“Fuck you, Luke. Just cover me for a second.” It was the tyrant talking. Maddy’s jaw clenched at the same time her fingers tightened around the piece of driftwood. She thought she felt a splinter sink into the pad of her thumb, but couldn’t be sure. Not with her attention eagle-eye focused on the men and their whispered conversation.
Well, it was focused on that and the distinctlackof sound coming from either Bran or Mason. Their silence was unsettling.
The Angel of Death comes on silent wings…
It was a line from a poem she’d read somewhere. But never had it made as much sense as it did in this moment.
But the girls!she wanted to yell.We need to know about the girls!Instead, she bit her bottom lip, welcoming the pain that grounded her.
Tick-tockwent her internal clock.Lub-dubwent her thundering heart.Drip-dropwent a bead of sweat from her temple to her shoulder.
Jesus Christ and all his followers! What’s happenin’ out there?
She didn’t have long to wait for the answer.
“This whole thing is shot to shit,” Luke of the Southern accent griped.
“No, it’snot,” Dustin the Tyrant insisted. “Just because those two meatheads decided to hole up in the ranger’s station instead of trying to rescue the girls, that doesn’t mean we can’t still do the job.” There he went again, using that word.Job.“We just have to get to the boat and—Fuck!” he yelled, causing Maddy to jump. Then his voice dropped to an angry grumble. “Something told me I might be staring down the black hole of your gun again before this night was over.”
“Tit for tat, dicksmack, since I recall you pointing that SCAR-L at me on the beach.”Bran.“Where are the girls?” he demanded.
Maddy stopped breathing as she waited on the answer. Her stomach knotted like someone twisting a wet towel until the fabric screamed with the strain.
“How the hell did y’all get in here?” Southern Accent Luke demanded. “We been watchin’ the entryway—”
“Where are the girls?” Bran’s voice held a world of menace.
“We didn’t hurt them,” the one called Dustin said.
“Good,” Bran answered. “Then toss your weapons my way and tell me where they are.”
For a second, none of the men responded. Finally, the Southerner said, “Once we do that, what’s stoppin’ ya from lightin’ us up?”
“Guess you’ll just hafta trust me,” Bran said.
“Fuck that,” the tyrant spat. “And fuck you.”
“Oh, eh.” Bran laughed. “Not even on your birthday, sunshine.”
“We’re not giving you our weapons, asshole,” the tyrant snarled.
“What we have here,” Bran said, and Maddy silently finished the sentence with him, “is a failure to communicate.”Cool Hand Luke.
“I could drop you where you stand,” Dustin the Tyrant warned.
“I’d so like to see you try,” Bran answered with a feral-sounding snort.
Maddy wanted to scream her head off.Enough with the dick-measurin’ contest, you idiots!
But she didn’t scream. In fact nobody screamed. Not a word was spoken. Not a breath was taken. The island itself seemed to be holding perfectly still, waiting, anticipating. She couldn’t see the moon from inside the gunpowder magazine house, but she knew it was shining down on the men, a watchful spectator of events to come.
Finally, Bran said, “Look, I’m being magnanimous here and giving you two choices. You can drop your weapons, tell us where you’ve stashed the girls, and leave this island alive and well. Or you can keep your weapons, keep your secrets, and leave this island in a body bag. I’m happy either way.”
“You seem to be miscountin’ again,” the Southerner piped up. “There’s three of us and only one of you.”
“Man, you seriously need to get your eyes checked.” Mason’s low voice rumbled from the opposite direction. Maddy reckoned he’d skirted around the other side of the magazine house to come up behind the bad guys. He and Bran were quite a pair. And, boy howdy, she was glad they were on her side.
“Shit,” the third guy cursed, probably after having glanced over his shoulder to find Mason taking aim at his head.
