Page 149 of Renard's Deliverance

Shit.

That didn’t seem to bode well for them being rescued. They could be anywhere and if they were off grid, it might be really hard to find them.

“You stupid boy! Let me go! Right now. I can’t believe you would do this to me, you lazy idiot!” the Grackle cried.

“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to see that was a mistake,” she said dryly as Barney stomped over to his aunt.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” he yelled.

“I will not shut up! How dare you do this to me. What do you think you are doing! When I get out of here?—”

Smack!

Opal jumped. Shit! She hadn’t thought he would hit his aunt. And neither did the Grackle if the way she cried out, then went silent was any indication.

“Shut. Up,” he snarled.

Opal eyed him warily. Right. This wasn’t easygoing, submissive Barney.

“I’m in charge now. Not you. For once we do what I want to do. Eat what I want to eat. No more of you telling me what to do all the time! I’m thirty-five, Auntie! And you treat me like a boy. No. More.”

“I wouldn’t treat you like a baby, if you didn’t act like one,” the Grackle sneered.

Slap!

Okay, she was really starting to think she’d overestimated Mrs. Gingers’ intelligence.

“Right, let’s just calm things down okay,” Opal said as she shuffled her way between Barney and the Grackle. “Barney, what’s going on here? What are you doing? Have you really thought this through?”

And how the fuck was anyone going to find them? Why had she let herself be fooled by him? She’d run into the house without a phone or Zappy, Bangy, or Stingy.

Renard was not going to be happy.

“I will not be questioned!”

Smack!

Ow. Fuck.

Pain shot through her face and she fell back onto the floor.

All right. As well as overestimating the Grackle’s intelligence, she’d also underestimated Barney’s sanity.

She’d never imagined that he might do this.

Useless cunt.

Only one thing you’re good for.

She lay on the floor,staring at the wall, ignoring the noises around her as the past captured her.

The pain.

The humiliation.

The fear.

Fight,Opal.

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