Page 11 of Black Hand
Reaching my room, I pushed the door open, shoving him inside and slamming it closed. He whirled around and we both froze staring at each other with lips parted and eyes wide in surprise. In his case it was my hair that made him to pause, I had no doubt. For me on the other hand …
There was something about him. He wasn’t perfect by any stretch, with his square jaw covered in stubble and his nose slightly crooked from being broken one too many times. His cheekbones were high, and the color of his skin had a reddish hue that looked just right on him. It was his eyes that startled me the most. They were bright green like mine, only a golden ring pulsed around his irises, while the pupil kept flicking from round to vertical. Cat eyes.
The pounding of feet in the hallway was enough for me to snap out of my daze.
It was enough for him, too.
Hatred burned so intently on his face that it buckled my knees. We had no time left for a brawl, so I rushed to the window and threw it wide open while flipping my hand for him to hurry.
“Get out.” My voice was raw from the smoke I’d inhaled earlier.
Instead of leaving, he was in front of me in a second. I couldn’t breathe. His thick fingers wrapped around my neck and he squeezed for all he was worth. My lungs started burning and the pounding of feet was getting closer.
“Killing me is not worth you dying here tonight,” I rasped, and his eyebrows hit his hairline. A brown lock of hair fell over his forehead and covered one of his eyes. “Go.”
I watched the war in his strange eye until dark spots started dancing at the edges of my vision. Then I gulped air when he realized I wasn’t fighting back because he released me. Choking for breath, I watched him crawl out of the window.
“Brooklyn.” My croak made him turn, and confusion clouded his features. “My name.”
“I will kill you next time I see you, Brooklyn,” he spat, his deep voice sending ghostly fingers crawling over my body. I shivered.
“I can’t wait.” I told the empty window just as the door opened behind me.
I had no time to even ask what she was doing here before Veronica snatched the silk I was still clutching in one fist as she pushed me at the door with a hiss. “Keep your mouth shut, Bee.” The same door that opened again just as I was about to crash into it, but I was pushed to the wall as it pressed hard against my chest.
“What do you want Johnathan?” Veronica’s voice was calm and clear like she didn’t just rush into my room like a female possessed.
“You?” Johnathan barked infuriated. “Where is Brooklyn?”
“How should I know? Have you seen the smoke out there? It’s so thick you have to cut your way through it.”
“Where is he?” the kiss ass snarled, and I held my breath wondering what my friend thought she was doing.
“Who? You have imaginary friends now, darling?” Sugar oozed out of her mouth, and that only made him roar at her in rage. Veronica’s gasp was a dagger in my chest.
Before I could push out from behind the door, he snatched her and was gone, which left me standing in the middle of my room with dread pooling in the pit of my stomach.
What had I done …
6
Two days.
For two days they wouldn’t tell me anything. All my questions fell on deaf ears. I wasn’t allowed to leave my room, and the second I tried opening the door one of the goons would slam it shut in my face. Four of them were positioned in the hallway, which made me a prisoner. It was the same shit I’d gone through in the cages, only no one came to forcefully take my blood and it looked nice. Normal.
Which made it worse.
All the banging of my fists on the door until it cracked were ignored. My throat was raw from screaming and threatening them, but it was like no sound penetrated past the four walls, and the window was now barred. I had no idea what was happening to Veronica and that was what was slowly making me crazy. I hoped with everything in me that she was okay.
I hoped so badly it was driving me insane.
“What made you take the blame?” I whispered to the empty room as my back slid slowly down the door and my ass hit the floor. “Why, Veronica? Why …”
My stomach caved in from hunger and my fangs were throbbing in my gums. It reminded me of the time I was locked up with no blood to quench my thirst for years, the feral state I was in when I clawed my way out of the cages. Veronica had found me. I’d been skin and bones, all curled up while shaking in the corner of a basement. Her kind face while she fed me her own blood and washed years-old dirt and dried blood off me came to my mind, and then I remembered all the whispered assurances that everything would be okay. Well, nothing was okay. Not when I was locked up and they were doing who knew what to her. Rage and hunger made me irrational, and I felt sanity slipping from my grasp. Pushing off the floor, I faced the door with every intention of kicking it out. My foot lifted off the ground.
The door clicked, swinging open on silent hinges.
Johnathan’s arrogant face with his eyebrow arched in question at my crane pose in the middle of the room was the first thing I saw. “Well, that’s a new one.” His mumbled words annoyed the crap out of me.
