Page 37 of Wicked Things
It’s going to be okay, little one.
I promise, it’s going to be okay.
Time passes so slowly, a thousand single grains of sand passing through the eye of a narrow needle, one at a time. Ben’s phone chimes, and he and Clay both visibly relax. I dare not ask what’s happening, so I try and calm my racing mind.
After a while, there’s a knock at the door. Ben exhales a sigh of relief, as if he’s been expecting Alaska or her cohort for some time. “I’m grabbing food first,” he informs Clay, as he gets to his feet and heads to the door.
“Asshole. I have low blood sugar,” Clay grouses.
Ben opens the door, mouth open, ready to say something, but his words never materialize. He just blinks at the person facing him, his brows banking together in confusion. “What the fuck? How did you get down here?”
I sit up, straining to see who’s arrived, hope swelling in my chest. Zeth. Zeth made short work of that bitch, and now he’s going to destroy these two idiots for holding me here against my will. Only…it’s not Zeth. There are two people standing in the hallway, and I don’t recognize either of them. Both tall, both with dark brown hair and dark, murderous eyes, both dressed in immaculate black suits and black shirts that put Michael’s wardrobe to shame.
The two strangers look at one another, then slowly back at Ben. “Wewalkeddown here,” the taller of the two says. “How didyouget down here?”
Clay gets to his feet, hand already moving to his holster. “Don’t be fucking smart, asshole. Where’s Alaska? Where’s the cop?” Neither of them say anything. They both stare down the other two men before them, watching them intently as Clay snarls, producing his gun. “Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?” he hisses.
The guy with the shorter hair huffs dramatically. “It’s fucking amazing how none of you know who we are,” he says. “I’m Theo, and this is Sal, my brother. And as for your second question, I think it’s easier to show you what we want instead of explain.”
Theo. Sal. I know those names. I know them, because Zeth has spoken them to me countless times. They’re Barbieris, the guys who burned down the warehouse. They’re here, in Seattle? But why? My head pounds as I struggle to make sense of this turn of events, my pulse skittering all over the place.
Oh…
Shit.
There’s only one reason why they would be here. Zeth went out there to kill them, to teach them a lesson for what they did when they came here last. I have no idea what went down in New York, but…if the Barbieris have traveled to the west coast, it’s probably because things didn’t go according to plan with Zeth, and they’ve come seeking revenge. And the best way to do that is to kill me, of course. So…I’m about to be kidnapped from my kidnappers? A coil of fear lashes itself around my throat. God. What the hell are they going to do to me? And where is Zeth? Is he okay?
“We don’t know any Barbieris,” Ben says, his voice edged with warning. “You’re not meant to be here. You’d better get the fuck out of here before we decide we’re going to keep you here.”
Theo Barbieri’s eyes move past Ben, over his shoulder, roving over the walls of the small engineering room. At last, they land on me. I expect a flicker of excitement to cross his face—I am his target, after all—but his expression remains stoic and unmoved.
Ben steps forward, his gun now in his hand, too. He prods Theo firmly in the chest with the barrel. “You’re not listening, motherfucker. You need to leave.Now.”
In no apparent hurry, Theo turns his head to his brother, Sal. They seem to have this weird way of silently communicating, though I can’t tell how they’re doing it. Certainly not through any gesture that I can discern; they’re both still as marble statues. After a long, drawn out second, a sharp-edged smile spills across Sal’s face. “And here I was thinking this trip was going to be no fun,” he says.
Theo rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Just get on with it.” He returns his gaze to me on the bed, sniffs, and then says, “Better cover your ears if you can.”
Clay laughs. “You aren’t very observant. You have two guns trained on y—” Before he can even finish his sentence, Sal Barbieri rushes forward, faster than I would have thought possible, and tackles Ben The two of them go crashing to the floor, Ben hollering as Sal’s full body weight comes slamming down on him. Clay is stunned. He stares at Ben, wrestling on the ground for a second, and then he’s jerking forward, pulling the trigger on his gun, and a deafeningly loud crack and roar is filling the air.
The smell of burning metal floods my nose. Despite being so damn close, Clay didn’t hit Theo, because Theo is no longer standing in the doorway. He’s crouched low, rushing forward, charging for Clay. I watch the scene unfold, my heart in my throat. I’m not sure who I should be rooting for here. If I were to get my own way, they’d all simultaneous kill each other in some unlikely fluke and I would be safe. Life doesn’t work like that, though.
Theo takes Clay out at the knees, sending them both reeling back into the wall. The back of Clay’s head makes contact first; his eyelids shutter, his teeth bared in pain, and then Theo’s snatching the gun from his hand and spinning it around, cocking it, firing...
As a doctor, I’ve seen a hundred gunshot wounds. More than a hundred, probably. And since I’ve been with Zeth, I’ve seen plenty of people shot at close range, too. But this shot…this is something else. Point blank range. The round doesn’t merely penetrate Clay’s skull; it splits it open like a ripe watermelon. Fragments of bone and brain matter fly under the impact of the bullet, spraying Theo and me in the process. I try not to gag as I scurry back into the corner of the bed, as far as my restrained wrists will allow me, putting as much space between myself and Theo as I can. His face is drenched with blood, his eyes wide, the whites showing, his chest heaving as he stares down at Clay’s body. The man sprawled out at Theo’s feet is still twitching. His hands and feet spasm reflexively, the synapses in his brain firing randomly as the final wisps of life leave him.
I dare a glance over at Ben wrestling with the other Barbieri on the floor, and I gasp, startled by what I see there: either Sal took the gun from Ben and kicked it aside, or Ben dropped it in the commotion. It lies five feet away from his grasping hand as Sal kneels over him, tearing at Ben’s neck with his…with histeeth.
Ben’s agonized cries are filled with horror. His legs kick fruitlessly at the ground, his body writhing, but Sal is bigger than him, and has him pinned. Sal rears back, grinding his teeth together, and ropes of sinew and muscle tear away from Ben’s neck with him.
“Holy fucking god,” I whisper.
Theo spins around and sighs, as if he’s disappointed. “Sal. Fuck, Sal, come on. You’re behaving like a goddamn savage.”
Sal just grins, blood covering his face, gore hanging from his mouth. “I am a savage. So are you. You just need to loosen up a little.”
Ben shudders one last time, then his limbs fall slack, his head rocking to one side, eyes staring blankly over toward where I’m curled up as tight as possible on the cot.
If Sal has no qualms over ripping out a man’s throat with his teeth, then what the fuck is he going to do to me? I shiver, trying to brainstorm, to think of something to say to them that will stay their hands. I can’t form a single coherent thought, though. Not one.
