Page 20 of In The Darkness

Persephone turned her head and looked down wide-eyed into the bowl he held in his hands. “Soup? Is that really something other than that terrible grey stuff? They let you give me soup?” she asked, looking up at him.

He smiled, happy to see her dark eyes filled with something other than fear. “I told them it wouldn’t be a good thing for you to starve to death. I guess they bought it.”

A look of worry came over her face, and she quietly said, “I thought you were going to hit me.”

Her words felt like a punch to his gut. Shaking his head, he lifted the spoonful of vegetable soup to her lips. “I wouldn’t do that. Well, I don’t want to. But if it meant the difference between me doing it and someone like Drist there doing it, I would just to make sure he didn’t touch you.”

She swallowed the soup and nodded. “That tastes so good. I don’t think I’ve ever loved vegetable soup as much as I do right now.”

“Even the lima beans?” he asked with a chuckle as he fed her another spoonful of soup.

Nodding, she smiled as she let the soup go down her throat. “Yeah. Even the carrots too.”

Nick knew Drist might return at any minute, so he needed to make sure Persephone understood whatever he did in front of those men was what he had to do to protect her in the long run. As he continued to feed her, he tried to explain what might happen.

“I need you to remember that I’m trying to make sure we get away from here, hopefully tonight. Drist and those guys seem on edge this afternoon, so something might be about to happen.”

Persephone swallowed hard and frowned again. “Something? Like what?”

He didn’t know what could happen, but a restless group of malcontents holed up in a house never meant anything good. He hoped they’d get lost in another night of zombie hunting and even Drist might find another few hours of amusement in that damn gun of his.

“I don’t know. Most of them out there are bored, so that could spell trouble. I just need you to trust me. No matter what happens, no matter what I have to do, I just need you to trust me, okay?”

She nodded and took the spoon into her mouth before swallowing more soup. “Okay. Like you might hit me?”

Jesus, he hated this. The last thing he wanted to do was hit her, but if that meant none of them did, then he’d do it or whatever else to keep their hands off her.

He stared into her eyes and hoped she understood what he meant. “Whatever I have to do, I’m doing it to protect you. Just remember that.”

Persephone stretched her legs and ankles. “Did you really never lose anyone while you were at the FBI?” she asked in a voice full of fear.

Lying to her would be the best thing, but he didn’t want to. Whatever they were there in that horrible situation, at least she should know that he was truthful with her, even when it hurt him to be.

Nick shook his head. “No. I lost one person, and the next day, I left the FBI.”

Her eyes wide, she asked, “Someone you were helping when you went undercover?”

He swallowed hard and took a deep breath before admitting the truth to her. “No. An informant who died because of me. After that, I couldn’t do my job without regretting all that happened.”

A noise at the door startled them, and Nick looked up to see Drist and the rest of the group coming into the room. Their restlessness had finally exploded into something more dangerous.

All at once, Nick knew their time was up. Whatever happened now, he had to make sure they didn’t hurt her.

Persephone’s body tensed up in terror, and she looked like she was about to cry. Nick brushed his hand against her leg as he stood to deal with them in an effort to signal that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her now that the time had come.

“What’s this? A fucking convention?” he asked angrily, pissed he now had to deal with the whole group of these guys in with him.

“Drist said you had her under control, so we wanted to see,” Ponytail said as he leered at Persephone like a hungry man seeing his first meal in days.

Fear coiled in Nick that what he and the rest of them were hungry for wasn’t food but her. “So you all thought you should come in so we can all stand around like fucking idiots while I feed this bitch? Zombies get too boring for you guys?”

Most of them laughed at his joke, but Ponytail couldn’t take his eyes off her and reached out to grab her between the legs. Persephone snapped her head around and clicked her teeth together to bite him on the arm but missed, angering him. He jammed his hand into her crotch again, harder this time, and she reacted by kicking her leg out at him.

That’s all it took to make the rest of them lose it, and they began screaming for him to fuck her and show her who was boss. Nick quickly saw his control of the situation begin to unravel, and fearing they might gang rape her if he didn’t do something, he threw the bowl of soup toward the nightstand and pushed hard against Ponytail’s chest to get him away from her.

“After all I’ve had to take from this bitch, I should be the one who gets the right to have her. You haven’t been stuck in here every goddamned day fucking feeding her like some kind of motherfucking servant she’s probably used to.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the look of pure terror wash over her face as the reality of what they planned to do settled in among the room.

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