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“Let me know when we’re done with her,” Macy says darkly.
“Deal.”
“You’ll have to get in line,” I tell her with a smile. “Andy has called dibs on killing me.”
“He gets to have all the fun.”
“Not too late to back out on this,” Ryan warns me quietly, watching the pair openly threatening my life.
“You heard them,” I tell him, spi
It’s actually comforting to know pretty much everyone wants to kill me. It’s what I’m used to. Picking and choosing between my enemies and my friends—that’s exhausting. One miscalculation can get me killed with my guard down like an idiot. But this, knowing everyone wants to see me die, that’s an equation I can understand.
It’s easily half an hour later when we finally stop. The ca
After hoisting himself inside, the young kid leans over the hole and helps pull me up with him. Once I’m in, I’m sick to my stomach. It’s damp in here. They used this room tonight. Whether it was on newbies or the weekly member showers, I don’t know.
Ryan and Trent come up next, followed by the rest of the ca
I play the obedient princess when Kyle and Macy give me stern eyes and signal us to wait in the showers. Ryan and Trent fall in beside me and I feel even weirder with them standing like knights at my side. When did I get valuable? Since when do I matter so much to so many people?
We watch as the ca
There’s nothing but silence for a long time. I count it out, listening to my heart, and I think it’s about twenty minutes before one of the boys breaks the silence.
“This place is big,” Ryan mutters beside me. His eyes are roaming over the room, taking in the shelving with the clean towels and the closed cupboards that I know are stocked full of the best soap I’ve seen in ages, the ones you don’t get to touch until after your ‘cleanse.’
“You’ve only seen one room.”
“And it’s big. What about the rest of the place?”
I shift on my feet. “It’s big.”
“Called it.”
“There’s an airplane inside. A fake tree. A foot car.”
“What’s a foot car?”
I shrug. “It’s a pink car shaped like a foot. They told me it’s a toe truck, then they laughed. I didn’t get it.”
“I don’t either.”
We both look at Trent. He’s not listening.
“How long are we waiting?” he asks, staring at the darkened doorway.
“Until they come get us. That’s the plan.”
“Are we sticking to that?”
I glance down at the hole in the center of the room and I wonder if Bryan can hear us. I’m guessing yes. Yes, he can.
“I don’t want to,” I admit.
“Then why are we doing it?”
“Just because I don’t want to do something, it doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”
“It usually means it is the right thing,” Ryan says.
I look at him sharply. “What does that mean?”
“I didn’t mean it about you specifically. I meant in general—screw it, you’ll be mad no matter what. Let’s just move on.”
“With me mad?”
“I’m learning to live with it.”
“I personally like it,” Trent tells me with a smile.
“Lucky you,” Ryan grumbles.
I fully turn on him. “And what does that mean?”
“It means we’re wasting time. What’s the plan?”
“We wait here.”
“That’s their plan. What’s our plan?”
“We don’t have a plan. We never do. We just kind of do things and see where that takes us. So far, it’s made us more enemies than I can count and landed us almost dead a few times, so maybe we should follow their plan and wait here.”
There’s a commotion from upstairs. A crash, a shout, the sound of furniture being shoved across the floor. The ca
Or they could be fighting the i
I break into a sprint, tearing through the doorway toward the stairs. It’s dark in here—too dark, more so than I’ve ever seen it, but I’m used to the dark. I hear Trent and Ryan behind me just like they were when we ran to my building. When we were laughing and I had fun and felt so free.
I bound up the back stairs to head straight for the dining area, where I’m pretty sure the noise is coming from. As we get closer, I hear plastic clatter to the floor and then another shout rings out. It’s a woman. I run harder, bursting through the door and ru
We both go down. I hit the cement floor on my shoulder, my body weight landing on my injured arm. Suddenly I’m seeing stars. I think I even cry out. I don’t know who I ran into but they’re up off the ground instantly and towering over me as I clutch my throbbing arm. They raise their own arm, a long, dark thickness extending off of it that could be a bat or a rolling pin. Either way, they’re pla
A warm spurt of liquid on my hand tells me I’ve broken their nose. Their pained scream tells me they’re not getting back up right now.
Ryan and Trent run in, do a quick survey of the situation, then jump over me and my fallen enemy to go deeper into the room where the fight is still going on. I roll up onto my knees just in time to see a fistfight come to an end. Ryan pulls one figure off another, spins him around, and drops him to the ground on his stomach. I hear an “oof,” the rushing of air leaving their lungs, then coughing. Trent has taken hold of the other figure and pi
Instead, I hear a snap from the hallway. I spin around, my hand forgetting that it’s hurt and gripping my knife secured to my hip. My other hand clenches around my ASP, still coiled and small against my body, begging to come out and play.
Bright, u
When one of the figures moves, I’m wound so tightly I almost weep. He steps into the doorway, light spilling in from behind him, blotting out his features. There’s no way to tell who it is. No way to recognize him beyond his build and the way he moves, but that’s all I need. I know it in an instant. I know it in the way my stomach bottoms out, my heart screams in my chest, and the greatest sense of relief I’ve felt since Ryan opened his eyes in the water under that boat courses through my veins.