Page 90 of Bad Seed
Fuck!
Blinking in the blinding sun, I try to focus on the faces of my kidnappers as they remove my blindfold. Memorize every detail. They’re white, with dark brown hair. One’s got a mole…no, that was chocolate sauce on his mouth. The other’s um…white with brown hair. They have noses, kinda round but not.
Why am I so bad at this?
“Don’t move, little lady,” the one in a red tracksuit says.
The one in a green jacket snorts like he told a joke.
Red stares at him a minute, then he focuses on me. I can’t pick his face out of a crowd, but his eyes send me teetering back in the chair. I swear the irises turn red. “Hold out your hands,” he orders.
“Why?”
Knife.
Shit!
He does a quick flip to pull out an old switchblade. He’s going to put it to my cheek and threaten to cut my face off if I don’t give them what they want.
What the hell do they want?
Fingers grab my arm and pull them both forward. Red plunges the knife down, right between my duct taped wrists. “There?” he asks, swinging the knife closed. “Isn’t that better?”
Peeling the tape off, my eyes well as I rip out all the arm hair by the root. My skin radiates with a pink rash, and I start to rub them.
“Don’t you got something to say to me?” Red lunges forward. He grabs the back of my chair and shoves it until I’m balanced on only two legs. I squeal and turn my head.
A city street a hundred feet below races on without a care in the world. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to throw me off right now.
He’s…
The back of the chair hits a window with a thud.
We’re in a building. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ankles. He wasn’t going to drop me. Red sneers at me and folds up his fist.
“Thank you?” I shout.
“There.” He lets go of the chair. I plummet forward and nearly fall out. “Is it so hard to have some manners?” Red flicks out another switchblade, but this one turns into a comb. While staring out the window above me, he styles his hair back into a pompadour. “Conversation is a dying art. Wouldn’t you agree Miss…?”
I swallow hard and lock my jaw.
“Cute.” He bends closer to whisper in my ear, “But we already know your name, Sadvhi Nair. And your address, and your parents’ address…”
Holy shit.I can feel his slimy threat crawling into my ear and wrapping itself around my heart. They want to hurt my parents. Why?
Why would anyone kidnap me?
“Is this about Derek?”
“Derek?” the green one asks. “Were we supposed to get a Derek?”
“Shut up,” Red snarls back at him. “No, darling. But fucking that Derek up was some good work byhim.”
I can tell the him isn’t my ex, but I have no idea who he’s talking about. “I didn’t hire a…a hitman to go after Derek,” I confess.
Red looks back to Green before he swings closer to me. “You couldn’t afford him.”
Afford who? What is going on?
