Prologue
Kidnappers Should Not Have Plump Lips.
“Life is interesting.Why, you ask?Mostly because I never thought I’d be kidnapped by an Italian gigolo.But here we are.Also, I just saw a man turn into a panther.So, there’s that, too.”~Katy
“So this is how my life ends.”Katy sighed and attempted to twist her wrists in a very futile effortto loosen the cable ties securing them.“In a white van.Very cliche, by the way.”She rolled her eyes at Antonio and the other sleazy looking dude sitting next to her.“I mean, you couldn’t come up with something more original than kidnapping me in a white van?”
“Seriously?”Antonio snapped and ran a hand through his hair while his gaze darted around the vehicle.Katy noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead and his disheveled-looking clothes.Veryun-Antonio.“That’s what you’re concerned about?That we didn’t get a fancy car to take you in?”
Katy shrugged.“I’m just saying.Maybe you’ve all watched one too many movies where the chick gets abducted and thrown into a white van.But that’s not the point.”She shook her head and blew out a quick breath in an attempt to get her hair out of her face.“The point is, I’m going to die?—”
“You’re not going to die.”He heaved a deep sigh.
“And no one will know all the great things I would have done in my life.”Katy kept talking as if he hadn’t just rudely interrupted her grieving moment.“I mean, c’mon, man.Did you think I planned to work in a pizza place forever?Did you thinkthatwould be my only contribution to society?”
“What plans did you have?”A smooth voice from beside her asked.
She turned her head to look at Sleazeball Number One.That’s how she’d come to think of the three men in the van.Sleazeball Number One had bleached-blond hair, green eyes, an eyebrow ring, thin lips, and a surprisingly seductive voice.He could have been cute in a punk rocker sort of way, if his gaze wasn’t creepily crawling all over her.And if he wasn’t, you know, a kidnapper.Sleazeball Number Two was the driver.He had pitch black hair, eyes that were also black, which was eerie, but were most likely dark brown in the proper light, because who in the world had black eyes?He had a very square jaw that could no doubt handle a pretty strong punch and very plump lips… which annoyed her.Kidnappers should not have plump lips.That left Sleazeball Number Three.A man she’d known for three years.And though she’d known he was a douchebag, she’d never thought he was capable of something so despicable as abducting a person.I seriously need to reconsider my ability to judge a person’s character.
A snapping sound brought her attention back to Sleazeball Number One.
“You in there?”He snapped his fingers in her face again.
Katy darted forward, her mouth ready to take a finger off, but he pulled his arm back before she could clamp down.“It’s rude to snap your fingers in a person’s face.”
“It’s also rude not to answer a question,” he countered.
Katy scoffed.“I don’t think anything I do with respect to you three could be considered rude.You’re abducting me.It’s pretty much par for the course for me to be a complete bitch.The audience would cheer me on.”
“Can’t argue with you there.”Sleazeball Number One nodded his head and folded his arms across his chest before leaning back into the seat.“But we digress.You were just about to tell us of all the things you planned to share with this world, should you not have been taken against your will, which could possibly end in your untimely demise.”
She narrowed her eyes on him.She greatly disliked that he seemed to have a first-rate vocabulary.Kidnappers should sound like thugs.She crossed her ankles and shifted in her seat in an attempt to find a more comfortable position, but the seats were hard as rocks, and there must have been a broken spring where she sat because something kept poking her in the butt.“I was going to go to college, then veterinary school, and then study endangered species and save them.”
“I never knew that.”
Her head swiveled to look at Antonio where he sat on the opposite side of Sleaze ball Number One.Antonio’s brow drew low as he studied her.
“It wasn’t your business,” Katy said simply.
“Endangered species, you say?”Sleazeball Number Two asked from the driver seat.It was the first time he’d spoken since she’d been shoved—kicking and slapping and clawing but not screaming because screaming in New York City wouldn’t even earn a person a passing glance, so what was the point?—into the van.“It just might be your lucky day, Little Girl.You could get to help with that without going to college for ten years.”
As she stared at his eyes in the rearview mirror, she noticed, for the first time, that his pupils were vertical slits.Katy blinked and then looked again.Nope, she wasn’t imagining things.They still looked like reptilian eyes.And they were no longer black, but now seemed to be a golden color.He smiled at her, and her gaze dropped to his mouth.She saw a row of razor-sharp teeth that were definitely not human.“What the…” She breathed out while her mind moved a mile a minute, attempting to reason out what she was seeing.
“I think our guest is starting to see past the glamour.”Sleazeball Number Two looked back at the road.
Katy looked at Sleazeball Number One and noticed he watched her intently.Likeshewas the one with the creepy eyes and piranha teeth.She studied his face in turn as she thought back to all the things Lola had told her and Maddie.How she’d seen the features of the new guys they’d met in No Name Pizza change, revealing their animal nature.“Beastwalkers,” she whispered.Sleazeball Number One’s face shimmered when the moonlight lit it up briefly.Scales.He had scales on his face.
“In the flesh.”Sleazeball Number One smiled.His lips stayed closed, leaving her to wonder if he, too, had pointy teeth.Though when he spoke, she hadn’t noticed them being pointy.
“You hadn’t noticed the scales, either,” she muttered to herself.
“I’m Slick.”Sleazeball Number One said with a bow of his head.
“Of course you are,” Katy said dryly.
Slick just smirked and then motioned with his head to the driver.“And that’s?—”
“The Head Boy of Slytherin House?”Her eyes darted to Sleazeball Number Two, who simply chuckled.
