Page 23 of Ace of Shadows
Ruslan looks at me and his lips part, but before sound comes out, he suddenly stumbles forward as two men launch themselves out of the crowd and collide with him. All three men crash down to the ground with a grunt just as a thin hand seals around my upper arm and jerks me off balance.
“What the— hey! Get your hands off me!”
Unstable on one foot, I lose all balance as the stranger hauls me forward toward a police car parked two cars down from Ruslan’s vehicle.
“Stop!” I glimpse Ruslan one last time as he climbs to his feet and punches one of his attackers so hard that they fly back toward the steps, but the other launches up and latches onto his back like some kind of spider monkey.
It’s the last thing I see before I’m slammed down onto the hood of the police car and my bony assailant jerks my arm up behind my back. “Ow! Let me go! What the hell are you doing?” Warm, throbbing pain spreads through my abdomen and a pulse of nausea follows as the man jerks my other arm behind my back.
My heart pounds like a drum in my ears as cold metal circles one wrist, then the other, and a familiar voice drifts close to my ear.
“You’re under arrest, remember?”
Is this the cop from the hospital?
Within sixty seconds, I’ve been handcuffed and thrown into the back of the cop car without explanation, and no one around us seems to care. They see the cop uniforms and that’s all the justification they need.
“Wait!” I gasp, trying to call through the window to the officer standing just outside my door. “There’s been some kind of mistake! Please, this isn’t right?—”
The door next to me jerks open with a screech of metal and a sudden, sharp spike of hope rises within me when I glimpse Ruslan’s face.
That hope morphs into instant dread as he’s thrown in next to me and he lands in a heap. Blood trickles from a nasty gash near his temple and my stomach knots tightly as it sinks into dark depths. The front doors of the car open and two men climb in, but I barely spare them a glance.
“Ruslan?”
He doesn’t reply, nor does he move.
He’s unconscious.
8
RUSLAN
Igrit my teeth and relax my shoulders as the next fist flies toward my face and makes contact, sending my head snapping to the right. Hot pain explodes through my jaw and another spurt of blood rises across my tongue as my assailant laughs and shakes his hand.
“Fuck,” the man laughs. “You hurt my fucking hand with your teeth, you dick.”
Before I can respond, he punches me again with his other fist on the opposite side of my face and the back of my neck aches. Teeth shake within my mouth and my head hangs low.
Ow.
How long have I been here? It’s difficult to keep track. Ivy and I were snatched right outside the hospital. When I realized I was going down, I tried to contact the others, but I’ve no idea if the signal went off on time. A hard kick to my temple knocked me out like a light and I woke up here.
A dark, damp room with a single lightbulb above my head and enough shadows to keep me guessing how many attackers are in the room. Simple but effective tactics.
Surviving is easy. Taking a few punches and lost teeth is even easier.
Living until I find out where they took Ivy? That will be harder.
I wait for another blow that doesn’t come. When I lift my head, my attacker has melted back into the shadows of the room, so I swirl my tongue around my throbbing mouth and gather all the blood there. The moment another man steps forward, I spit at him with all my strength and he yells.
“Ugh! Fucking hell, that’s disgusting!” His alarm is amusing, but the crack of his fist against my already weak jaw is less so.
“God,” I groan softly. “Is that all we’re going to do? Just swap around and deliver a few punches here and there?” My head sags back and I grin up at the lightbulb. “You fuckers are losing your creativity, that’s for sure.”
“Our creativity?” Out of the shadows melts one of them I recognize from the street. “You don’t know shit about creativity.”
I make noises under my breath, making it sound like I’m speaking but nothing coherent or loud.
