“I’m not going to—”
He got close to her, too close. “Don’t fuck with us…especially not him. The big one.” His eyes flicked back toward the stairs. “Just do what I say.”
She met the man’s eyes in the mirror. In the split second before she blinked, she could have sworn she saw something reticent in his light gaze, as if perhaps he didn’t want to be in this situation any more than she did. He wore a big beard, but beneath it, he looked young. The look was gone as fast as it had appeared, replaced by that hard-jawed, mean-eyed glare.
“Why?”
“You wanna stay alive?”
She nodded, and he nudged her, left the door open, and stepped back into the hall, giving her visual privacy, if not aural. There was no way she could make a break for it with him standing guard like that.
Breathing hard, her throat raw from bile, George made it to the sink where she washed her face. A glimpse of her bathroom showed a place that looked unfamiliar, new in the worst possible way. That thought brought with it a wave of fear far stronger than what she’d felt before, prickling her skin. This was her house, dammit. Her sanctuary. They’d defiled it with their presence, and she wanted them out.
Get them out became her mantra as they descended into the main hall. Before Clay gets here and they kill him. Get them out, get them out, get them out.
She turned to the man and said, “Let me make you and your friends dinner.”
“What?”
“Please, let me do something. I’ll go crazy otherwise.”
He seemed to consider, eyes narrowed on hers. “Ape,” he called, his voice loud and gruff. “She wants to make us dinner.”
Ape ambled into the room, brows raised. “What dinner? It’s a fuckin’ wasteland in this bitch’s kitchen. No chips, nothing.”
“I can make you something,” she said, bargaining. If she was alive, she could bargain.
“Yeah? Well, come on then. I could use a fuckin’ home-cooked meal. You make us dinner, and then I got somethin’ to feed you,” he said, his expression dirty, the insinuation disgusting. His face was… Lord, it was weird. Unfinished was the only word she could find to describe it. His features were lumpy, soft in a way that should have been unthreatening but made her instead wonder if perhaps he was incomplete. As if he wasn’t entirely human.
Overlaying those pale mounds of flesh, this man had covered himself in tattoos. His brows, not particularly prominent, were lined with piercings, which created structure. Pasty, waxy, a skull without definition, his arms nearly black with ink, and all of it bloody, vulgar, murderous.
George nodded, forcing her breathing to slow, and looked around, her kitchen different with these big, unfamiliar bodies in it, the smell of unwashed hair and cigarettes thick in the humid night air.
What could she make these men? Her mind blanked. She pictured them tearing at joints of meat and thick loaves of dark bread, like medieval villains, nothing remotely like what she had to offer, only… Boiling cauldrons, she thought. Hot, hot oil, poured over castle walls. A possibility. A weapon.
Whatever she was making, she’d boil it first, she decided then.
“Get cooking, then, bitch,” the mean one said—the unfinished one they called Ape—dull shark eyes focused hard on her as she brushed too close by him.
I’ll cook for you, she thought, the fear fizzing high in her throat. And then I’ll burn your damned face off.
She put a pot full of water on the stove, took out a couple of steaks, and moved to reheat some greens.
They were impatient, asking her every three minutes if she’d finished yet. If she hadn’t been so frightened, she’d have glared.
“You almost done?” Ape asked George from that spot too close beside her.
“Yes,” she lied.
“Girl’s good in the kitchen, ain’t she, Jam?” the man said in a way that didn’t feel like a compliment, but like he’d started to undress her already. “Might should take her back home with us. Let her serve us.” He grinned his gapped-tooth smile. “Service us.” A meaty hand reached out as if to cup her crotch from behind, and she jumped.
Nauseated, sweaty, shaking. Scared as can be, but also mad as hell.
“Where the fuck’s your boyfriend?” he asked, that hand close to touching her, and she pictured Clay’s face. Imagined the way he felt. Wishing he’d come save her, but hoping he’d stay away.
“Shit smells good. Let’s fuckin’ eat before that asshole comes and ruins our meal.”
George took two plates out of her cupboard—not an easy feat with the zip tie still on them—and set them on the counter, wanting to keep close to the hot water, waiting for any opportunity.
