Page 21 of The Player
What the fuck had happened to me?
The van door opened. I reached forward to grab my phone and…
My eyes shot open, my hand flew to my neck after my hazy memory suddenly screamed with clarity.
I’d been stabbed there.
That was the last memory I’d had before I passed out.
Someone had been behind me, out in the car park, and they’d fucking stabbed me with a needle. Injected shit into my system and made me pass the fuck out. I didn’t stand a chance. I’d hit the deck before I could do a thing about it. Now, my only saving grace was the CCTV we had set up out there. My boys would’ve seen it. They’d make sure whoever did this would pay. They wouldn’t live to regret it. They would fucking die.
I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. From the little I could make out, I was facing a concrete wall, grey and cold, but I could tell I wasn’t outside. I was in a room somewhere that smelt stale and musty. I was lying on some sort of mattress. A shitty one that creaked as I tried again to roll onto my back, the springs beneath me squeaking as I managed to position myself to stare up at the same cold, grey concrete on the ceiling. But then, my body froze as I became aware of someone else lying next to me.
Slowly, I turned my head, and there, lying beside me on the mattress, was my Bryony, still dressed in her cat woman outfit.
Rage like nothing I’d ever felt before surged through me, and I tried to push myself up and over to her, but my body didn’t want to work in the way my brain was telling it to. Feeling frustrated, I growled, hoisting myself up as much as I could to get closer to her. Gritting my teeth, I reached out, desperate to touch her, shake her awake and bring her back to me.
God, let her be alive.
Please.
She had to be alive.
“Bryony,” I said her name like a prayer and held my breath. And then, as I shook her a little harder, I heard her let out a low, gentle gasp.
Her body shuddered, but her eyes stayed closed, and I felt a flash of relief, just for a split second, but it was rapidly doused by the inferno of fury that consumed me.
Why was she here?
Whoever had attacked me, taken me, they were a dead man walking.
But to take her too?
They’d just written their own fucked-up death warrant, because when I got my hands on them, there would be nothing I wouldn’t do to make them suffer. I prayed that he hadn’t touched her, hurt her before bringing her here. I’d gut the fucker like a fish if he had—I’d gut him anyway for this.
This was a declaration of war, and I was ready to tear this motherfucker apart.
Adrenaline and rage overpowered the aches I’d had as I’d come to, and I pushed myself to sit up. Peering down at her, I watched as she slowly came around, but I didn’t want to spook her or make her feel worse than she already was. She needed to wake up in her own time. Me dragging her back to reality wouldn’t help.
I glanced around the cold, grey room we were in. There were no windows, no visible door that I could make out in the darkness, just concrete and more concrete towering over us. This was a cell.
Bryony’s arm moved, her hand going straight to her forehead as she groaned in pain.
“It’s okay, Bee,” I whispered, comforting her in the darkness. “I’m here. You’re gonna be okay. I have no idea where we are, but I’ll get us out. I will. I promise. Even if it fucking kills me.”
“What happened?” she moaned quietly, trying to sit up but giving up when it became too much and letting her head fall back onto the mattress. Then her moan grew louder as the memory of what’d happened came trickling back to her, as mine had done only moments ago. “I saw you,” she said. “You were on the ground.” Then her voice broke as she added, “I thought you were dead.”
“It’d take a lot more than that to get rid of me,” I replied, giving her a wry smile in the darkness, even though I felt murderous at what she must’ve been through, but she ignored me, instead recounting her recollections as they came back to her.
“I went outside to meet you. I saw you, or at least, I thought it was you, but it wasn’t. Whoever it was, they had your outfit on. They tricked me.”
I wasn’t wearing the Michael Myers outfit anymore, just my T-shirt and jeans that I’d had on underneath. The fucker had taken it off and used it to trick Bryony into going with him.
“Did you come to the car park to look for me?” I asked, needing to know more of her story and how she’d ended up here. She frowned in response, rubbing her forehead, digging deep into her hazy memories for the answer.
“No. You text me to meet you, at the maze. That’s where you…” She corrected herself, “I mean,hemet me.”
Fucker had used my phone to draw her out.
