“Baby, wake up.”
Some sort of light penetrates my eyelids, so I squeeze my eyes shut harder.
“Come on, we gotta go.” King shakes my shoulder.
“What?” I press a hand over my eyes. “Go where?”
“You’ll see.”
I part my fingers and squint at him. “What time is it?”
He glances at the bedside clock. “Just after two.”
King doesn’t look upset, or worried. So, we’re not under attack, and the house isn’t burning down around us.
I drop my hand, annoyed. “What possible reason could you have for waking me up at two in the morning?”
“I owe you one.”
Sex?
“What are you––”
“Up.” King cuts me off.
“Fine.” I shove the covers off.
“You got five minutes.”
I stand next to the bed, narrowing my eyes at King who’s still in his black dress pants and black button up. “Have you not gone to bed?”
“Not yet.”
“Is something wrong?” I yawn through the question.
King bends down, putting his face near mine. “Four minutes, Savannah.”
I roll my eyes. “So bossy.” I shuffle toward the bathroom but stop. “What am I supposed to wear?”
We both look down at my skimpy pajama set. And I watch King’s tongue slide along his upper lip. “I’ll pick something out.”
I’m going to ask him what he means, but he turns away, heading into the closet.
Still half asleep, I quickly use the bathroom, and my toothbrush is still in my mouth when King steps into the bathroom.
I finish with my teeth, then hold out my hands for the clothes he picked.
He gives me a black knee-length jersey dress, but makes no moves to give me any more privacy.
“No bra?” I ask.
King shakes his head.
I yank off my sleep shirt and pull the dress on, then pull my sleep shorts down my legs.
I’d gotten dressed for bed hoping to get lucky, so I wore a pair of cute lacy panties under my shorts, rather than nothing. Which I’m extra glad about now because King didn’t bring me any underwear.
King uses both hands to hold his shirt open, and taking the cue, I slip my arms through the sleeves and let King do up the center buttons, covering my braless cleavage.
The side of his mouth curls up. “Let’s go.”
“Umm…”
Trepidation builds as King turns off the road we’ve been traveling on for the last several minutes.
It’s dark. Like really dark. No street lights. No signs of life.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but when King woke me up in the middle of the night to pay me back I assumed maybe we were going somewhere sexy.
Like a hotel. Or a rave or something.
Our headlights bump around on the narrow gravel road before landing on a closed chain-link gate.
This is not a rave.
King flashes the high beams twice, and a man I hadn’t noticed steps forward, unlocking the gate from the inside.
“King?”
He still doesn’t answer, just takes his foot off the brake and we roll forward.
Panic starts to creep up my spine.
He wouldn’t be taking me out here to kill me.
We’re past that. Right?
Crushed cars come into view, lining both sides of what must be some sort of driveway.
Oh fun, we’re in a junkyard.
“Husband,” I try to keep my voice calm. “If you don’t tell me where we’re going, I’m gonna jump out of this moving vehicle and sprint into the darkness.”
“You won’t do that.”
“Oh, won’t I?”
He shakes his head. “First, the doors are locked.”
My hand immediately closes around the handle, and, true to his word, the door doesn’t open.
“Second, you promised you wouldn’t run away again.”
He sounds so unconcerned, and I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“And third, we’re here.”
My eyes jump to the windshield, and the single story building in front of us.
It looks like it’s made out of that cheap corrugated metal you sometimes see on barns. Only this isn’t a barn. But it’s not a business either. It’s nothing. It’s a blank building, in the middle of a huge junk yard, in the middle of nowhere.
A big hand lands on my thigh, making me jump.
“Relax,” King’s tone is gentle, a complete contradiction to our surroundings.
“Are you––”
King’s fingers tighten on my leg. “I hope you’re not about to ask if I brought you here to kill you, because that would really hurt my feelings.”
I snap my mouth shut, because yeah, this seems like the kind of place you’d take someone to kill them, and that is what I was going to ask.
In the dark, I can barely make out King’s eyes, but I don’t have to see them to know the color.
He leans closer. “Trust me.”
This feels like a test. But I’m going to pass it, because I do trust him.
“Okay,” I nod my head.
Ahead of us, the solid metal door on the front of the building swings open. And Nero steps out, backlit with a dim, yellowish light
King gives my leg a final squeeze before he shoves his door open and climbs out.
I try to follow him, but my door doesn’t open, reminding me I’m still locked in.
When King circles around the front of the vehicle, I see Nero make a hand motion, which King responds to by holding one finger up, in a hold on gesture.
Then he takes the final steps and pulls open my door.
Trust.
I place my hand in his offered one and let him help me down, keeping his hand in mine as we approach the building.
The same ballet flats I wore the night we met crunch over the gravel, the noise mixing with King’s much larger footprints, and filling the silence of the night.
With the light behind him, I can’t make out Nero’s expression until we’re a couple of feet away. And to say he looks surprised would be an understatement.
Okay, so definitely not some sort of Kill Savannah plan.
Nero’s brows are as high as they can go. “Uh…”
“Is it ready?” King asks, ignoring the look on his friend’s face.
“Yeah, it’s ready.” Nero’s eyes slide over to me, then back to King. “What the hell––”
King pulls me forward with him, interrupting Nero. “Good.”
Nero puts his hands up, stepping backward through the doorway. “I’m not gonna ask.”
Okay, so not murder, but whatever is about to happen is enough to stun Nero.
That can’t be a good sign.
It takes my eyes a moment to adjust when we enter the building, but when they do, I can see that the interior matches the exterior. Dingy. And it’s full of random crap. A pile of buckets. A stack of pallets. A cracked counter with an old cash register.
Everything looks frozen in time, like it hasn’t been touched in years. Maybe a decade.
Except for the path of footsteps worn into the dust, leading from the front door to––I swallow––the pair of cellar doors that have been left open in the center of the room.
Nero walks to the edge of the hole in the floor and lets out a quick whistle.
I grip King’s hand harder when footsteps echo from the cement stairs leading up from below ground.
King’s thumb strokes against the back of my hand.
First one, then three more men I don’t recognize, file up the steps.
I feel like we’re standing in their way, but King doesn’t move. He holds his ground, making the men walk around us.
As they step past, I notice they all dip their heads to King, but purposefully keep their eyes off of me.
“It’s all yours.” The way Nero keeps saying it’s makes the hair on my arms stand up.
King slides his hold up from my hand to my wrist and moves my hand behind him, until my palm is on his back. “The stairs are narrow and steep, so I’ll go first. But keep your hand on my back for balance.”
I open my mouth to respond, but my throat has gone so dry I can’t speak, so I just nod.
My fingers tremble as I keep my hand pressed to his back, listening to the sound of everyone exiting the building, as King starts to descend.
My heart is pounding so hard, I’m afraid it might just stop.
The stairs are steep, like King said, so my hand slides up between his shoulders. And I clutch the fabric of his shirt as I begin to follow him down.
