Page 76 of Red Hunt

Goofy nodded, then preceded me along the corridor to the other side. We cleared two more rooms, both empty. Where the hell were the girls? Did they even come down here? They could’ve gone up the stairs or followed the corridor to the exit.

Fuck.

We reached the last door at the end of the corridor. Probably a fire exit. Probably where the girls were headed.

Goofy held up his hand, the military sign to stop, and I froze.

48

MILLI

“Oh, hello, who do we have here?”

A sleazy-looking guy entered from a side door. His hair was slicked back, and his too-big leather jacket made him look like a beefy dwarf. If he was surprised about seeing us here, he didn’t show it.

I just stood there gaping at the guy, my mind working in super slow motion, completely at a loss on what to do.

“Hey, there, we’re looking for a way out. My friend here isn’t feeling too good, and the barkeeper let us slip out the back. Is this the exit?” Belinda’s voice was smooth, and luckily, she wasn’t as incompetent as I was. By the way she acted, nobody would guess we’d seen things we shouldn’t have or were onto something.

“Yeah, the exit’s through here. We’re just on our way out. Let me get my buddy, and we’ll escort you out.” The guy smiled, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and a golden tooth reflected the neon light. Who the hell had a golden tooth nowadays, anyway? I shook my head. Why the hell was I fixating on stupid shit instead of the actual problems? It might be that they would just escort us out and let us go, or not.

As soon as the guy left through the door, Belinda squeezed my hand until I looked up at her. “Prepare to fight and run,” she whispered.

My heart jumped. Fight? Was she kidding? That guy might look like a dwarf, but I wasn’t an Amazon warrior queen either, and he easily weighed double what I did.

Then Belinda turned to the other girls. “Guys, as soon as we’re out, we scream and run. You with us?”

The girls looked at each other, then slowly nodded even though they looked even more intimidated than I felt.

The side door opened again, and the dwarf entered, accompanied by two other guys and a half-naked girl. Three against eight. Could we do what Belinda had planned?

I watched them enter and lock the door behind them. Why?

Then they turned to us. The last guy, the tallest one with the key in his hand, looked at me, then did a double-take. A sly grin entered his face. “I’ll be damned.”

The other two looked up at him, then followed his gaze, and their eyes landed on me. “What is it?” one of them asked.

My chest squeezed, and for a moment it felt as if I couldn’t get enough oxygen into my lungs.

I didn’t know the guy, didn’t recognize any of them. But he clearly recognized me.

Tall Guy looked me up and down with his eyes, and I shivered involuntarily. “Your video is still one of my favorites. I’m watching it often, reliving the night we taped it. You’ve grown up pretty, Lindi.”

Lindi. My mother used to call me that. My mother…and the men she brought into our home.

My chest hurt, and my heartbeat suddenly doubled in speed, the thrashing deafening to my ears. I could feel the black curtain hovering just at the fringes, ready to fall and swallow me whole. Fuck.

Then another sensation pierced my consciousness. Pain. I looked down at my hand. Belinda was holding it. Clawing it. Pushing her nails into my skin.

Drawing blood.

My head snapped up, finding her eyes. They conveyed everything. Love, understanding, but also steely intention. We were getting out of here. We had to get out of here. And we couldn’t do that if I was unconscious or curled into a weeping ball on the floor.

I snapped my shoulders back. I was done being a victim. What they did, what they did to me, was beyond words. But I was not the powerless little girl I’d been. I would not be her again.

Never again!

“It will be nice to spend some time together, again.”

---