Chapter 26
Pain formed a quick headache as I started to come to. Recognition tried to rear its ugly head at the forefront of my mind, trying to remember what had happened as I felt soreness blast from the back of my head.
I remembered waking up and being with Arze at the RV, the short introduction with Myers, and then we’d said goodbye. Right, and then I’d heard that weird noise outside the RV. And then I’d gone investigating and then…nothing. Which begged the question: where the hell was I now?
My eyes fluttered at the same time my ears started working again, the darkness lifting from me as I came to completely.
I could hear some light chatter around me, but nothing super distinct. My eyes were squinting from the blaring light, careening my head to the side until I was able to make out the tops of the trees. In fact, there were a lot of trees as I moved my neck down.
The forest came into painful clarity, my head still working to outdo the torment I’d been afflicted with. I was in the middle of a clearing, completely enveloped by the forest. Whether or not I was just outside the RV park or in an entirely different section of the woods, I wasn’t sure.
I was more surprised that I hadn’t been tied up in any way. But I guess with so many people around, they figured that they would have spotted me if I had dared to run.
A slew of people were nearby. Humans. I realized that they were, at least in part, some of the people that had just recently arrived to the RV park.
They were a part of the same group that had just arrived, the ones that had been making a loud racket when Arze and I had our talk by the picnic area.
They varied in every way, a melting pot of the human existence represented.
Although, they were almost entirely male in appearance.
I spotted a few women, but whatever or whoever this group was, they were dominated by an overwhelming presence of men.
And every single one of them looked hateful, wearing the same even snarl that made me think they hadn’t taken me in order to celebrate some unforeseen event.
There had to be about thirty people ambling about this damn clearing, aimless and seemingly waiting for further instructions on their next move.
One of the nearby people was a man with a gnarly mustache, one that was upturned and long, like he was a fucking cartoon villain. He was covered in tattoos that traveled the length of both his arms, and he caught my squinted gaze. His eyes flared as his mouth dropped to speak.
“Hey, he’s awake.”
And then suddenly I was surrounded by about twelve different men. They were staring at me like I was some kind of threat, which was rich, considering the predicament I’d found myself in.
“What do you want?” My voice was gruff and gravely as I spoke.
Gnarly Mustache grunted, turning to one of his comrades. “Tell the boss he’s up.”
He remained with me, along with one other man that had a well maintained beard but was completely bald otherwise.
The rest of them scattered, going to deliver the message to this ‘boss’ they were referring to.
Who the hell would want to capture me? And for what?
I was one of the least threatening people ever.
And on top of that, I wasn’t even a true citizen of Phoebe.
What would the townspeople have against me?
Then it hit me. These people had just settled in the RV park, implying that they too were from out of town. Again, I had no enemies that I knew of. None of this made sense.
Through the crowd of people hustling to get the person in charge, I was able to peer through their movement to see Arze about twenty feet from me on the opposite side of the clearing, blinking rapidly from the spot he was kneeling on in the grass like he too had just woken up.
“Arze!”
His eyes found me through the mass of people. I could make out the terror as he took me in, mirroring his position in the grass, also kneeling and being guarded by a pair of goons.
Gnarly Mustache stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Arze. “Shut the fuck up. No one said you could talk, did they?”
I kept my mouth shut, but I gave him what I hoped was the most intense death glare he’d ever received in his life.
When this, whatever the fuck this was, ended, I was going to unleash some havoc on these people.
Not only had they taken me but they’d taken Arze.
That fact charted a course of wanting to inflict immense bouts of pain on them all that wouldn’t be satiated until they were unconscious, bare minimum.
More movement behind Gnarly Mustache blurred by, until he finally finished obscuring my perspective and my mouth dropped at the person standing before me. The last person I would have expected to see come into the clearing, at this exact moment, was him.
His blue eyes shone with determination, not a single strand of his blond hair ruffled or out of place.
“Lincoln?” I managed to say, still dumbfounded that he was here. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”
“I’ll take it from here.” Lincoln gave the men surrounding me an easy smirk. “Make sure everything’s ready. Bring that Orb closer so we can get things started.”
They all gave him a nod and started moving now that they had acquired their next orders.
Lincoln bent down to my eye level, balancing on his bent legs as he stared down at me.
He had that same edge in his eyes as he had that day when we’d been in a very similar clearing near the RV park, and it made my headache at the memory.
Or maybe that was the fact that I’d obviously been knocked out and hadn’t quite recovered.
Actually, as I looked around, glancing behind Lincoln, this clearing looked hauntingly familiar. My heart quickened. If this was the same clearing, then we weren’t really that far from the RV park. We could get help, or at least escape, and aid wouldn’t be that far from us.
“Krueger.” Just my name passing his lips was enough to make my stomach churn with disgust. I was so fucking glad I had distanced myself from him before things had gotten more involved. Clearly I’d had the right idea. “I’d like to say I’m sorry about this, but honestly, I’m not.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
Sharp suffering met my cheek as Lincoln slapped me, making my head turn away from him. Flashing anger streamlined through me as I turned back to face him, doubling in the earlier disgust as he met my gaze again.
“Watch it.” He said. “You’re not in charge here.” He stood back up, wiping imaginary dust off of his acid wash jeans. “I am.”
Not wanting another slap to the face, I kept my mouth shut.
Lincoln was a creep, that much I had already learned when he’d tried to force himself on me after we’d hooked up and he’d been unable to take no for an answer.
But this? Why the fuck was he enforcing orders at all?
Who the fuck were these people and why were they at the RV park?
“It was so easy for you, wasn’t it?” He scoffed, his stare lethal.
Lincoln began pacing in front of me as I steeled myself.
I had the feeling I was in for a monologue.
So many people were behind Lincoln, pacing and doing other things that I just wished I could see Arze on the other side.
He was drowned out from my vision and that hurt more than any slap.
I just needed to know that he was okay and not getting the same treatment that I was.
When I failed to produce an answer, he decided to go on with his speech.
“You got what you wanted from me and tossed me out like I was yesterday’s trash.
” He ended his pacing to bend down to my eye level, yet again bouncing on his legs to keep his balance.
“You didn’t even try to see if there was something more between us. ”
“Lincoln, I—”
“I’m still fucking speaking.” There was a tremor of anger to his voice that honestly made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Where the hell had he gotten this scary persona from?
Even though I’d seen a glimpse of it before when he’d accosted me, it was nothing like this.
Where had that cute blond guy I’d shared an amazing night with gone?
There wasn’t a single trace of that guy left in the eyes of the one standing in front of me.
“I even tried to make you see that we could’ve been more than just a one time thing, but you refused.
So I figured, okay, he isn’t looking for anything serious, I’ll have to get over it.
” Then he gave me a stare that I feared would leave a physical mark on my skin.
The animosity, the hatred, the undeniable want to see me hurt shone back through the usually cool blue of his eyes.
I could feel fear pumping alongside the blood in my veins. “And then you found an Orb to fuck.”
Awe caused my eyebrows to upturn in confusion. This was because I’d been with Arze and not him? Oh God, wait. How had he known I was with Arze? There’s no way this reaction from Lincoln was because he’d seen Arze coming out of my RV this morning.
Was it even still the same day? I had to assume I hadn’t lost that much time between consciousness or else Myers was liable to lose her shit and have the entire RV park looking for me.
“This is about you being jealous?” I knew he didn’t want me to speak, but I couldn’t just keep my thoughts to myself, not when it was painfully obvious that I had a big role in causing Lincoln’s snap from reality that had Arze and I in this current predicament.
“No.” Lincoln answered honestly, giving me a half-smirk. “This is about you not wanting to see where things with us could go, but then doing the complete opposite with a fucking Orb.”
That was the second time he’d referred to Arze being an Orb with a weaponized hatred behind it.
I was starting to get the sense that he wasn’t as accepting of Orbs as I had originally thought.
He’d never mentioned as such during the bonfires at the RV park, but then again, humans loved living behind their masks.
And if there was one thing I’d come to learn about Lincoln, it was that he had some serious real estate behind his.
I opened my mouth to counter what he was saying, to give some sort of excuse or explanation to why I’d felt more of a connection to Arze than I had with him without setting him off, but Lincoln spoke before I got the chance.
“I never really understood my family’s long history of hating Orbs until I overheard your conversation with him the other day,” He stabbed an obvious glare in Arze’s direction, turning back to me in an instant. “And I’ve been understanding it a lot more ever since.”
“That day at the picnic area?” He’d overheard us discussing whether or not we were going to try and spend more time together outside of work, to have sex again.
I could, objectively, understand how that might have hurt Lincoln’s feelings, but how had him being upset about that turned to this? “You were eavesdropping.”
“Yes, I was fucking eavesdropping. I saw you two walk over to the picnic area and followed you. To hear you’d had sex with a monster like him didn’t shock me near as much as hearing you talk about how you wanted to do it again.
That pissed me the fuck off.” He stood up just to rear his leg back, his heavy boot connecting with my stomach and making me fall on my side as he repeatedly kicked me while he spoke again.
“Why him? What’s so fucking special about him? What’s wrong with me, Krueger?”