Chapter 5
My head hurt, my hip hurt, and so did my right elbow.
Among other things. I slipped in and out of consciousness.
I was in the woods, and it was cold and damp there.
Then it was warm all of a sudden, warmer than when night had fallen and I’d struggled to find my way through the thick underbrush.
Right. The ground had just dropped off, and I’d fallen. Hit my head.
I groaned and forced my eyes open.
“Hey there,” said a warm voice that made me jerk fully awake.
I’d been in the woods, and psycho killers used the woods to bury their victims. Had one of them…found me?
I blinked the gunk out of my eyes, or tried to, and turned my head to the speaker, but the movement hurt so damn bad, my vision went dark for a second.
I heard a high-pitched yipping noise. Had I hurt my head to the point of getting auditory hallucinations?
Was this what a concussion felt like? Not good.
“Take it slowly. You hit your head pretty hard, and you were out for a while. Nothing’s broken though, and you’ll be fine.”
I blinked and wiped at my eyes with my sleeve, only this wasn’t my sleeve. This was…flannel. And these were so not my clothes. Panic rose, and someone touched my arm. I jerked back.
“It’s all right, you’re fine.”
This time, I managed to get my eyes to focus on the speaker. He was a broad-shouldered guy with straight black hair cut neatly yet fashionably short. His blue eyes were sharp and observant. He smiled at me.
I wasn’t sure what it was about him, but he exuded an uncanny air of calm. I wondered whether Ted Bundy’s victims had thought that as well. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let the Mister Nice Guy look fool me.
Something moved close to my legs, and I looked. Damn. There was a…dog? Dire wolf? Small pony? What the fuck. The thing had reddish fur, burnished brandy eyes, and a black muzzle. Unless that was dried blood around the muzzle, but I didn’t think so. At least, not yet.
This was not good. Better than being fed to pigs maybe, but I didn’t want to be fed to a freaking dog either.
My head; he’d said something about my head, and it sure hurt like a mother. I lifted my hand to feel the back, where the pain radiated from.
“Oh, no, hold on,” the creepy nice dude said. “I had to stitch you up last night, so it’ll feel a little strange with the stitches. Just be gentle and don’t pull, okay?”
“You what?” I started into a coughing fit. My throat was so dry and sore. The damn dog came up to nudge my arm with its snout, and the guy gently patted my shoulder. The coughing made my head hurt twice as much.
Once the fit had passed, I realized the guy had been talking, but over the pain and the coughing, I hadn’t heard him.
“…some water.” He was holding a glass out to me. What did he think, that I was suicidally stupid?
“I’m…good.” I was totally not convincing anyone. Coughs broke out of me in between syllables. At least the dog had left at some point. I wasn’t getting eaten just yet.
“What’s wrong with him?”
That was a different voice. Not good, and getting worse. I maybe could have outrun one guy, but two?
I looked up. I was in a room, nice, mostly wooden furniture, no TV, cream curtains keeping out what looked like morning sunlight.
The nice guy sat on my right while the other stood in the doorway behind the first guy.
The second guy had chestnut brown hair that he kept longer than the first guy’s, and while the second one wasn’t as broad as the black-haired guy, he was still large.
Definitely too large for me to take on, not that brawn was anywhere in my wheelhouse.
Or even in the vicinity of my wheelhouse. I was so fucked.
“Just a bit of a dry throat, and maybe a slight cold from the sounds of it,” the first one said.
A third face appeared behind the shoulder of the second man. All I saw was reddish hair the color of rose gold.
“I’ll go make some tea,” he said, and damn, tea sounded good.
But I wasn’t stupid. I was not going to let them drug me. Three of them, which was so much worse than two.
“Here, you should really drink something,” the first guy said, and this time, while I was still trying to get the damn coughing under control, he moved in to rub my back and held the glass so close I was sure he’d hold it to my lips if I let him.
Well, my throat was dry, and they could’ve drugged me while I was out, so I reached for the glass.
Water? Best thing ever, not even the finest oolong tea was as good.
I gulped the whole thing down. It helped with the coughing, but not with the pain in my head or my throat.
I reached for the back of my head again and felt the rough ends of stitches sticking out.
Ugh. What had they done to me? I needed to get out of here.
“Let me get him a refill,” said the second guy, and the glass was whisked out of my hand too quickly for me to follow.
“Feel a little better?” the first guy asked. “I’m Ellis, by the way. That was Lincoln and Dominic.”
I looked at him. I wasn’t going to ask him too many questions. I had to make them think I was oblivious.
“Marcus,” I said, my voice super raspy.
“We know. We went through your bag to figure that out when we found you.” He hesitated, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Linc also called Steven for you.”
“What?” I said it so forcefully that I launched into another coughing fit.
The redhead burst into the room. “What? Fucker hurt you?” The other one came into the room as well, the refilled water glass in his hand. God, but I’d much rather have some tea. The redhead looked at…he looked at Lincoln. “Did you have to fucking call him, Linc?”
“Calm down,” this Lincoln person said with a relaxed force that reminded me of the pull of a planet, which was laying it on heavily with the metaphor, but damn.
He did have presence. So much so that I wordlessly—mostly because I was still coughing—took the water from him and carefully gulped it all down.
Three sets of eyes were watching me, and it made my skin crawl, but not at all in an uncomfortable way, which was strange. And very counterproductive. I had no business noting that the three guys were hot. None. I needed to remain focused on making my escape.
Lincoln crossed his arms. “He said he was your boyfriend and that he would be here later today.”
“He what the fuck?” I damn near yelled, which made my head hurt and started me coughing again.
The redhead raked his fingers through his hair. “Shouldn’t have called him.”
“Marcus.” Something in Lincoln’s voice made me look up at him, even if I was still coughing on and off.
Ellis’s hand was on my back, stroking me. How had I fucking missed that breach of personal space earlier? How had I not put a stop to it yet?
Lincoln went on. “If you don’t want him near you, just say so. We called him because he was listed in your phone as your emergency contact. If that has changed, there’s no reason you should have to deal with him unless you want to.”
There was something in his voice that I couldn’t identify, but those wild sparks in his green eyes? That was victory. What was he thinking, that he could drag me to his torture chamber just because I didn’t want to deal with my ex?
But hold on. If Lincoln and his cronies wanted to drag me to their torture chamber, why had they bothered calling Steven in the first place? Maybe they liked couples? Well, Steven and I weren’t that anymore.
No one was saying anything or moving so much as a muscle. Lincoln was still staring at me. I realized he was waiting for me to say something.
“Where am I?”
That was good. Keeping my options open and figuring out what my escape plan was.
“Near Pleasant Peak.” Lincoln came a step closer.
“We know you were going to spend some time at Corpsewood Manor, and let me just say that I apologize for going through your phone, but you turned up in the middle of the forest with nothing but a laptop, an empty water bottle, and a head wound. Most people wear at least hiking shoes when they wander off into the woods.”
My jaw tensed. “It’s not like I was planning to go hiking.”
He shrugged, and I realized there was some tension in his shoulders. They were nice, broad shoulders as well, though not as broad as Ellis’s, who was still stroking me.
I looked at him, and he was smiling right back at me; a warm, comforting kind of smile. I was going to shake his hand off in a second. Any second now.
Lincoln came another step closer. “We guessed. I found your car and had it towed and informed the rental agency. Mary, who owns Corpsewood, said she can refund you, or you can use the room once you feel up to it.”
Damn. How and when had he gotten all of that shit done? I rarely got this much done before my third cup of oolong.
“Is my laptop okay?” It had everything on it. All of my work, everything I’d ever written.
The redhead left the room again and came back moments later with my bag.
“Doesn’t look broken.” He handed it over.
I took it from him and went through it. My laptop was in there, and so was my phone. I pulled that out and…it had power and everything. There were fresh messages from Steven, so it even had reception. Headed to get you, said the last one. Ugh. I shoved it back into the bag.
Ellis cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should get some more rest. Let me just take your temperature first. You do seem a little flushed. Out, everyone.” The redhead and Lincoln left the room quickly, quietly, and without a single word out of either of their mouths.
Well, if Ellis thought he could put a thermometer where it didn’t belong—but he pulled the harmless kind out of a bag on the floor, the kind that took the measurement in the ear.
“Won’t take a minute.” He inserted it into my right one.
“Ah, yes, you’re running a mild fever. Too much time spent out there in the cold.
” He put the thermometer aside and dug into his bag again.
“How’s the pain? I only have relatively low dose paracetamol, but that should help both with your head and the fever. ”
“I can’t be running a fever.” I touched my forehead. It felt normalish. “I feel fine. I need to go.”
I heard growling from somewhere outside the room I was in. What was with that damn dog?
“Marcus.” Ellis leaned closer, his brows drawing together.
“You did suffer a mild concussion, and you’re running a slight fever.
You were out in the cold a while and passed out, likely from mild hypothermia.
There’s nowhere you need to be right this second other than in this bed, so take your medicine and rest.”
I wanted to scowl, but everything hurt too much for that, so I took the pills he was offering and swallowed them along with the rest of the water. If he wanted to bury me under this house like Gacy had liked to do, I hoped he had the decency to give me some real pain medication for it.
“That’s a good patient.” He smiled, and it dimpled his cheeks. He pulled something else from his bag and held it out to me. It was a red lollipop.
“Huh?”
Ellis shrugged. “I’m a pediatrician. Good patients get candy in my line of work.”
“And cavities?”
Ellis grinned at me. “It’s sugar-free, Marcus. Your teeth’ll be fine.”
Unless they pulled them out after they decided to dump my body in the woods… Although why they would have dragged my ass out of the woods only to haul me right back there was anyone’s guess. I’d figure it out though. Right after I’d rested my eyes for a second or two.