The brutish voice caused me to whip around, and I found myself staring through another door across the hallway. It hung open, as if to casually introduce itself, a man with a scarred face sitting in the corner of the room in a rickety wooden chair. His brooding eyes locked with mine as he stood from his chair. His mountainous form made my jaw hit the ground as he took one step toward the door.
Then, another.
And yet another still as I gripped the crowbar at my side.
“I won’t ask you again,” the man glowered as he tilted his head. “How in the fuck did you get out of that basement?”
I held up the crowbar. “Not the first question you asked me, so technically you’re only asking it for the first time.”
The man barked at me—fucking barked, like a damn dog—and I simply shrugged.
“Not a fan of humor. Got it,” I said breathlessly.
“Come here,” the man growled.
“Not until you tell me where my sister is, you stupid fuck,” I hissed.
He tried to reach out for me, but I dodged him before I slammed that crowbar into his gut. He fell to his knees, groaning and rocking back and forth. I smiled down at him as I slammed the crowbar against his back. He arched backward, falling to the floor stomach-first as all sorts of obscenities fell from his lips.
I walked with pride back out into the hallway before I turned to face him. To give him a piece of my mind. To show him who the real boss was in that scenario.
But when I turned around, I found him upright with his gun drawn.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
The man chuckled. “I’m going to like the way your body hits the floor.”
His arm flinched and I did the only thing that I could. I threw myself back into the room where I had found the crowbar and I hid behind the door. The bullet popped off, causing me to jump as I held back my scream. The gunfire would be enough to alert someone, and the last thing I needed was for my voice to bring a throng of disgusting men running to its sound.
But if it got them away from my sister…
“No,” I whispered as I shook my head, “you and her get out together. That’s how this works.”
“I know where you are, you know,” the man said.
He cocked his gun again and I held my breath.
“Your sister looks a lot like you, you know.”
I ground my teeth together but forced myself not to speak.
“I got a taste of her the first night she was here. All of us did. And oh, the sounds she made.”
My lower lip quivered as a tear slid down my cheek. I hoped with all of my might that he was just saying that to get a reaction out of me. To get me to give myself away. But he already knew where I was, and it sank my gut.
Had they really done that to my sister? My poor, cute, bow-wearing, giggling little sister?
Well, at least now I know why Fangs’s killing you guys.
When I saw him step underneath the doorway, I shoved the door closed. I slammed it with as much force as I could muster, and the sound of something cracking pulled a smile across my face. The man cursed up a storm, raging and slamming himself around like a god damn teenage boy who had gotten his ass whooped in video games. And with that crowbar at my side, I backed my ass away from the back of the door and pressed deeply into the darkest corner of the room.
Before I watched that door swing back open.
“You may have broken my nose,” the man said as he lumbered into the room, “but I’m going to break your will to live.”
“God, just don’t,” a voice groaned.
“Ah!” I shrieked.
