Michael and I smile and shrug. Parents.
The two boats we’re using hover just outside the Anselm compound’s radar range in the channel between the mainland and his island.
“Everyone stay sharp, aye?” Kai says. “We’re rescuing an innocent. That comes before gathering intel and ideally, just killing that Danish fuck.”
I’m planning on action items one and three for myself, but no need to argue with my brother right now.
“Ya lavvy heided bamstick!” Scottish slang for “You toilet headed dipshit!”
“Haud yer wheesht, ye nyaff!” - Scottish slang for “Shut the hell up, you idiot!”
Chapter Eight
In which Arabella finds that she’s either considered a party trick or a lab rat.
Arabella…
A few hours earlier…
“What am I saying now?”
This fecking guy.
The guard’s been mouthing words at me for two hours now, grinning like this is a carny sideshow and I’m even more exciting than the world’s tallest man or the bear-faced girl.
When they first put me in this bedroom and chained me to the bed, I was terrified. I obediently repeated the first ten things he’d mouthed at me. Now? I’m just raging.
“What am I saying now?” The guard shakes the chain my ankle’s attached to, looking irritable.
Keep your temper, hold your tongue…
“I dinnae need to be looking at your ugly face to know that you’re saying, ‘Hey, I’m a minging arsehole!’ I’m not a fecking party trick.” I snap, moving as far away as the length of the chain will allow me. Ach, I have no sense of self-preservation.
His sneering grin turns into something darker and he stalks over to me, fists tightening. “Dumme tæve,dumb bitch!” The eejit pauses, head cocked. “Perfect! Though it isdeafand dumb, is it not?”
“Aye, that’s what they called it maybe in the 1950’s,” I manage a sarcastic bit of a laugh, which is probably ill-advised, since I’m the one in chains. “Ye canna even come up with a more creative insult? Put some effort into it.”
“Døv og stum tæve,deaf and dumb bitch,” he snarls.
His hand is up, ready to hit me and I grab a pillow, like my feather-filled defense is going to stop him.
“Christoffer!” It’s nearly a shout, loud enough for me to hear and it’s from the Head Bastard in Charge, the one who threatened to shoot Roger in my classroom. He’s standing in the doorway, irritably gesturing at the guard - Christoffer, I’m guessing - who was about to punch me, fist still raised. He angrily leaves the room and Head Bastard in Charge stares at me, lips pursed.
“You should shut up,” he says. “They will just kill you sooner.”
Kill…?
“If ye feckers are gonna kill me anyway, I’m not shutting up.”
There’s the stupid bravado and defiance that got me through school when other kids would sneak up behind me and rip off my backpack, or yank at my hair.
He gives me a creepy, flat grin with all his teeth showing and leaves, shutting the door behind him. The wood shakes slightly and I suspect that means he’s locked it. The chain’s too short to reach the door anyway, so it’s not like it matters.
I’m not going to think about what he said. I canna let myself spiral. Drawing my legs up, I wrap my arms around them, rocking slightly. How long did it take yesterday until my students alerted the faculty that I was missing? I think it was yesterday. The head bastard plunged a needle into my arm after they threw me in the back of a maintenance van and I woke up on a helicopter flying to this oceanfront estate. I dinnae know how long it’s been but the sun’s angle looks like it’s early afternoon, around the time I was taken.
The only bright moment I’d had was vomiting everything I’d eaten in the last week all over the guard sitting next to me.
I’m trying not to blame Logan. He dinnae know. And there were three of them. But he said I was safe, damnit!
