Page 115 of Your Coffin or Mine
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “What?”
“Why are those the only options?” my voice squeaks out and ends on a high note.
He jerks back while sliding away from the wall. “Because I said so.”
I scoff. “As if that’s even an answer.”
I back up a step, wishing the stupid wall beside us would disappear. Maybe I can grab the lever and somehow get away. Sure, Aubrey, then spend hours running through cold snow?Crap.
“It’s the only answer you will get.”
“I have a hard time believing a guy who donated five million dollars to this year’s Rescue the Dolphins Fund would hurt people.”
“What you and the other foolish humans know about me is wrong.”
“Frank!” another voice rings out. “Finally we found you.”
I stare for a moment in a state of shock as a guy wearing basic blue jeans and a leather jacket approaches from the shadows.
Mr. Stein’s eye finally twitches with some sort of response other than a robot, and I breathe a small sigh of relief. I’ve watched enough profiling shows to know I really need him to give me some kind of clue he’s human.
“Jekyll, what the fuck took you so long?” he growls, his tone annoyed as hell. “We’ve been searching for your little project for thirty minutes.”
I turn to the new man.Thisis Jekyll?
He looks so . . . normal. His eyes are green, his chin-length hair is brown, and his skin is tan like Doyle’s. He looks like he should be rolling around on a movie set, not creeping around in dark tunnels in Romania in the middle of winter.
“My gods, isn’t she the most stunning thing you’ve ever seen?” With the way he waves back to the darkness, I know he isn’t talking about me. His tone is alight with glee, like a computer nerd geeking out over a new part. “I swear Vlad never lets me play with any of his toys. She’s simply marvelous, much better than I even imagined.”
Frank nods in greeting at someone behind him I can’t see. His tone softens as he says, “Hilda.”
My eyes widen, my mouth drops open, and the next thing that registers is Frank Stein taking a growling dog out of my arms which seem to be malfunctioning. But I can’t think about why my limbs aren’t working past the strange buzzing filling my ears, followed by the blood leaving my face in a rush.
A low moan sounds and snaps me out of it. I scream in absolute terror when a walking skeleton comes into view.
“Ahhh!” My fight-or-flight kicks in and I scramble away, my heels getting caught up in my cloak, and I tumble to the floor. “What is that?” I blurt out.
Frank grabs me by the arm with a perturbed sigh, yanking me to my shaky legs.
“This is Hilda, and don’t call her athat.It’s hurtful,” Jekyll says, like I’ve offended someone. He places his palm on the skeleton’s shoulder.“Don’t mind the human. They’re all idiots and blind to your beauty, my skeletal doll.”
“Vlad is going to kill you for this,” Frank sneers, before setting Fifi down on his feet.
The pug turns tail and runs off down the tunnel, hopefully heading to find his owner.
Jekyll rolls his eyes. “Highly doubt that, Mr. Control Freak. It’s fine. She wants to come with me, and he will just have to deal with it.” Then Jekyll turns and looks me over. “And you’re one to talk, Frank.”
My body goes stiff when his bright-green eyes shine strangely in the low light and there’s a wide grin on his face. He careens to the side as he walks, obviously inebriated.
I stand there blinking like an idiot, not knowing what to do, effectively trapped here. Now that there’s two of them, I feel more alone and scared than I did before, especially after Frank’s threats.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I whisper, my back finding the wall as I snap my eyes closed.
“Hurt you? Don’t listen to Frank and his temper tantrums,” he says in disgust, so close I can smell the alcohol on his breath. “My darling girl, I would never hurt you. I quite like living—and breathing, for that matter. Good lord, the women that will weep when I die.”
What the actual hell is this guy on? I open my eyes and look at him warily. “Then let me go.”
He shakes his head and sniffs the air oddly. “No can do, I’m afraid.” He sniffs again, near the top of my head, and his green eyesgloweven in the dimness. “That’s interesting. Vlad really does get all the things. Seems you found Tepesh’s woman wandering the halls, Frank. I can smell him all over her.”
