Page 126 of Ramshackle
“Dane, wait,” Aiden says, placing a hand on my arm. I pause and look back at where Thorne had been stabbed. “There’s hardly any blood.”
Thorne sneers and I realize he hadn’t even noticed being stabbed. He looks more annoyed that Jackson did it than by the hole in his chest.
Jack holds the knife up before him, canting his head as he studies the thin streaks of red. His gaze falls back on Thorne. “Do you feel pain?”
Raegan’s eyes widen.
Kellan gives a dark chuckle. “Well, that’s damn inconvenient.”
How are we supposed to get information out of him if that’s the case? Ask nicely?
Thorne smirks at Jackson. “You can’t hurt me. You can’t kill me. And there’s no reason for me to share anything with you. This was a daring move, but a foolish one.”
Fuck.
Aiden steps forward, drawing his attention. “Was it?” Thorne frowns, his brows pinching as he turns his attention to Aiden. “Or are you doing exactly what we want?” he mocks in a slow croon. “Because the second you realized you were being takenhostage, you freaked out. You’re more scared of being here, held captive, than of anything else we might do to you.”
Thorne’s lips thin.
“So, that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll keep you here. So long as you refuse to share any information, we’ll let you sit here another few hours. Another day. A week. It doesn’t matter to us. How long do you think your master will let you sit here without reporting in before he comes to retrieve his lost puppet?”
“You’re using me asbait?” Thorne spits out.
“Or…” Aiden leans forward, ignoring Thorne and dropping his voice to a threatening tone. “You could answer our questions, and we may let you be on your way. You’re not the one we’re after. You’re just an annoying pebble caught in our shoe.” He smiles at Thorne and straightens. “We’ll let you think it over.” A loudclankechoes through the freezer—that’s no longer cold—and a heavy chain rattles from the cuffs on Thorne to the metal loop bolted to the floor at his feet. Aiden walks out, and we all take that as our cue to leave and follow him.
Chapter thirty-five
Dane
The knife taps onthe cutting board as I slice it through the strawberry. I cut the stem free, then cut it in half before tossing it on the mound that rises above the bowl. I should get another one, but I’m too zoned in on the repetitive tasks to break the process.
I’ve prepared dozens of loaves of bread, multiple stacks of crepes just waiting to cool before I put them in the fridge, a few batches of cookies, and now I’m finishing fruit preparation to be used with the crepes for tomorrow’s breakfast.
The kitchen is a mess.
Rather than cleaning up as I go like usual, I’ve hyper-fixated on each food idea and jumped to the next one without giving myself a break. My back aches from standing for however many hours I’ve been here. The massive stainless-steel table in the center of the kitchen has a layer of powdered sugar coating it from when I prepared some dough for sugar cookies. There arebowls, discarded egg shells, flour mixed with baking soda, and now empty fruit containers littering the table.
After we left Thorne, I needed an outlet for my frustration. I’ve been trying to put it to better use than arguing with the first person I see. Now, I’ll either put in an extra training session with Kellan or come here.
I toss another halved strawberry to the pile and frown when I notice there are only a few remaining.
What’s next?
I didn’t get the answers I wanted tonight.
We got nothing.
Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
I know it’s a win that we have Thorne and he’s powerless.
But I thought we would have our next step to taking GE down. I thought…we’d havesomethingfor all that planning. Anything.
I see Aiden’s plan, and if I could think of a better one, I’d tell him.
But I don’t.
So here I am.
