Noah had to beg her to tutor him, as she didn’t want to waste her time with someone who was only giving a half-assed attempt. He’d proven he meant business though and studied hard, until hours or days before. She didn’t know how long it had been.
“You need to let us go,” Noah said.
“Oh, I do, do I?” the man with the accent asked. There was a smirk on his face as if he was sharing some kind of inside joke with himself.
“Yes.”
Accent man stepped forward, right up into Noah’s space.
Considering he wasn’t his normal self and drugged up on whatever they’d given him, Skye was impressed that he didn’t cower away. He stood his ground, holding his own against the much older, and to Skye, far fiercer and more terrifying, man.
She got to her feet, crying out as accent man wrapped his fingers around Noah’s neck, squeezing tightly.
“You’ll do exactly as I say. Otherwise, you’re going to be digging your own grave in my back yard. I’ve got a lot of dough riding on this. Play nice, kiddies, and you might leave with your lives attached.”
Skye tried to stop him, but his men held her back, stopping her. She cried out as they kicked Noah in the stomach.
“Let’s not do anything too crazy now.”
She caught herself as they threw her against the wall.
The door slammed closed with the sound of the lock clicking into place. Skye rushed toward it, trying to pull it open, but nothing would give.
They were both locked in.
Noah’s pants drew her attention back to him, and she went to his side, kneeling on the cold floor. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse from being choked.
“You don’t sound it.”
“It’s fine.”
“You can’t talk to them like that again,” she said.
Noah chuckled. “You think they give a shit about what I say?”
“They could kill you.” She touched his cheek and quickly withdrew her hand. They were not friends, not out there, and right now, they were nothing. She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against the wall. The last thing she wanted to do was to go and sit back on the bed. “This is bad.”
“I know,” he said.
The silence said so much.
Their situation wasn’t a prank, or a mistake of identity. They’d been taken, and whatever it was the men had planned, it would end badly for them.
Maybe even in death.
Resting her head against the wall, she stared across their small room, a sense of foreboding filling her, and tears flooded her eyes.
Gritting her teeth, she tried not to think about those men, the ones beyond that door, and instead tried to think about what she could do to get out of here.
“They don’t want ransom money,” he said.
“No. They didn’t seem interested in money.”
“Skye?”
“Yeah?”