I hadn’t anticipated the third voice. I hadn’t anticipated someone already being in that room. And the second they spoke, it shivered me to my core. Who the hell was in there with me? Why did the voice sound so tired? So weak? So… done?
“Just—leave her alone,” the voice said breathlessly.
Wait, that voice sounded familiar.
“Theresa?” I asked.
“Come here,” a growling voice stated.
Suddenly, I watched the behemoth man in the doorway get ripped back out into the hallway. He reached for the doorknob, effectively slamming the door closed as a hand pulled him away from me. Well, us. I closed my eyes and listened intently as punches were thrown. As guns were fired. As grunts and curses swirled around outside. I searched the room desperately for any sign of the person that was in there with me. Any sign of the distraction that had thrown that man off-balance.
And as a disgusting gurgling sound emanated from outside, I reached my hand out into the darkness.
“Theresa? Please, tell me that’s you,” I said softly.
Someone drew in a short breath before the door whipped back open. A light turned on that seared my gaze shut, and it was only Fangs’s voice that I heard.
“Learned your lesson, Julia?” he asked curtly.
And it was the giggle that gave away exactly who was in that fucking room.
“She’s always been stubborn,” Theresa said breathlessly.
7
FANGS
As the two sisters embraced one another, I couldn’t get over how beat-up Theresa looked. Bruises cascaded across her face and cuts were all up and down her arms. A hunk of her hair was missing at the crown of her head and ligature marks marred both her wrists and her neck. Just seeing it with my own two eyes made me want to burn the entire place down with every single motherfucker inside, and it filled me with pride to know that I had rid the world of five of those useless creeps.
They deserved every ounce of pain that came their way.
However, the thudding footsteps rumbling above our heads meant more trouble was headed our way.
“While this is beautiful,” I said as I grabbed each of their hands, “we have to go. So, come on!”
It was hell, pulling them away from one another. They clung so tightly that I had to resist the urge to toss both of them over my fucking shoulders. But finally, I managed to wrangle them to either side before we charged out of that room. With their hands tightly within my own, I barreled us down the hallway, keeping my head on a swivel just in case there were more surprises to encounter.
But a hand tugged so forcefully that it slipped out of mine.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said as I turned around.
Theresa’s eyes were wide with fury and fire as she took a few steps away from me. “Who are you? What do you want with us?”
It was Julia that rushed her and cupped her cheeks. “He’s with me.”
Theresa slowly looked over at her sister. “What?”
“I’m with her,” I said with as much confidence as possible.
Theresa swallowed hard. “Really?”
Julia nodded. “Yes. He’s a good one, but we have to follow him out of here. We have to do exactly what he says. Right?”
She looked back at me, and I shot her a look. “Well, yeah, if you stop running off all the damn time.”
She scoffed as she turned back to her sister. “Anyway, we have to do what he says, okay? Now that we have you, we have to listen to him if we’re going to get out of here.”
More footsteps charged overhead. “Come on, girls, wrap it up.”
