Chapter 17 #2
Permission granted. Oh hell, in for a penny, in for a pound. I release my sore lip from between my teeth. “The warrior elf that we were with…is she okay?” I husk out.
The honey-eyed guy takes a sharp breath. I don’t know why he is surprised—Eleanor is my guard, and she was protecting me. I need to make sure for my own sanity that she is okay.
“Yes. Last time I checked, she was fine.”
I allow myself a deep, shaky breath of relief. “Okay, well, good, that’s okay. Thank you.” He stands from his crouch and moves away. He lifts his chin and nods at the other guy, the shifter.
Okay, let the questions—hopefully, sans torture—commence.
Riddick growls. My eyes slide in his direction. But the shifter with the knife, the guy who wants to interrogate me, clicks his fingers in my face to gain back my attention. “Eyes on me, demon.”
Demon. I let out a sad-sounding sigh and look at him.
“Don’t lie to me as this guy here will know…” He tilts his head and nods towards Honey Eyes “…and I’m very skilled in getting the truth.” He smiles as he runs his fingertip lovingly against the shiny new blade of a box cutter. “Where did you come from? Who sired you?”
Oh, the straightforward questions. “I was born in Preston, Lancashire. Twenty-two years ago. I don’t know who my dad is or what race he is.
” I shrug. My throat is so dry. I swallow the roughness and keep talking.
These questions are simple. I can do this.
“My mum wanted eternal beauty, so when I was five, she sold me so she could skip the vampire waiting-list. A first-level demon bought me.” My wrists ache and I want to rub them, but I can’t because I’m tied to this bloody chair.
I drop my eyes and look. My thin wrists are red from my struggle before and the pressure of the tight plastic.
Fingers click again in front of my face.
I lift my eyes. I wish he wouldn’t keep doing that.
“Keep talking,” he snaps. When I don’t answer him quickly enough, the shifter interrogator drops his hand and touches my knee.
I let out a squeak of protest, and at the same time Riddick and the honey-eyed angel growl.
The shifter looks in the angel’s direction and smirks.
He must see something hazardous to his health as within seconds he snatches his hand from my leg and he’s backing away from me with his palms up in surrender.
He lets out a creepy laugh. The skin underneath my leggings crawls from the memory of his touch.
He gives me the creeps—there is something fundamentally wrong with him.
“Keep talking,” he snaps again.
I lick my dry lips. I feel like I have a throatful of sand. “I was in the demon’s household until a week ago. Then, Arlo, the demon died.”
“Died or was killed?” the honey-eyed angel asks. My head swings in his direction.
“Killed. He was responsible for the deaths of a hellhound’s pack and the hellhound took his revenge,” I answer matter-of-factly, with a small, awkward shrug.
“John Hesketh?”
“Yes.”
“He questioned you about his missing pack?”
I swallow and nod. He lifts his eyebrow; I guess he needs to hear the words. My whole body trembles, and my wrists scream in pain at the involuntary movement as my arms jerk. For a second, I close my eyes. “T-tortured me for the information, yes,” I stutter out.
“Did you know anything about their disappearance?” God, this whole thing is like deja vu. I have answered these questions before—John’s. I don’t understand what the connection is and why these men want to know about John.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“What?” The sharp-featured man snaps. Oh boy, it looks like he wants my full attention. I turn my head back towards him. He has moved closer, and the box cutter is pointing in my face.
Almost going cross-eyed with my eyes on the blade, the words spill from my lips. “I found a shifter female in wolf form locked in a room on the estate. I helped her to escape. When I handed her over, that was when I first met John…”
The questions keep coming, and I answer them. With each question, Riddick paces.
“Do you know what you are?”
“I’m half human.”
On and on, more questions. Like some angelic lie detector, the angel interrupts for clarification or confirms to the other man that what I’m saying is the truth.
My head hasn’t stopped throbbing since the car crash. The bright light and the almost-overpowering stench of bleach don’t help, and my poor belly pulses with pain.
But I don’t lie.
After what feels like hours, the angel finally gives me some water, and then both men leave the room.
As soon as the door locks, my attention goes to Riddick.
He isn’t doing so good. The silver must be painful.
He has stopped moving. He lies in the far corner of the room.
Despondent, he stares at the wall. “Riddy,” I whisper urgently.
Oh, crap. I have to get the silver collar off him. It must be killing him. Perhaps when he is free, together we can get out of here. I tug at the plastic binding me securely to the chair. Ouch.
I remember reading if you hold your hands up above your head and then quickly bring them down sharply while pulling your hands apart with a twist, you can snap plastic ties. But being stuck in this chair is a different matter.
I stare at my right wrist and grit my teeth, as this is going to hurt.
I put on my brave pants and tug and twist my right arm.
The plastic bites into my wrist. Blood dribbles.
My poor abused abs scream at me to stop.
But desperation makes me ignore the pain.
I keep pulling. I keep twisting, keep tugging.
Blood trickles down my wrist. Come on, come on.
“Come on, damn you,” I growl. The plastic on my right wrist snaps.
Bloody hell, I did it.
I wobbly stand up, my body screaming and my joints painfully crunching at the movement.
Ow. Gosh, I move like an old lady…I must have been in that chair for hours.
I nibble my lip; I need to be careful. With a painful stretch of my leg, I stick it out.
Huh, the tip of my boot can just…just touch that awful trolly.
My left eye squints as I slowly, oh so slowly, drag the handily left-out torture trolly towards me.
I grab some nasty-looking clippers that I have been eyeing for hours.
With a clip and a snap at the plastic on my left wrist, I’m finally free from the chair.
With a quick pants-rub, I smudge the dripping blood from my wrist. In a shaking hand, I grip the clippers, and with determination I limp across the room, intent on nipping that horrible silver collar apart.
“It’s okay, Riddy, I’m going to make you better,” I whisper.
My fingertips stroke Riddick’s soft fur away from the atrocious collar. Before the clippers have even closed around it, a seamless catch hidden within the collar clicks and it swings free.
I catch the collar before it hits the ground, and as soon as my hand closes around it…I belatedly realise it isn’t silver at all.
No, it’s plastic.
“Riddick?” I ask. My hands shake and I stumble back, my legs weak. The cutters fall to the floor with a clack. “I…I don’t understand—” Baffled, I look from the plastic collar in my hand to Riddick. Mournful green eyes meet my confused gaze.
Riddick shifts.