A scream rips from me because of the agony, and he stops shaking me.
His partner laughs as he slaps me for a third time. “Talk or things will get much worse for you!”
“I don’t know anything, asshole!” I scream back in frustration.
My answer earns me another slap. I taste even more blood on my tongue. My teeth must have cut open the inside of my mouth. It is starting to pool on my tongue, but I refuse to swallow it.
“Don’t lie to me, biker whore. I know your sister was living with you before we caught up to her. Now tell me what she told you and where she hid it!”
At this point, I’m so confused my head is spinning. Or maybe that’s still the drugs in my system. It’s hard to tell after being kidnapped, drugged, and slapped around.
I have no idea what this jackass is talking about. The only thing I do know is that I’m tired of being hit, and I am going to punch him in the nuts the first chance I get.
Utterly overwhelmed by the situation, something inside me snaps. Although I know it’s a bad idea to mouth off to the man who has me tied down and is slapping me silly, I still can’t seem to help myself.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. The only thing I can see that you’re missing is the brain God gave you, because your head is stuck so far up your own ass you can’t find it!”
His backhanded slap lands across my face before I even have the chance to flinch away. Dark spots appear in my vision, and internally, I search for a safe place to go to in order to survive this.
My mind goes back to Ethan’s place.
“Come on, Hammer; choke it down. It’s good for you,” I tease him as I swallow the green juice.
“Drill Sergeant, I get that you love busting balls, but I’m a grown-ass man, and I eat my vegetables, not drink them.”
I laugh. “Come on; you know it’s gotta be better than chow hall food or an MRE.”
“Hey now, don’t knock it till you’re in the middle of nowhere, starving.”
With my hand on my hip, I give him back a taste of his own. “Hey now, don’t knock it till you’re halfway through today’s workout and not feeling like you gotta puke for once.”
Puking. God, I could so do that right now. So much for holding onto a happy moment.
The second kidnapper laughs again. “She’s probably lying. Get your knife out and start to fillet her like we did her sister. I guarantee you, cugino, if you start slicing and dicing, that bitch will tell us where the thumb drive is.”
Fury engulfs me, and I defy him the only way I can. I spit my mouthful of blood out in a spray that lands on both men. “Fuck you, asshole.”
The man with the dark eyes isn’t laughing anymore. It is totally the opposite now as he steps forward, pushes his partner aside, and punches me in my gut. It feels like he has shoved my guts halfway up my body. I want to curl up in a little ball. No such luck, though.
I heave a few times, wondering, if I puke on his shoes, will he just go ahead and kill me? Somehow, I doubt I would be that lucky. He has already admitted they were the ones who killed my Suzie, and I saw what they did to her.
I have to try to keep myself alive until Ethan gets here with help.
“Suzie didn’t say anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I swear.”
One of them snorts a laugh. “Right. And I’m the tooth fairy. Try again, bitch.”
Another slap across the face. More blood in my mouth. This time, I’m not brave enough to spit it out at them. Instead, I start to cry as I swear up and down that my sister didn’t tell me a damn thing.
I’m so scared I want to puke my guts up. Pee my pants. Cry a fucking river. Anything and everything that might make these two realize I’m a human being who deserves to live.
Terror is such an overwhelming emotion that I’m afraid I might actually die of a heart attack before the men kill me.
A million things are running through my mind as each slap they deliver sends both a bit of clarity and a whole lot of misery through my body. Is Ethan okay? I remember hearing the thud of his body hitting the stairs as he raced to try to save me.
Will he and the Regulators get here in time to save me?
God, I hope so. Not just because I want to live, but because in those precious moments between last night and this morning with Ethan McCoy, I think I may have found something to live for again.