Page 19 of Demon's Prey
She saw the silhouette of a person lying on the ground as she made her way further into the space. Her heart dropped into her stomach, and she sprinted toward it. She covered her mouth when she realized that it was her informant, clearly shot in the head and laying dead on the ground.
Before she could panic, a gloved hand reached around her mouth.
“Don’t fucking move.”
Something sharp pushed against her back. Faith shook against it, doing her best to remain still.
The voice spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re coming with us, and I don’t want to hear anything about it, got it?”
Faith nodded her head. She had left her mace in her car and didn’t have her keys in place between her fingers to defend herself. After all, she didn’t know how many men there were or how serious their threats were going to be.
Another man wearing a mask walked around her and tied a blindfold around her eyes. It wasn’t too thick, so Faith did her best to squint and observe where they may be taking her. She felt herself being guided back toward the parking lot, then thrown into the back of a van. She slammed her knees against the metal floor.
“Fuck!” She yelled.
“Shhh.” There was a man inside the van. “Sit down and shut up.”
Faith did as she was told. She tried to glare through the blindfold and observe street landmarks, but all she could absorb were the red, green and yellow of passing streetlights. She was beginning to get worried.
Five to ten minutes later, the van stopped abruptly. She shook slightly as the doors flew open, and a man grabbed her by the throat. He laid her on her back and whipped the blindfold off. Faith could hear cars blasting by above her.
She must have been taken under a busy bridge.
A man slapped her as her eyes wandered. She refocused as the many stared intently.
His voice was stern as he said, “Tell us everything you know.”
Faith’s mind went completely blank, staring up at the man who appeared upside down to her. He took her by the throat and squeezed hard. Faith coughed and tried not to spit up.
“Okay, okay!” She exclaimed.
The man let go of her throat but continued to grit his teeth at her. Two other men were standing next to her outside the van, both still wearing masks. Faith was giving herself a risk assessment as she spoke.
“I know about John Savage, how he’s been influencing property rates. I know that he’s connected to Gideon’s Torch.”
The words came through scraggly and rough. She realized as she’d said it that this was probably Gideon’s Torch who had kidnapped her. These humans were not past getting violent in the face of a challenge.
“What else?” The man over her said.
Faith shook her head. “That’s all I know, I swear!”
The man to her left pulled a knife out from his pocket. It was long and glistened under the dim streetlights.
Faith cowered silently. She didn’t want to die, not in that place, not alone and not having made so little difference in her world.
The man handed the knife to the man looking down at her. He brought the knife to her throat, the point of it pressing lightly against the thin layer of flesh on her neckline.
“No one is going to find your body, you know. New York is a big fucking city. No one cares if girls get thrown into ravines here.”
Faith felt her body surging with fear and intrigue. She didn’t want to die, but there was something far larger and encompassing that wanted her dead.
“I told you everything I know! I swear!”
The man with the knife remained still, holding the knife at her throat with ease.
“How long have you been speaking with the informant? And what did you know about him?” He grunted.
“It’s only been a few months, and he never told me anything about himself. He had rules, and I had to follow them if I wanted to get any information out of him.”
