“I told you that he was still in there. I don’t know why the fuck you had to drag everyone back to this shithole,” a man with short blond hair said, gesturing angrily towards something in the large hole in the wall. “We should have just ditched that bitch and hung out in Germany for a month.”
“Would have been a hell of a lot more fun than this,” one of the men grumbled.
“Anything would be more fun than being that bitch’s errand boy,” the man who’d offered to kill her earlier said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Richard said, glaring at his men. “I promised my mate I’d take care of this unfinished business and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
The man with the blonde hair snorted. “How in the hell was this unfinished business? We all knew the little bastard was dead when we stuffed him in there. If she was so damned concerned about it, she should have gotten off her pampered ass and come taken a look for herself.”
“It’s the least that bitch could do since she started all this shit. I’m so fucking sick of dodging that crazy leech. I say we let him have her so-”
Whatever the man was about to say was cut off when Richard grabbed him by his neck and raised him off the ground. Samantha’s eyes widened as she watched Richard slam him against the wall.
“I’m sick of repeating myself,” Richard said coldly. “We are not going to hand over my mate. Do you understand?”
The man nodded jerkily as he tried to pry Richard’s hand off his throat. Richard looked at the other men expectantly. “Understood?” After a slight pause, the rest of the men reluctantly agreed.
“Good. Now let’s stop this bullshit and make sure the little bastard is really dead.”
“What about the leech? Maybe we should give him the body so that he’ll finally leave us alone,” a man with a large tribal tattoo on his neck suggested.
“You’re a fucking idiot!” Richard spat. “We give him proof that we killed the little bastard and he’ll make what he did to us in 1849 look like a fucking picnic. Our only hope is to try and catch him when he comes back to the area.”
The man rubbing his neck asked, “How do we know he really comes back here? For all we know, this could be a trap he set to finally kill the rest of us off.”
“It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Richard said, turning back around and leaning against the edge of the hole while he spoke to the other men. “After we kill the human, we’ll stuff her body in there with him and reseal it. Then we’ll stay here and wait for him to show up in town.”
A fresh wave of fear took over, but this time it wasn’t for her. Nathan would be coming back in a few weeks. Frustrated tears ran down her face as she struggled again, wishing there was some way that she could warn her brother to stay away. She no longer cared about what they did to her as long as Nathan was okay. She’d do anything to keep him safe. She prayed they removed her gag before killing her so that she could try to convince them to leave the house and give Nathan a chance.
“Fine,” the man who’d offered to kill her earlier said, sighing heavily, “let’s kill her and get it over with. I’m fucking starving, and Henry’s is having a two for one deal on hot wings and beer tonight.”
If Samantha hadn’t been so worried about what they would do to her brother, she would have been outraged over how callously they were discussing killing her. Ignoring the throbbing pain at the back of her skull and her temple, she tried to turn over so that she could sit up, praying that she could manage to hide or get free, anything to buy herself some time.
Just when she’d managed to roll over onto her back someone grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to her feet. The piece of duct tape covering her mouth muffled her scream of agony as she was forced to stay on her feet when a wave of dizziness threatened to make her legs give out. The rope around her ankles was sliced off and then she was moving, stumbling as she tried to pull free.
“Should we shoot her or slit her throat?” the man dragging her towards the hole asked.
“Break her neck or just stuff her in there. Cleaning up the blood will take too fucking long,” Richard said, sounding bored.
Samantha screamed against the tape as she was dragged closer to Richard and that large hole they planned on shoving her in. She forced herself to breathe through the pain even as her brain begged her to shut down. If she blacked out this time, her only chance to save Nathan would be gone. She needed to find a way out of this.
When she was only a few feet from Richard and the rest of the men, she began to kick out, hoping to piss them off enough that they just threw her in the hol
e without killing her so that she could try and claw her way back out. She knew that Nathan would have already found a way out of this, but she wasn’t him, and she was too damn desperate and scared to try and figure out what her brother would do right now.
“Control her,” Richard snapped when she came close to kicking him in the shin.
She was just about to aim for his balls when movement from behind him caught her attention. A scream caught in her throat as she watched a thin ghostlike creature with long, tangled hair slowly move behind Richard. He frowned down at her just as the creature grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back, catching him by surprise.
“What the hell-argh!” he yelled, as the creature latched onto his neck while she stood there, too shocked to do anything but watch as two lines of blood ran down his neck.
“He’s alive!” one of the men screamed as she was thrown on the floor.
She landed hard, slamming her head against the floor only to scream against the tape seconds later when one of the men tripped over her and knocked one of the lanterns over, throwing it against the stone wall where it shattered. After that, another lantern and then another was shattered until the only light left was the ceiling light and even that didn’t last long. Once the room was enveloped in darkness, the screams began.
God, the screams…
Bloodcurdling screams, screams of agony, and for mercy filled the large room as she squeezed her eyes closed and curled into herself, wishing that her hands were free so she could cover her ears and block everything out. It was like nothing that she’d ever heard before, and God willing, would never hear again.