“Don’t look so surprised,” a man with dark, hollow eyes intoned as his palmed slapped the door and pushed.
I fought against it, but my strength succumbed to his.
The door flew wide when I stumbled back, keeping my eyes on the man.
He didn’t smile. He just stared, stepped into the room, and folded his arms together, waiting.
He might have all the time in the world, but I sure as hell didn’t. I snatched the first thing I saw, a ceramic coffee mug, and hurled it at him. It smacked him in the face and bounced off. I heard it shatter, but I didn’t look to find out where. I rushed him, taking advantage of the distraction. Plowing into him, I shoved, trying to skirt past him and flee into the hall.
With a grunt, he shoved me back, barely having to move from his position at the entrance.
I flew backward, my body like a ragdoll. I hit the corner of the bed and stumbled, falling onto the floor on my hands and knees.
Scrambling up, I prepared to fight some more. But the man now had a gun pointed right at me.
“The last time someone pointed one of those at me, I threw a pan of hot food in their face.” I warned.
He didn’t say anything, just held the gun as someone else came around the corner.
Flashbacks ripped through my mind. A red haze fell over me, and through it, all I saw was the night my father was killed. I smelled the urine and sweat in the room. I heard the slaps and grunts as my father was beaten. I heard the man piss in the toilet while I shook and swallowed down my own vomit.
I saw.
I saw the vacant, empty stare in my dead father’s eyes. The blood… dear God, the blood.
“Remember me?” the second man asked as he shut the door behind him.
I blinked, focusing on the sudden perfect vision I had of the giant black spider tattooed on the back of his neck.
He had hair now, but that tattoo would be seared into my brain for all eternity.
“You were dead,” I whispered, shocked.
He laughed. It was an ominous sound. “Because I had to be. Hard to put a dead man on trial.”
The lengths at which these people would go to be free shocked me. Even now.
He must have seen it in my face because he laughed. “You think the only people that have witness protection are the police?”
I couldn’t think. All I could do was stand there paralyzed—body and mind—from the shock of seeing him and having such vivid memories of that horrible day.
He chuckled. It was warm and cocky. “Oh, sweetheart. Where I’m from, we have this thing called hitman hiding.”
The man who never smiled made a noise. Just a nondescript sound that meant nothing. Spider guy seemed to know what it meant, though.
“I don’t care for the term either. Everyone knows guys like us are way more than just hitmen.”
I opened my mouth to scream. I planned to scream so loud all the windows in this entire building would shake.
Spider guy launched himself across the room and tackled me. His large, bricklike body mowed me into the carpet. Before I could say or do anything, he hit me right across the face.
Pain exploded behind my eyes and radiated through my skull. My head lolled to the side for a minute before reality came back, and I tried to fight him off.
He made a sound and stood, grabbing me by the front of the T-shirt and yanking. One of the shoulder seams ripped, and something inside me broke.
This was Liam’s shirt.
Tears welled in my eyes, and I tried to blink them away. They fell over my cheeks.
Liam.
The thought of him became clearer, and real fear settled deep inside me. He was coming back here. He could get caught in the crossfire.
I glanced around at the phone on the bedside table. Spider dude grabbed me by the back of the neck and squeezed so hard my knees buckled. I would have fallen, but he held me up, holding my limp body hostage.
I tried to hit at his arm, to smack it away.
He ignored the movements and leaned down into my face. “You got my buddy sent to prison for life. He’s not getting any time off for good behavior. Know why?”
I made a sound and tried to break free. I couldn’t breathe.
“Why’s that, Spidey?” the man with hollow eyes asked.
“‘Cause someone shanked him in his cell while he was sleeping.” The fingers around my neck tightened, and a cry ripped from my throat.
He dropped me, and I fell onto my knees, gasping.
A gun appeared in Spidey’s hand. There wasn’t a silencer on it, though, and I wondered why.
He pressed the barrel against my temple, pushing it so hard I fell over, and he jammed it closer, pushing the side of my face into the carpet.
I kicked out, my heel connecting with his knee.
He cursed, and the gun left my head.
“You’ve caused us a lot of problems for a fucking little girl.” He grunted and yanked one of my braids. I stood as he pulled.
“Let’s go.” The man by the door grunted.
“Go?” I asked, my voice hoarse and shrill at the same time.
“She thought we were gonna waste her right here,” Spidey said, amused. All joking left his voice, and he shoved close again, so close his lips brushed against my cheek. “If you wanted to be eliminated the easy way, you should have let us kill you the first couple times we tried. That last time? That was the end of us being nice.”
“If that was your idea of being nice, you really should take a class on manners.”
Both men stopped and glanced at each other.
Spidey looked back at me. “You joking right now? You got jokes before you die?” He shook his head. “Man, you are one crazy bitch.”
He gestured with his gun, and the other man opened the door and gazed down the hall. “Clear.”
“Let me tell you how this is gonna go,” he whispered in my ear as he dragged me to the door. “You’re going to walk out of here like we’re all friends. And you ain’t gonna cause a scene.”
“And if I don’t?” I spat. Oh my God. Where is Liam? Please, please, let him not come back yet.
“If you don’t, we’re gonna start shooting people. Everyone we see. And then once they’re dead, we’re gonna come back for your boyfriend.”
My voice shook. “What boyfriend?”
“Don’t play stupid with us, and we won’t play stupid with you.” He shoved me. I fell out into the hallway, ass in the air.
“Fuck,” Spidey said. “Where’s your pants?”
I stood, glancing down to the hall where a red EXIT sign was lit up.
“Go put some pants on. Shoes, too. And a coat.”
“What difference does it make? She don’t need pants to die,” the other man remarked.
“Because people will notice some half-naked broad walking around with two men. Especially in the snow.”
In the snow? We were going outside?
“Take her,” Spidey ordered.
The other man came over, picked me up around the waist, and carried me back into my room. He threw me down on the bed, and I bounced up. “Get dressed.”
I threw out one hand, grabbing the jeans I’d been wearing for days. As I snatched them to me, the man reached out and grabbed my wrist.
His eyes were still hollow, still black when they met mine. His thumb caressed my wrist where he held. “If we had more time… oh, the things I’d do with you.”
A scream built in my throat, and I jerked away from him. The action made me fall across the bed. The man leaned over me, caging me in with his arms. He smiled.
Oh God. It was the sickest thing I’d ever seen.
Lifting the gun, he used the muzzle and ran it up the inside of my thigh. I jolted up, trying to scurry back. He forced me down on the bed, holding me down with his arm. His chest was touching me. And so was the gun…
It kept going higher and higher until I felt it over my panties. He rubbed the cold metal against my core.
“You ever been fucked to death?” he asked, his voice near emotionless. “Imagine being shot from the inside.”
He smiled again, and I screamed.
His hand slapped over my mouth, and I started to fight.
“What the fuck?” Spidey spat from the doorway.
The man holding me down stood. I scrambled back and got off the bed so it was between us.
Quickly, I pulled on the jeans. I wanted as many clothes on as humanly possible.
“We don’t have time for that. Let’s go!” he ordered.
The man came around for me, and I shrank back. My butt came up against the side table. I bumped into it, and a pen fell against my hand. Carefully, I pulled it beneath my fingers, slipping it behind my back.
“Now,” the man demanded.
“I need my shoes.” I pointed to the boots Liam bought me.
The man turned to get them, and I shoved the pen in my back pocket. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
My boots were thrown at me. One hit the wall, and one hit me. With trembling hands, I pulled them on. Next, he threw my coat at me. I pulled that on, too.
I left the room willingly. Spidey walked in front of me, the other one behind.
Instead of going the way I hoped, they forced me down the stairs but then off onto another floor where they forced me down a flight of service stairs, ones that clearly were not used by guests.
They hustled me through some part of the resort I’d never been in, a place that seemed to be maintenance. The corridors were dark and loud, and the hum of equipment drowned out the sound of them barking at me to move faster.
Eventually, we came to a door. Spidey shoved on it and it swung open. Snowflakes and cold air rushed inside and swirled around my feet.
The sky was dark, and everything outside felt still and quiet.
I stepped out into it all, the snow crunching under my loosely tied boots. The man from behind shoved me. I fell face first into the snow. Everything under the newly fallen powder was hard packed and unforgiving.
I cried out and pushed to my feet.
“Let’s go, Little Miss Star Witness,” Spidey mocked, pointing the gun at me from his side. “It looks like an awfully nice night to die.”