Page 21 of Viking

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Viking

Istare down at thespoiled brat commandeering my bed—and fucking up my goddamn life. I should have left her to rot on that beach. Still not sure what possessed me to kidnap a fucking kid and drive her halfway across the country.

“Bitch, you gotta eat somethin’.”

She glares up at me and doesn’t so much as look at the sandwich I slapped together for her. Her wrists are rubbed raw where the cuffs cut into them. I’m not a total fucking animal. I’ve given her free rein of the room, but I can’t let her go until I find out what she knows, and since she’s not talking. She’s gonna be with us until she does.

I pull the key from around my neck and remove her cuffs.

She looks up at me with wide eyes and then bolts upright. “Don’t get too excited. I’m not letting you go, not until you tell me what you know.”

She rubs her wrists, but her lips stay tightly sealed.

Of all the pain in the ass kids I had to get stuck with.

“If you don’t start eating, I’m gonna bring you protein shakes and force them down your throat. CJ says you’re too skinny, that your organs could start failing if you don’t get some damn nutrition soon.”

She’s staring at the TV on the wall as if she’s trying to figure out what the hell it does. The screen is black, reflecting a blurry image of the two of us. “You wanna watch TV?”

That actually might not be a bad idea. At least she’d get a better sense of how the real world works, because wherever this fucking island is that she came from, I’m pretty sure they’re not teaching their kids what it means to be just that.

I grab the clicker and hit the “on” button. MTV blares to life. There’s some stupid shit about morons getting back with their exes on the beach. I flick the channel, but Arie crawls forward, off the bed and over the fucking couch, to sit on the floor beneath the flat screen.

Her mouth gapes, her eyes are wide with wonder. I almost fucking laugh, but I switch off the TV instead. She stands and presses a palm to the flatscreen like it’s some sort of deity.

She turns to me, with probably the liveliest fucking expression I’ve seen since I found her, and points to the TV.

“You want it back on? You eat the fucking sandwich.”

Her mouth forms a hard line, and she stomps across the room, picks up the pastrami on rye and takes a bite, chewing as if she were imagining grinding my bones to make her bread. She winces as she swallows it down and sets the sandwich back on a plate.

“The whole thing, darlin’,” I say and tilt my chin toward the juice on the bedside table. “The OJ too.”

Arie grabs her lunch and moves to the couch, setting both down on the coffee table. She studies the sandwich and her throat bobs as she swallows.

“I can bring you something softer if it’s hurtin’ your throat. You want me to ask CJ to make you some soup?”

She shakes her head and picks up the sandwich, taking another ravenous bite. She looks back at me and tilts her head toward the TV.

I laugh and hit the clicker. “Alright. Keep your panties on, little siren.”

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