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Get you here.
As inconspicuously as I can, I try to see beyond the kitchen to the hallway and attached rooms at each end, but the other guards swiftly shift their positions, blocking my view. “Where am I, exactly?”
The one who brought me up from the basement sneers, his annoyance apparent. “A safe house.”
A safe house?
None of this makes any sense, despite the haziness of my mind and memory starting to clear.
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head and immediately regret it when the pounding intensifies. “Why did you bring me here? Where’s my father?” Sudden panic seizes my chest and tightens its hold, squeezing the air from my lungs. “Is he okay?”
The men exchange a look, and the one who got me the water shrugs.
“He’ll be fine…eventually. A few bruises to his face and ego.”
A relieved breath whooshes from between my lips, and I suck in a deep inhalation, trying to prevent myself from passing out or having a full-blown panic attack.
He’s okay.
The one with the attitude and annoyed twist to his lips glances toward the front door. “Your host should arrive shortly and will be able to answer some of your questions.”
My host?
Like this is some party I’ve been invited to attend rather than a kidnapping where I’ve been ripped from my bed, drugged, and hauled off to God only knows where for some nefarious purposes…
“And just who is my host?”
A door opens somewhere near the front of the house, and hurried footsteps pound toward us.
All three men leap to their feet, weapons ready, and another guard skids to a stop a few feet into the kitchen, his eyes wide.
“We have a problem.”
Those four words are all it takes for the rest of the men to leap into action. The one closest to me grabs my bicep and hauls me up from the chair. My water topples over, spilling out across the table, but no one even glances at it.
The others rush off in the direction their friend appeared from, and I’m urged toward the stairs leading back down to the basement before I can even hope to glance at what might be happening.
“What’s going on?”
His fingers tighten on me, and he thrusts me through the doorframe. “Get back down there.”
“Not until you tell me what’s happening.”
I reach out to grab the jamb to try to keep him from pushing me down, but he shoves me, and I lose my balance, pitching forward violently over the steep drop of stairs.
My own scream fills my ears before I slam into the first tread. Pain shoots through my side, robbing me of my ability to make any other sounds before my back and neck connect with the next wooden step. Tumbling down, end over end, like a rag doll being tossed, I have no time to try to brace myself for impact.
I just keep taking them.
To my arm.
My head and hip.
Until finally, I connect with the hard concrete floor at the bottom with a sickening thud and agony shooting through my entire body.
Blood trickles into my eyes, and the sharp, metallic tang of it hits my tongue. I try to move, but the pain keeps me prone, unable to catch my breath or truly do anything other than fight passing out.
The guard marches down the steps after me, one heavy-booted foot after another, seemingly unconcerned with my fall, then grabs my arm and hauls me up with a violent jerk.
