“I won’t tell you again.”
A hand wrapped around my wrist. “He’s not joking; get back down here.”
I wrenched away from the man. “Tell me about my sister. Tell me now!”
I felt the heat before the pain. The resounding crack echoed along the caverns of my ears as my head swiveled off to the side. The sheer force with which that man backhanded me sent me stumbling back down the steps, and I lost my balance beneath me. And as I tumbled to the floor, landing in that disgusting muddy puddle of water I had done so well in avoiding, a growl emanated from behind me.
Before the man I had been trapped with charged the man at the top of the steps.
“That’s it,” he glowered.
I watched in horror as he balled up his fist. The man at the top of the steps swung, but Basement Man dodged before using his momentum against him. Basement Man jutted his knee into the falling man’s stomach, rendering him speechless and breathless before he clocked the man in the nose. He gripped the man’s clothing and spun him around, shoving him against the staircase wall before he crashed his forehead into the man’s eyeball. And as the henchman groaned with blood dripping from his nose, Basement Man kneed him in the balls.
A move that brought a grin to my face.
“Well, well, well,” a very familiar voice spat, “look at what we have here.”
Basement Man seemed to recognize the voice as well. “Bullet.”
I held my breath as my sister’s torturer appeared at the top of the steps. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. What in the world have you done to my man?”
I didn’t think. I simply moved, rushing up to Basement Man’s side as I stared down the man that abused my sister night after night. I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to claw his eyes out with my bare fucking hands. And as I lunged for him, swiping my sharpened fake nails out to rake along his face, Basement Man wrapped his grasp around me.
Holding me back.
“Let me at him!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, Fangs. Let her at me,” Bullet said.
I whipped my gaze up at the man. “Fangs? Really? That’s your name?”
Bullet chuckled. “And if she’s been so rude as to not introduce herself, this is Julia.”
Fangs gazed into my eyes. “Julia.”
I shoved the man off me before turning to Bullet. “Where’s my sister? I want to know where she is right. The fuck. Now.”
Bullet tilted his head. “Do you now?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m not escaping. I’m not telling anyone. I’m not going anywhere. But I want to know where she is. I want to see her, for fuck’s sake.”
In a flash, Bullet darted his hand out and threaded it through my hair. He latched on tightly, yanking me toward him so closely that I smelled his disgusting, beer-laced breath.
“You drunk,” I hissed.
“Let her go!” Fangs bellowed.
“As you wish,” Bullet snarled.
He shoved me down the stairs, watching me tumble as my shoulder cracked into one of the sharp edges of the concrete. I howled out in pain as electric shocks sizzled throughout my veins, jumping muscles that screamed out for mercy. And as I laid there on my back, holding my arm and trying my best not to give in altogether, tussling sounded up at the top of the steps.
Before I arched my neck back and found Bullet with his hand wrapped around Fangs’s neck.
“No,” I choked out, “let him go. Please.”
“You better keep that bitch in line,” Bullet snarled, “or you’re next.”
Fangs gnashed his teeth together. “She’s not my bitch. You keep her in line.”
