Page 38 of Wicked Things
Sal gets to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes flash unnervingly, like he could happily use his teeth to cause some more damage right about now. The brothers approach the cot, blood-flecked and terrible.
And then…
“Jesus, Sloane! What the hell happened to you?”
My heart slams in my chest, my vision flashing. I look back over Theo’s shoulder, and Pippa is standing there, her arm bound to her body, her face pale and drawn. She rushes into the cramped room, stepping over Ben and Clay’s broken bodies as if she doesn’t even see them.
“What are you doing here?” I can’t think of anything else to say.
She runs her hands over me, looking for any injuries. Finds none. She seems to calm down when she realizes I’m unhurt, for the most part. Turning to Theo, she holds out her good hand, motioning to him. “Knife. Hand it over. I know you’ve got one.”
Sal laughs, shoving Theo out of the way. “Why settle for his puny, worthless weapon when you can have mine?” He flips back his suit jacket and draws a long, serrated, sinister looking knife from a sheath that runs down the side of his body. The blade is at least eight inches long, and looks like it’s been well used. Pippa grimaces as she takes it from him and carefully uses it to cut through the zip ties.
My hands pulse and burn with pain as I slowly lower my arms. Warily, I sit myself up on the edge of the bed, doing my utmost not to burst into tears as I say, “Can someone please explain what the fuck is going on here? Because I think I’m losing my mind.”
Pippa rubs my arms with her single, good hand, murmuring softly. “These guys were sent back with Zeth to help deal with that DEA agent, Lowell.” Shame washes over her face. “The one I called back at the hospital…”
I shake my head:don’t worry about that. Not now.
“Zeth told us to wait at the gym,” she continues. “He told these two to watch me and work on the Lowell problem. As soon as he left, Theo called in a favor and had the bitch tracked…to here. As soon as we realized Lowell was at the same baseball field you were being held at…well. We got in the car and drove straight here.”
I pin Theo with an incredulous gaze first, then Sal. “Why would you bring her with you? Can’t you see she’s hurt?”
A scathing bark of laughter escapes Theo. “When was the last time you tried to tell this woman to do anything?” he answers. “She’s stubborn as fuck.” Sal actually pales a little as he looks down at Pippa, which seems entirely out of character, based on what I’ve seen of him so far. I don’t blame him, though. Pippa can be a frightening individual when she sets her mind on it. She probably threatened to psychoanalyze them, and they gave her whatever she wanted.
“Come on,” she says, helping me to my feet.
“We haven’t seen the others yet, but I’m betting they won’t be far. We’ll go find somewhere safe to wait this out.”
“And we,” says Sal, rubbing his hands together, “will go and find the party.”
EIGHTEEN
MASON
Michael’s like a wraith as he flits from one bank of shadow to the next, gun already locked and loaded, held out in front of him. His lips are pressed into a tight line, his eyes glinting with fire and steel as he searches from one room to the next. Storage, mostly. Locker rooms. I don’t have a gun, so I trail behind him, keeping close just as he told me to.
After twenty minutes of searching, the sound of footsteps rings out down the oppressively narrow corridors, and Michael grabs me by the collar, spiriting me back into the room we’ve just cleared. We both hover in the darkness, the door partially cracked, and watch as a tall, curvy redheaded woman in a killer red dress saunters by. Zeth follows behind her, his expression stony.
So this is Alaska, then. She’s smoking hot, but by the look on Michael’s face you’d think she was the most repulsive creature to ever walk the planet. It’s hatred—that look on his face. He fuckinghatesthis woman, for one reason or another. I’m guessing it’s mostly because she had the gall to kidnap his boss’s pregnant girlfriend. I know how close he is with Sloane. It’s very hard not to adore the woman; her heart’s as big as they come, and she loves Zeth with every single cell of her body. Just like Michael.
Zeth doesn’t show any sign that he knows where we are. He stares dead ahead, his gaze burning into Alaska’s back as he trails her further into the bowels of the stadium.
“We’d better wait,” Michael whispers. “If we follow too closely, she’ll notice.”
“You think she’s taking him to Sloane?” I hiss back.
Michael shrugs with one shoulder. “If she knows what’s good for her.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
The darkness that settles over Michael says enough: she’ll die. She’ll pay the price for her stupidity. The realistic, logical part of me already knows Alaska is already a dead woman. She’s courted danger itself by taking the one thing Zeth really cares about, the one thing that’s precious to him. There is no reality in which he allows her to walk away from this, woman or no. So how could she be so blasé as she strolled down the hallway in front of Zeth? How could she not realize that she’s in the shit right up to her neck? It makes no sense.
Michael bars the doorway, cutting a tall, imposing figure as we wait. Five minutes pass, then ten. He pulls open the door and then he steps out into the hallway, gun still raised, face severe and unreadable. “Come on. Let’s go.” He sets off in the direction Zeth and Alaska headed in, body moving the way a sleek predator’s would.
I follow, trying to emulate the stealth, the power, the confidence with which he moves, but compared to him I must look like a fucking bull in a china shop, tripping over it’s own size eleven feet. I’ve trained to be agile, to move swiftly, but Zeth’s right hand man almost fucking floats ahead of me as we creep toward an uncertain destination.
My hearing is also clearly not as good as Michael’s. Down the corridor, a left, and then a right, he angles his head to one side, pausing every five seconds, obviously listening, hearing things I can’t discern. I trust that he knows where the hell we’re going. I don’t have a clue.
