“I—”
“That wasn’t a cue for you to start making excuses, you fucking idiot.”
He looked back down at me. Our eyes met. I saw such fury, such anger, such…something.
Something that I couldn’t quite place glowed in his eyes. I wanted to say it was yearning or hope, but that sure as hell didn’t fit the context of anything.
“It’s her, all right,” the man said. “David, make her ready. Gently.”
“What—”
Before I could finish my sentence, a cloth came over my face. I struggled, but I was no match for David and whoever else grabbed my feet. I could feel consciousness slipping away, and before I could get an arm free, let alone completely escape, my world went to black.
* * *
When I came to, I was in the corner of a musky, chilly room.
But, strangely, I had a sweater on.
My back was sore, exactly at the spot where Dave or whatever his name was had poked me hard in the back with the gun. Nothing else about me hurt, though—which brought enormous relief. I was sure that I was about to be gangraped at best, killed at worst.
But as far as I could tell at the moment, nothing had been done to me.
Well, nothing to that level. I was obviously terrified by the fact that I’d been kidnapped and hidden away in some musty old room.
There wasn’t much light, but my eyes slowly adjusted to what there was. It looked like an old office room, but one that hadn’t been used in ages; whenever I saw zombie movies with offices that had had mold, spiderwebs, and dust accumulate in them, that was what I saw. There wasn’t anyone else in here.
I thought about screaming for help, but something told me Ash hadn’t rescued me and set me up for a surprise welcome home.
Ash…
I guess it wasn’t as easy as just telling myself I was moving on for me to actually move on.
And then something strange hit me.
The scent of food.
But not just food.
Warm food, like pizza.
Pizza?
It seemed almost too good to be true. It wasn’t so fresh as to have just gotten out of the oven, but I could definitely smell warm pizza. I stood up—my legs were still functioning; I took nothing for granted at this point—and followed my nose.
And sure enough, on a table, half-open, was a box with an entire pizza in it. Part of me wondered if it was a trap, but I was starving.
I took a slice.
And nothing happened.
I finished two slices, waiting forsomethingto strike at any moment. Poison, an ambush, an alarm, something that would be out of aSawmovie—but nothing came.
And then the door opened.
“It was King himself who said you should be well fed,” a familiar voice said. “Said a nourished person is a talkative person. Personally, I’d rather beat the answers out of you. But I guess if the fucking boss wants his way, he gets it.”
It took me a second to pinpoint the voice, but by the time he finished talking, I’d honed in on it. It was the guy who stood over me at the kidnapping scene—not David, the other guy. The red-bearded guy.
