Page 3 of Property of Fang
His shrewd gaze lands on The Kid’s blonde head, the young girl somehow still oblivious to the danger in the room. “Didn’t sound like no kid’s voice.”
“That’s what it was.” Eleanor holds his gaze, jaw firm. “I swear.”
He shifts focus to Darla. “That so? Is she telling me the truth?”
Arm linked with Mila’s, she nods. “I’d take her word for it. Not that I’d know for sure since, as she said, she got her settled again before any of us woke up.”
“Then why are you all awake now?” He shoves Kathy in the back with his toes. “You awake, too, bitch?”
Her frightened eyes find mine before she shutters them again, lips pressed tight.
He kicks her in the lower back again. Harder. “I said, are you awake bitch?”
She whimpers, but says nothing, faking rousing from sleep instead.
“And you.” He steps toward Mary-Beth. “You fucking lying around being lazy too?”
I swear all the air leaves the room with our collective inhale.
Six sets of eyes watch the man as he stands over Mary-Beth’s body, canting his head to look her over. “You gonna wake up for me too, sweetheart?” He pushes her in the butt with the sole of his socked foot.
Her body rocks forward—arm and face pressed awkwardly into the wall—and doesn’t shift back.
Shit.Nobody could stay asleep in that position.
“Mary-Beth,” I say with an edge of frustration to my tone. “Wake up.”
Eleanor lifts an eyebrow at my weak performance. The Kid wriggles by her side.
“Come on.” Our captor leans down to grab Mary-Beth by the shirt. “Get up.”
Nandi eyes the ajar door through all of this, glancing back to me as though weighing her options.
I shake my head in quick, tight movements.
“I ain’t got time for you to fuck around.” Our captor hauls Mary-Beth upright, her stiff body moving like a flimsy board. “The fuck?” The man drops her back to the floor with the kind of thud I’m not going to forget, and then swiftly rolls her left to right to check her over. Blood comes away on his wide palm before he slowly returns to his full height and turns to face us.
We all wait in suspended states of fear and frustration for what he’ll do next.
Darla glances between Eleanor and the exit, Eleanor frowning as though she’s gone mad.
Sure. He couldn’t take on seven of us at once, but we have no idea what lies beyond that door. How many others are up there. How isolated this place is. What other possible obstacles we’d have to get past.
Knowledge is power, and these fuckers have done a bang-up job of keeping us in the dark.
“Who’s gonna tell me what happened?” His question holds the promise of slow afternoons with heavy fists. “Might be a little bonus in it for you.”
Nobody moves, save for the furtive glances darting between us all as the group evaluates who’ll be the first to break.
“Nobody?” The menace slowly closes the door and then leans his back against it, arms folded high over his barrel chest. I eye his receding hairline and graying ponytail, thin and oily where it hangs over his shoulder. “You’re all real quiet for a bunch of bitches who just found out their friend is dead.”
She was nobody’s friend.
“Who did it?” He sounds genuinely amused by the achievement. “Which one of you think you’re better than the rest, huh?”
My heart pounds against the restriction of my ribs, pulverizing itself with the force. Sweat beads on my nape.Who knows the truth? Who’s going to break?
Darla looks genuinely concerned; Mila is scared at her side, clutching her arm. Nandi chews her bottom lip, glancing past the guy’s legs to the now-closed door.
