With no way of knowing how long she’d been asleep or how close to that hour Marcus promised to be back in, she slumped down onto the bed, prepared to wait. The springs protested her weight once again, and Elise got an idea.
Dropping to her knees, Elise flung the blankets back and peered beneath the piece of ancient history. Sure enough, giant metal springs sat exposed, rusty with age and no doubt brittle.
Grabbing one that looked to be hanging on by a thread, Elise sent up a prayer and pulled.
The metal snapped off in her hand with surprising ease. Shocked but relieved, Elise inspected the coiled hunk of metal. It wasn’t perfect by any means. It was old and bulky, would probably give her lockjaw, and there was no way she could hide it on her person.
But it was better than nothing.
She was just climbing to her feet when Elise realized that the fighting had ceased and the sound of heavy footsteps were headed her way. Frantically, Elise looked around for a place to hide her makeshift weapon. The closet was too far away, and the nightstand lacked drawers, so she tossed it back under the bed, out of sight.
She faced the door, preparing for an altercation, when she spotted the black strap of fabric on the table. Remembering Marcus’s warning, she lunged, scooping it up and quickly yanking it down over her head to cover her eyes just seconds before the door swung open.
“Get your ass out here, bitch,” Driver snarled, clearly taking his anger out on her.
Elise didn’t budge an inch, unsure of where to go without running into anything. He must have realized this. With an impatient huff, Drive marched over and snatched her arm in a brutal grip then all but dragged her from the room.
Elise had to jog to keep up, tripping over her own feet the whole way. When they reached their destination, Driver practically threw her down on the couch. She landed on her side with a thud, the furniture sliding back a few inches.
“Hey, easy!” Marcus chastised, but his partner was having none of it.
“Since you’ve gone soft, I’ll be watching over her from now on.”
“The hell you will. You’re out of control, man,” Marcus told him. “She might be our insurance, but that doesn’t give you license to abuse her.”
“Newsflash: That’s how you keep shit in line. You don’t coddle the hostage. If they don’t fear you, they take advantage. Next thing you know, you’re in the back of a police car in cuffs while she sells your ass down the river. You can stand there and be stupid all you want, but I’m not taking any risks. The bitch stays with me.”
“Not a chance in hell!” Marcus shouted, causing Elise to jump. “You want me to be harder on her, fine. I’ll tie her up again.” Elise squeaked her protest, but they both yelled “Shut up!” so she shut right up. “If she’s tied up and blindfolded, she won’t be going anywhere and she won’t be able to say anything about anything.”
“Except that you’ve already let her see you,” Driver said, his tone low and filled with malice.
Marcus was silent for a beat too long, confirming for his partner that he’d hit the nail on the head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? Because I could have sworn that while you were nailing her ass to the wall, I walked in and saw the two of you making eyes at each other. It was a real spiritual moment,” he mocked.
“You were spying on me?”
“Considering the way the walls were shaking, I thought you might need a hand controlling the bitch. Seems you had everything under control. Except the part where you let her see your fucking face, you fucking idiot!”
There was a struggle then, following by the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and all Elise could do was sit there, stiff and filled with fear, while the men crashed around the room. Things were broken, curses were thrown, and threats were issued, and at the end of it all, somehow both men came out of it alive.
“You’re a real bastard,” Driver said then spit.
“So you’ve said before, fucker.”
They laughed good-naturedly, then grunted as they picked themselves up and dusted themselves off.
“Dinner is ready,” Driver announced with a pained groan as he strode away.
“I’ll fix a couple of plates. You hungry, buttercup?”
Elise nodded, too afraid to speak in case it set off another round of fisticuffs. While Marcus prepared to serve their dinner, she sat in stunned and confused silence, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. From friends to enemies and back again. The two of them had a strange and baffling dynamic that she just couldn’t wrap her head around.
And men called women crazy?
Chapter Nine
Despite her quiet protests and whispered pleas, Marcus left Elise behind to do a run. Apparently, it was his turn to go into town for supplies. She’d begged him to tell his partner to do it, but after his fight with Driver, he’d changed.