Willow shook her head. “I want to see them. I’m just . . . I’m having a moment. That’s all.”
“Can I have the rest of them?”
Seven words slipped out of my mouth before I had thought better of it. I expected fear paralysis to startle me. I expected to feel like I was going to vomit.
But my pulse stayed steady, and the urge to run was nowhere to be found. I was fairly certain if I had been strapped to a polygraph machine that the test administrator wouldn’t have even batted an eye.
Because I had told the truth.
I wasn’t entirely sure that Willow had heard me, because she didn’t make a peep.
“Have you eaten this morning?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to make sure she was aware of her own needs. It was easy to let them get buried in grief.
“I had coffee.”
“Coffee isn’t food,” I countered.
“That’s an irreconcilable difference. We’re entirely incompatible. There’s no saving this.”
I chuckled. “Finish getting ready and I’ll make you some breakfast before Wander and Whitney get here.”
Slowly, I helped Willow to her feet and made sure she was steady before heading to the kitchen.
I had just pulled down the canister of oatmeal when I heard a rustling behind me. “How do you take your oatmeal? Milk and sugar? Butter?”
I turned to get her answer, but everything went black.
Whatever wasover my head smelled like a dead rodent. Had I been drugged? Why was it so muggy? The little bit of air that slipped into the heavy cloth bag over my head was laced with rancid grease.
I flexed my hands and twisted my wrists, but they were bound at my side.
What. The. Hell.
This was Kansas, not Whitney West’s dark romance books.
The moment I shifted on the unforgiving metal chair, someone ripped the cloth bag off of my head from behind.
I blinked and squinted as diffused daylight poured in from dust-covered windows on either side of me. A bright light flashed in front of me, immediately blinding me.
“Well, well, well . . . He’s awake,” the familiar voice said in a gleefully sinister tone.
My attention blearily turned to the shadowy figure sitting about four or five feet away. I blinked away the daze from having been drugged or incapacitated and tried to figure out what the fuck was going on, but a light was shining directly into my eyes, obscuring whoever had done this.
Great. I had gotten kidnapped before I made Willow breakfast. God only knows that meant she wouldn’t eat until midnight . . . or whenever I escaped. Frankly, I was more fearful of her being hangry than whatever was going on here.
I had no idea if all the movies and TV shows were telling the truth or not, but I wasn’t speaking until I absolutely had to.
“You might be wondering what you’re doing here,” the man said, intentionally trying to sound like a maniacal villain. “You might think we intend to harm you.”
We.So there was more than one of them, which made sense given the direction the kidnapper hood was yanked off my head.
“I’ll give you a hint. We don’tplanon harming you. Answer our questions, and we’ll put you right back where we found you. Simple as that.”
I could feel a looming presence behind me, but didn’t want to turn and take my eyes off the guy behind the light.
“But I’m sure you have questions of your own, so I’ll let you go first. Ask whatever you want to know.”
I thought about holding out a little longer, but I wanted to get back to Willow. “Did you drug me?”
