Page 30 of Cruel Games

No fucking way.

No. Fucking. Way.

The girl from the club? But why?—?

I wanted to look, to confirm my suspicions so badly, but I’d tip my hand if she caught me.

I flinched as a finger jabbed angrily in the center of my forehead, the sharp claw at the end of it startling me asmy eyes flew open in response and met the most beautiful blue ones I’d ever seen in my life.

Fuck, there was no blue on this Earth that described that shade, that hue, that particular color. An artist could search every pigment known to man, spend a decade crafting new ones, and still fail to bottle that perfection.

“Oh, good; you’re awake.”

The slow smile that spread on her lips made my blood run cold.

She stood over me with her hands on her hips, those long nails sharpened like actual claws peeking out over the waistband of a?—

Is that a school uniform?

Oh, fuck me, she’s underage. Great; now we’re inspiring miscreant youths.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time, Jackal.”

My wandering brain snapped back to attention. “How do you know my name?”

I tracked her movements as she turned from me and strode over to a nearby table, her hand dragging across the surface that I couldn’t see from my position on my back on the floor. I let my thoughts race another second, and then panic set in.

Dingo and Coyote would never have let me be taken if they weren’t incapacitated.

So what happened to them?

Suddenly, a bright light flooded my field of vision as the girl switched on some construction spotlight, pointing directly at me. I heard a groan to my left and turned my head, though the ache in my neck nearly made me wince.

“Fuck,” I heard him whisper, his voice hoarse and tired. That was all he said until his gaze turned to me, and I managed to squint him into a meaningful blob in the blinding glare.

“Coyote?”

Somewhere off in the distance, I heard the girl’s voice again. “Oh, right, your partners are all here. Coyote there in the chair, Dingo here on my table.” At her admission, I strained to see that original table, but spotted a second one to my right. And sure enough, arms and legs tied tightly to the steel legs of the thing, was the third in our little group. His eyes were still closed, but I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or just faking it, not from this angle.

I hoped for his sake it was the former. I had no illusions that this would end positively for any of us.

“I was going to wait for your other man to wake up before we started the party, but I suppose I can get things cracking without him.”

My head throbbed, but the sound of a suddenly moving chain grabbed my attention. I wriggled my feet and heard the telltale rattle there, too. And so, like any man who found himself chained up, I braced for the inevitable tug on that chain.

But instead of moving sideways, I felt my feet lift from the floor and keep going, up, up, until my hips were just barely resting on the floor. Then, the chain ground to a halt, and I heard her swear as my eyes locked onto Coyote again.

“Fuck! I knew I should have brought grease. Stupid fucking rig.” I put her out of my mind as sheclankedandclangedaround in the shadows, obviously playing around with a motor that had decided to spare me.

“Are you okay, Coyote?” I whispered, knowing damn well she’d probably still hear me. All I got in return was a grunt, but it didn’t soundtoonegative, so I took it as a positive. “Can you see anything?”

“Not much,” he growled, the sound of a chair scraping across the floor in his direction making me wonder if we’d all been given a different kind of restraint for any particular reason. “You?”

I shook my head, and then laughed at myself. “I’m chained up and half-suspended in the air, but other than that, I’m alive.”

Her laughter echoed out from the far corners of the darknessbeyond the light, and I felt the tug of the chain start up again, the faint mechanical whirring making my heart sink. “Oh, don’t worry about that. You won’t be alive for long.”

“And why’s that?” I heard Dingo murmur from his table of torture, finally awake.

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