Page 4 of Missing Piece
He jumped as a massive metal dumpster screeched into his view, as if a car had hit it. The sound made his teeth hurt.
And yet, like the idiot he was, he didn’t start making his way to the front of the building.
The woman groaned, sounding like she was struggling to catch her breath. Adam took a puff of his cigarette, allowingthe burning smoke to linger in his lungs a little longer than intended as he tried to imagine what was happening. There was no way either of them pushed a dumpster that size.
“You know the whole French name thing is super cliche, right? Like, you’re just embarrassing yourselves,” Vincent said.
There was the clacking of heels in his direction, so Adam turned his back and started for the front of the building. He didn’t want to get caught.
“Go grab that little eavesdropper. I’ll take care of this one.”
Adam’s blood froze in his veins. Before he could even think about how it might play out, his stomach lurched, burning his esophagus with a foul mixture of stomach acid and too much liquor, and his feet left the ground. It felt like he was falling. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the ground to hit him.
His back slammed into something hard, knocking the wind out of him. He forced his eyes open, struggling to regain his footing. He blinked several times, not quite sure what to make of the sight in front of him.
Luka, the bearded guy from the bar, had him pinned against the wall by his throat, squeezing just enough to hurt, his fingernails pressed into the soft skin on either side of his windpipe. Adam dug his heels into the ground and held his hands up. Just beyond Luka, Vincent held a dancer by the hair, her legs kicking out and her heels clacking against the ground as he dragged her towards the dumpster.
“Well, I am happy to see you again so soon, Adam Nolan,” Vincent said with a grin as he yanked the stripper up to her feet.
Despite looking like she had just wandered outside in abikini and being held by her hair, she didn’t show an ounce of fear. She snarled, snapping her teeth at Vincent as she twisted and contorted, trying to pull her hair from his grip. But there was something deeply wrong with her face Adam couldn’t turn away from.
Her canine teeth were too long. And there were too many of them. Her snarling stopped, her pure black eyes widening as they locked onto him.
“See something you like, Beth?” Vincent asked quietly, leaning down to sniff her. “It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it? The Order not feeding you enough?”
She licked her lips, no longer seeming to care that Vincent still held her by her hair. “Not while on a mission trip,” she said, her fingers twitching by her sides.
Adam forced himself to look away from her bizarre appearance. Whatever her dancing schtick was, it wasn’t his style, and his greater concern was the silent man holding him by the throat. “Whatever you guys are up to, I’m cool pretending I saw nothing,” he said, trying to ignore his sudden onset dizziness and the fear tickling the back of his skull. He had been held at gunpoint, at knifepoint, and threatened with a variety of weapons over the years and had been cool as a cucumber. He didn’t want to let the owners of a scuzzy townie establishment make him sweat.
“I bet you’re starving,” Vincent said to Beth, his eyes locked on Adam, a grin splayed across his face. “Do you want a snack? We can make a deal.”
She nodded, her fingers clenching into fists. Her lips curled, baring her teeth at Adam.
Vincent waved his hand at Luka. Without a word, Luka released his grip on Adam’s throat and stepped away, oneeyebrow raised at the blond.
“Remind me not to go to your dentist. If he was going for the vampire goth look, he screwed it up by adding too many fangs,” Adam said to Beth, rubbing his throat.
Vincent smiled at him, that same brilliant smile he flashed in the bar. “Go get your snack, then,” he said to Beth as he released her hair.
She eyed Vincent tentatively, then back at Adam.
What the hell is she doing?He blinked, trying to think of something to say to snap her out of her method-acting vampire cosplay, but a hard weight slammed him back against the wall, knocking the wind out of him again. He tried to gasp for breath as a palm slammed his face sideways against the brick, a small forearm pressed against his chest.
Beth held him in place, her eyes focused on his neck.
“What the hell?” he cried. He grabbed at her shoulders, trying to shove the woman back as hard as he could, but it was like she was made of stone. He couldn’t push her off. “Get the hell off of me, you psycho!”
This is going to hurt.He squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for her teeth to sink into his skin, all while shoving and kicking blindly against her. It didn’t matter where he hit her, she didn’t move an inch.
He heard Vincent chuckle and a sickening crunching sound as the pressure on his face and chest fell away. He opened his eyes, ready to thank whichever one of them stepped in to pull her back, but his jaw hung open instead, his heart galloping in his chest.
Beth was a few feet back from him, her body limp, only held up by Vincent’s firm grip on her hair near her scalp. But Adam couldn’t see her face. Not even when Vincent droppedher and let her crumple to the ground like a stringless puppet.
Her head was facing the wrong way.
He wanted to say something. Anything. But he could suddenly taste his dinner of gas station pizza and every type of liquor he drowned it with on the back of his tongue. He stumbled forward, his legs weak, and grabbed the dumpster, clutching his abdomen as he heaved the contents of his stomach all over his shoes.
Adam could hear Vincent over his violent retching as more vomit boiled up his throat.Oh God, why won’t it stop? How much more is there?
