Chapter 4 #2
I scan the masks, searching for anything that might help me identify them later, but there’s nothing I can discern.
The only thing that distinguishes them is their clothing.
The one closest to me is in a heavy midnight-blue zip-up fleece.
Another wears an oxblood leather jacket and moves with an overeager impatience, the knife turning around between excited fingers.
The third one, the one in the black quilted jacket, stays slightly behind the others, though he seems to be the leader of the group.
At least, he’s the only one speaking.
“You were warned,” he says. “You didn’t listen. Now we’ll make you listen.”
“You kidnapped me, drugged me with God knows what, and brought me out to the fucking woods—because I asked questions?” I ask, too pissed off by the sheer absurdity of his words to be as scared as I know I probably should be.
The leather jacket one steps forward. “This is a waste of time,” he says. “Let’s just kill her and be done with it.”
My pulse stutters.
The second man talks about killing me so casually, it’s more terrifying than anything else that’s happened so far. That’s the moment I really understand just how much danger I’m in.
These men… they want to hurt me.
Maybe worse.
I force myself to breathe through the panic tightening my chest. They want me afraid. They want me confused. If I let them see how frightened I am, they control everything.
“Murder seems a bit premature, don’t you think, man?” the one in the zip-up fleece asks, tilting his masked head at his friend, almost patronizingly.
“She’s already digging and becoming a real pain in the ass,” the leather jacket one says, pointing his knife in my direction, as if he’d like to plunge it into me. “She’s been in town barely a week.”
“And that’s why we’re here,” the zip-up one says. “To let her know what happens when people dig in the wrong places.”
The one in the black jacket watches as they argue. Moonlight slides across the smooth silver face of his mask, making it look almost alive. Then he takes a step forward and raises his knife.
“Go home, Jacqueline,” he says, lowering the tip of the blade until it rests against my knee. Through my jeans, I feel the sharp pressure. “You won’t find any answers here.”
“What did you do to him?” I lean forward against the ropes, fury burning through my fear. “Where is my brother? Did you hurt him?”
No one answers.
Something inside me snaps and I kick out, catching the man in the black jacket hard in the shin.
“Careful,” he warns me, pressing the blade more firmly against my leg. “Wouldn’t want me to slip.”
“That’s enough.” The zip-up fleece man speaks again, calm and almost gentle. “She’s frightened. She understands.”
“No,” the bloodthirsty one in the leather jacket says. “She doesn’t—but she will.”
He moves before I can jerk away. The blade flashes, slicing across my upper arm. Pain explodes through me, and I scream, twisting against the ropes.
He cut me.
Holy shit. The motherfucker actually cut me!
My breathing turns ragged as I watch the blood seep down my arm and run toward my elbow. The gash doesn’t look deep, but it burns with a white-hot intensity that makes my vision blur. Tears prick at my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
“Now do you understand?” The man in the leather jacket crouches in front of me. Through the hollow eyes of the mask, I feel him study my reaction.
I force myself to hold his gaze even as my arm throbs with pain. “I understand you’re a fucking lunatic.”
He tilts his head, pressing the knife to my throat this time, cold metal resting just beneath my jaw.
“Say that again, bitch. I… dare… you…”
I swallow hard, feeling the blade shift with the movement. All the anger drains out of me, replaced by pure animal terror.
“Shit, man. That’s enough.” Behind him, the zip-up fleece man takes one quick step forward. “You weren’t supposed to actually cut her.”
“You don’t decide when it’s enough!” the violent one that cut me hisses back.
“No. But I do,” the figure in the black jacket says quietly, almost angrily. “Back… the… fuck… off.”
The man at my throat doesn’t move at first. His gaze flicks to the man in the black jacket, rage burning in his eyes. For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to disobey. Then, with visible reluctance, he eases the knife from my throat and steps back, hands at his sides.
I suck in another shaky breath as the man in the black jacket looms over me. My terrified reflection swims across the polished silver of his mask, stretched and warped until I barely recognize myself.
“You will stop asking about your brother,” he orders in a clipped voice. “You will stop searching for clues. Tomorrow, you will withdraw from Salem’s Fall University, and you will go home,” he says. “And you will never, ever return.”
“And if I don’t?”
He lets out a low, cruel laugh.
“If you stay, tonight will feel like an act of kindness.” He grips my injured and bloody arm so hard, it sends another jolt of pain through my body. “Believe me when I say that this is the least we can do to you.”
The violent one in the leather jacket swears under his breath. “This is such bullshit. Just let me finish this now.”
“She’s had enough.” The zip-up one steps closer to me, almost protectively, positioning himself between me and the psycho in the leather jacket. “She understands.”
“She clearly doesn’t!” the leather jacket man barks back. “Does she look scared to you, you idiot?”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” I say, lifting my chin despite the hot ache pulsing from my wound.
Blood trails down my arm, dripping onto my jeans and darkening the denim.
“You dickless assholes are terrified I’m going to find something.
” I bare my teeth in a smile. “And you know what? You should be.”
The one who cut me raises his knife, as if to slice me again, but this time the figure in the black jacket catches his wrist. He moves lightning fast. For one strained moment, they remain locked together, the blade suspended in the air.
But then the man in the black jacket leans close and whispers something to the other man too low for me to hear.
“Fine,” the violent one says furiously and jerks his arm free. “We’ll do it your way.”
The man in the black jacket turns back to me and reaches for my bindings to undo them. As he finishes the knots at my wrists, the moonlight catches a ring on his hand. I see a flash of black stone, smooth and glossy in the pale light. Something about it feels familiar.
I’ve seen that ring before…
The next second I’m free, and relief surges through me. I’ve done it! They’ve decided to let me go! Somehow my smart mouth and bravado actually scared them into—
Something hard strikes the side of my head.
Pain detonates across my skull and the forest spins as I slump against the ground. Then everything goes dark.