Chapter 22 #2
“You were supposed to tell me when she woke up,” Jonah said. There was a hard edge to his voice. Seriously displeased. Hallie wondered if he was the sort that punished every single failure of his men, and suspected that was the case.
Brock flinched, ducking his head. “It just happened,” he muttered, sounding defensive.
“We’ve been having a lovely chat,” Hallie said, voice bright. “He’s been telling me all sorts of things.”
“No, no, I haven’t,” Brock said, panic showing on his face as he turned to Jonah. “You know I wouldn’t. Not ever.”
“Oh, come now, don’t be so modest,” Hallie said, still in that falsely cheerful tone.
“It’s been so interesting.” She saw Jonah’s eyes narrow as he stared at her for a moment before transferring that stare to Brock.
The young man looked like he might faint from fear, which was not going to reassure Jonah in the slightest, Hallie thought.
“Told you she was trouble,” Findo said, more than a hint of satisfaction in his voice.
As he came into the room, Hallie could see a fearsome bruise and impressive swelling on one side of his face, which must have been from where her stone had hit him.
She couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t won. Not yet. But she’d done some damage.
“We can handle one little girl,” Jonah said, tone dismissive. Hallie’s smile grew as Findo frowned. He was used to being in charge, and not used to being waved away so easily. “Bring her,” he said to Brock, and turned away, leaving the room.
“On your feet,” Brock said to Hallie, moving towards her and waving the gun at her. Glad to have something to do, she thought, and wanting to look tough in front of his boss.
“Really?” Hallie said, staying where she was. “Did you forget the fact I’m tied up? You’ll need to untie my ankles at least before I can go anywhere.”
Brock stopped mid-way across the room, frowning as he stared at her ankles.
“She’s lying,” Findo said. “On your feet, Hallie, there’s a dear.”
“It doesn’t matter how you ask me, it’s not happening,” Hallie said.
It had the benefit of being true. She’d been left in an awkward position wedged between the stone wall and the wooden floor and had been unconscious and still long enough that her whole body had seized up.
With that and the chill seeping into her bones, she was quite sure her limbs weren’t going to work properly.
Findo made an irritated sound and stepped forward, putting one hand under Hallie’s arm, lifting her to her feet.
She made a low sound of pain as his rough handling made her head swim, but managed to get her balance enough to stay standing when he let her go.
She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of falling at his feet.
“Such a gentleman,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words, as Findo turned away.
“But I still can’t walk.” That was also true.
The ties around her ankles were tight enough that even standing was difficult, pulling her feet too close together.
She was swaying slightly, off balance from the head wound and change of position.
Findo turned back to her and scowled, eyes travelling from her head to toes.
He made a low sound of irritation and, before Hallie knew what he was planning, lowered his head slightly and lifted her over his shoulder so that her face bumped against his back, legs dangling down his front.
He put a hand on the back of her thighs, holding her in place, then turned and walked out of the room.
She wanted to object, to cringe away from being so close to him, at being touched by him, however impersonally, but she knew he was more than capable of dropping her back on the floor and dragging her by her hair or her feet.
This was probably the least bad of the options available right now.
“I’ll take her now,” Findo said. There was a note of final decision in his voice and Hallie’s interest sharpened. He didn’t mean just carrying her. He meant taking her with him. That did not sound like good news for her.
“That wasn’t what we agreed,” Jonah said, sounding displeased. “At least one of my men is dead because of her.”
“Then you need better men,” Findo said. He paused in his forward momentum. “If this boy is an example of them, you need a lot better men.” And that was the truth, to balance out the lie he’d told earlier, about Jonah having some promising young men.
“Brock? He has his uses,” Jonah said.
“Family connections,” Hallie said, from her upside down position. Hanging from Findo’s shoulder was making her head pound even more strongly. If it went on much longer, she might pass out from the pain. But right now she was conscious, and could stir up some more trouble for both Jonah and Findo.
“You leave my mother out of this,” Brock hissed.
“Oh, so brave,” Hallie mocked him. She tried turning her head to look at him, but the world spun.
Her damaged head did not like being upside down at all.
She grit her teeth and forced herself to continue.
“I wasn’t talking just about your mother.
Ask Findo about the last time he saw your grandfather. ”
“That’s enough from you,” Findo said. His fingers tightened around her leg hard enough to leave bruises. Reminding her of just how powerful he was. As if she needed the reminder.
“But, do you know my grandfather?” Brock asked.
From the tone of his voice it was clear he didn’t have any particular love or respect for Findo.
Hallie could picture him, standing with his shoulders square, chin lifted a little, staring at the veondken.
He would never have risked that tone with Jonah.
“You don’t question guests,” Jonah told him, voice a sharp snap.
“Alright. You can take her now. Let’s go,” he said, with a slightly different note in his voice.
Speaking to Findo, and making it seem as if he was agreeing to a request from the veondken rather than going along with what Findo wanted.
Hallie wondered if the two men had ever had a true disagreement.
She didn’t think it would end well. With any luck, they might actually destroy each other.
Part of her wondered how she could create a divide between them.
Findo moved, and Hallie found that being carried over his shoulder when he was walking was even more uncomfortable than when he’d been standing still. She heard at least one other person walking with them. Jonah. And possibly another, which meant that Brock might be there, too.
She couldn’t see much, nose bumping against Findo’s back.
The floor changed from bare boards to stone and the temperature of the air dropped so much that she began to worry about her bare feet and whether she was going to end up with frozen toes.
Frostbite had never been a real danger in low city, but she was far away from home now.
The chill in her feet was being counter-acted by the heat from Findo’s body, which was the one - the only - advantage to being carried by him.
A lot of veondken had higher body temperatures than humans, and Findo was no exception.
Findo stopped after a short walk and she could hear clattering and then what sounded like a sliding door.
He took a couple of steps forward and then turned and she found herself staring down at a metal grate formed of heavy, rough-cast metal, with what looked like an endless drop beneath it.
A couple of pairs of boots came into view nearby.
The door slid again, there was more clattering and then a jolt and the sensation of movement.
Hallie made a small noise. Surprise or fright, she wasn’t sure which.
Her brain scrambled, trying to work out what was happening.
The sense of movement and still floor under her let her work it out.
Lift. They were in some kind of a lift. It must have been built into the hill where the house sat, as it was going down and down and down.
She thought of the frantic climb she had made up the hill, her legs and lungs burning, and felt a spike of irritation.
She hadn’t needed to do all that work. Apparently there was a lift that would have taken her from somewhere below right up into the middle of the house.
At length there was a hard jolt and the movement stopped.
More clattering, and another sound of a sliding door opening.
Findo walked out of the lift, and Hallie felt the cold sting of biting fresh air against her face and her mouth filled with the taste of salt.
They’d travelled down to sea level. Upside down across Findo’s shoulder, she tried to work out just how deep a drop that was but couldn’t.
She remembered the brief glimpse of the house on the hill from the helicopter and her impression that it was high, high above the sea.
That was as accurate a picture as she could get.
So they’d travelled further down than she’d climbed up the hill. For some reason that annoyed her again.
The ground underfoot was stone that gave way to wooden planks, with small gaps between them that let Hallie see brief glimpses of water underneath. Some kind of a dock.
Without warning, Findo dragged her off his shoulder and dropped her onto the ground. He wasn’t a tall man, but the fall was enough to jar every bone in her body and set her head ringing again.
“Don’t worry, I’ll come back for you,” he said, teeth glinting in an unpleasant smile before he turned and headed away with Jonah.
Hallie muttered a curse under her breath and struggled to sit up, aware of tears on her face.
Her head hurt again. She’d been thrown onto her side, and would have even more bruises to show for it.
There was a large wooden chest next to her and she managed to wriggle around so that she was sitting with her back against it.
It was a far better vantage point than on Findo’s back.