Something to Die For by Kaye Blue

Eleven

Angel

“You can stop glaring at me,”I said.

If anything, his glare only intensified.

And much to my annoyance, it got to me.

Which was messed up.

Because being in the back of their truck, headed God knew where with these unsavory people, should have been my primary concern.

But ever since these men—who were apparently known to Crowe, if not friends of his—had loaded us into the back, I’d been most perturbed by the way he was staring at me.

Of course, some of that might have been guilt.

Yes, he had told me to be quiet, and I’d every intention of doing so.

But that conversation had been headed down a track that felt like it would spiral out of control, and it wasn’t my nature to let things happen to me.

Not when I saw a way out.

But then, my way out had been anything but.

Not only had I lost the morphine, I was trapped.

But at least I hadn’t seen any more of those things.

Not yet.

I heard something that sounded like a gate swinging open, and finally, after what felt like an interminable period, but it really had been ten minutes or less, his expression changed.

Didn’t soften, not exactly, but the angry glare was replaced with something more reflective.

“You going to follow instructions this time?”

He pinned me with a stare that was softer than the one earlier, but that softness was undercut by the iron in his voice.

“Yeah,” I finally whispered, feeling like a chastened child, annoyed because of it.

“Good. Do not speak, and follow instructions.”

I had a thousand questions, a million, but at the sound of a truck door slamming, I decided to do as he said and keep quiet.

“We’re here,” one of the men who had stopped us on the road called out.

I recognized his voice because he was the one who had done most of the talking.

But it had become immediately clear to me that the one in the back, the one who hadn’t really spoken at all, was in charge.

I looked at Lucas, deciding to try to mirror his expression, not certain that I could.

It was one I recognized, that completely detached yet still menacing air that he had always worn in the prison.

I couldn’t do menacing and didn’t really have the energy to try. So instead, I tried to go for detached, not letting my emotions, which ranged from anger to fear to confusion, show on my face.

The back door of the truck was opened, and I blinked against the light.

It wasn’t natural.

The sun had finally given away to night, but there were large spotlights lighting the area.

Lucas got out, and I followed, feeling strangely comforted by his presence.

Comfort that was short-lived.

“He wants to see you.” The man who’d opened the door looked at Lucas and then gestured over his shoulder.

“Okay.”

The man finally spared me glance. “This way to your accommodations,” he said, bowing dramatically. I hated this guy, but remembering my earlier commitment, I did nothing but follow.

I desperately wanted to look back at Lucas but didn’t.

I wasn’t sure what the dynamic was here, but I knew that I was in a very precarious situation, maybe one more precarious than the prison.

At least there I’d had knowledge, but here, I had nothing.

Well, nothing besides Lucas’s promise to get me home.

I hoped that meant something.

The man banged on the door of a metal structure, one that looked like one of the outside storage buildings that were common in the area.

They were backyard sheds that stored tools, lawn mowers, that kind of thing, but I somehow suspected that that wasn’t their purpose here. The door popped open, and a well-muscled man of medium height with light brown hair and green eyes emerged.

“Would you mind keeping our friend here company?”

The man said nothing but stepped aside. The one who had walked me over went to reach for me, but before he could touch me, I stepped inside.

Maybe a mistake, out of the frying pan and into the fire, but I wanted to be away from him. The man he left me with was unsettling, but he didn’t leave me with that uneasiness that the other had.

Or maybe I was just mistaken.

In any case, when the door closed, I was relieved.

At least for a moment.

There was a camp light that barely illuminated the space, and I saw that it was living quarters of some sort.

I took everything in quickly—the military cot, a small basin and bucket, another semi-automatic lying against the wall.

And finally, I looked at the man again.

It was in my nature to speak. Besides the fact that I enjoyed good conversation, something that my stoic father had always teased me about, it seemed impolite to say nothing.

But one look at the man’s face, seeing his blank expression, and the memory of Lucas’s words, I stayed silent.

He did too, seemingly oblivious to my presence, though I wasn’t nearly foolish to believe that was the case.

With no one to talk to, nothing left to do but think, my mind felt like it was spinning in a thousand different directions.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—think about what had happened at the prison.

What I had seen shouldn’t have been possible.

It wasn’t possible.

But it had happened nonetheless.

The question was, what came now?

I didn’t know, but I knew I needed to be prepared, and I would do my best to do just that.

I also knew I needed to get home.

I had no idea what was happening, when it would end. But my mother needed me, and, truth be told, I needed her.

I had sat on the cot, and as the minutes ticked by, I’d given up trying to count how many, I felt exhaustion creep in.

I knew it was just a physiological response, the adrenaline leaving my system, but I was powerless to fight it.

I felt myself drifting but jolted and refocused on the man. He was still on alert, but I needed a distraction and decided to risk it and ask a question

“Do you know what’s going on?”

He shrugged “Does anybody?”

I bit back my frustration at that answer and instead continued on.

“What all have you seen?”

“Not much, personally, but I hear dead people are walking around. Is that true?”

His voice was almost completely free of inflection, but I felt compelled to answer.

“Yeah. It is.”

But my voice was quiet, but the shock of the words out loud was extreme.

It was true.

Saying out loud didn’t make it more real, but it made that much more impossible for me to ignore.

“Dead people walking around, huh?” He spoke so matter-of-factly that I started to smile.

I could feel a laugh bubbling up, but I pressed it back.

I knew that that laughter was just hysteria threatening to break free and knew that it would do me no good to give into it.

So instead, I slumped back against the wall, not even aware that I had sat up until I did.

Again, after I had finally pushed down that laughter, I felt the sleep start to take me again.