
She couldn’t get to her feet. She was scared, more so than ever before in the apocalypse. Footsteps crunched as they reached her. Ambrose let out a cry as a heavy boot kicked into her side. “I said, move!”
“Rom!” Someone yelled. Ambrose looked up and around until she spotted another man with a shotgun coming from the building. “God damn it, you idiot! Don’t hurt the goods!” He growled.
Rom must be her abductor. Growling, he reached for Ambrose and yanked her up by the hair yet again. He pushed her along, Ambrose hobbling and stumbling, until they reached the other man. “What the hell happened to you?” He asked Rom.
“Nothing.” Came the response, but Rom’s heavy breathing gave away his pain. Ambrose watched beneath the curtain of her hair as the new man eyed Rom. His eyes minutely widened as he took in the blood dripping from Rom’s side.
“You bit?” The second man asked. Rom must have shaken his head because Ambrose didn’t hear him answer. She watched as the other man chewed a wad of gum. “Bull shit.”
Before Rom could respond, the man turned his gun on Rom and fired. Turning to Ambrose he asked, “You bit?”
“No! Oh God, no. I’m not; I just hurt my ankle. Please! Don’t kill me!”
His eyes roved over her, once, twice. He spat out his gum and said, “Good. We don’t take kindly to the Tainted.”
He grabbed Ambrose by her arm and hulled her inside the building. Candles were laid out everywhere, giving off eerie circles of light. It was a spacious building with crates of food, barrels of water, a hodgepodge of other things, and a flight of steal steps at one end. As they traversed the large room, Ambrose saw a few sleeping bags strewn between stacks of crates. Her attention was shifted when she heard someone descending the steal steps. “What you find, Maurice?”
“Rom brought her in. A shit load of food too.”
“Where’s Rom?”
“Shot him.” Maurice said blandly.
The other man didn’t even flinch. “Fine by me. Didn’t like him anyway. Put her with the others.”
Maurice took her up the flight of steps to the metal walkway that wrapped around the entire room. As they moved onto the landing, Ambrose noticed a grey door that camouflaged well into the wall. Maurice shoved her through and Ambrose found herself limping down a hall with more candles running along the floor. Along the sides of the hall were rooms with large windows covered by thick grey blankets. They walked until they reached the third door on the right which Maurice unlocked.
“Behave, and you’ll get breakfast tomorrow.” Maurice said before shoving her in the room and closing the door behind her. Ambrose heard the sound of the lock click into place. She was trapped. Holy hell, how had this happened?
The room she found herself in was pitch black. Shakily, Ambrose extended her arm before her and tried to locate the wall. She wanted to know the shape of the room, wanted to know what else was in here – if there was anything she could possibly use as a weapon. Her fingers had just made contact with the wall when a voice came through the dark. “Hello?”
Ambrose froze. She knew that voice.
“Blake?”