Page 15 of A Dance With Devils
It’s in that confused second that I realise it's Malachi – that all of this is because of Malachi and not anyone else. Is he them? Can’t be. Whit wouldn’t have let him come back here if he was. He’d be dead. I hope he would be anyway. Either that or … I’m not even contemplating that. Can’t. Not yet. Not until I know what’s happening.
I stare at the dark eyes still directed straight at mine, as he rests his arms on his knees, not sure what to think of who he is, or why he’s here at all. Electrics? They would have just taken me, not played this game. And yet all this feels like them.
Silence. Like all the noise has disappeared. It hasn’t. There’s still a heavy wind, still the sound of something whirring and beating the air. I just can’t hear it over the terror induced fear clawing all over me. He’s changed. Flat features. Empty gaze. No smile. Not even a hint of amusement at me like before. Everything inside me freezes. Blood, breath. Body. I’m like a deer caught in headlights, memories flooding back into me from times long ago.
”You look pretty when you panic, Ally cat,” he says calmly.
Freak.
And screw this.
My head rears back, instantly connecting with the asshole holding me fast, and I yank myself away. It’s enough that he lets go of my arm and gives me the chance to dart sideways towards the hole in the fence again. I don’t reach it in time, and my feet being taken out underneath me again prove it.
Chapter 6
Malachi
She can bitch like a banshee when she feels like it.
I walk slowly back through the house, watching as one of the team carries her through the space in front of me. Red lace underwear flashes in my view, as he weaves her through the corners, and her legs don't give one fuck who they kick out at, nor what they land on. She cries out as one of them lands on the doorframe, then screams out in frustration at the futility of her protest.
“Sir?”
“Hmm?
“Where are we taking her to?”
“Hanger.”
And then we go home. Home to the fun and the games and the place where the world out here ceases to exist. No time. No rules. No sad little people with their woes and their troubles, or governing bodies with their pleas and attempted strategies. A new play. Something to distract me for a while before the inevitability of my thoughts catch up with me and it all ends.
I watch her bitching and screaming on the way to the chopper, and nod as one of the team climbs in beside her. They worked well to save me. Got here quickly, efficiently. Covered the ground at the speed I pay them for. I like to try them out every now and then, make sure they can do what they’re hired for. This seemed as good a time as any to play with their abilities while I played with hers.
She’ll be scared now. Panicked. Her blood’s up, running fast and thick through her body so she can try fighting again. I like that about her. It reminds me of my own blood, of both the underlying sense of fury that boils within it and low depression. I’ve controlled it for too long with pills. Kept myself calm and indifferent in front of others. Maybe not now.
Not for my Alice.
The thought has me chuckling and sliding into the back of the car waiting for me, my eyes directed upwards at the chopper now heading where I need it to go and my fingers reaching for a pill. It must be startling for her. Lots of men, all of them wearing black masks and carrying guns. She didn’t seem scared at first, though. She seemed able, considered, as if she was trying to match my games again.
I’ve dialled Whit before we’ve left the area, gaze focused on the dark night skies, as Grant drives through the derelict space. She’s not from here. Not from this way of life. It’s all wrong. Incomplete. Not enough curses. Not enough of an accent either. And the very fact that Whit had something to do with her at all isn’t normal. It’s only because it was me and the threat I left him with that he’s let me at her at all. Anyone else would have been dead for playing with her. I know it. Her brothers knew it. And, given her words of ‘a small reminder’ she probably knew it when she sent me off to the cooler in the first place. Perhaps she likes me.
Another smile creeps up my face, a real one for once. Until Whit answers the phone.
“I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt her,” he snarls.
I don’t answer that. I scowl instead and look out the window at the passing cars. He knows as well as I do that he has little to no fucking hope of ever killing me. Not many people do. Assassination is the only way I’m going to die. Or old age. Or my own suicide when I get around to that amusement again. Maybe I should offer a reminder of possibilities should the thought enter his head with anything other than empty threats.
“Malachi?”
“I’m waiting for a more satisfying form of hello.”
“Where is she?”
“Flying.”
“What?”
“You said she had to have fun, she’s having fun. In the sky. With lots of burly men to entertain her.”
