Oh God. “Silver,” I breathed.
The giant nodded, looking very smug. “You got it, bitch.”
The weaselly guy put the handcuffs on Eli. “So you can’t follow,” he rumbled, a surprisingly deep voice. Then he kicked Eli viciously in the stomach, and Eli doubled over, gasping. The guy kicked him in the ribs a couple of times for good measure, and I realized that I was screaming. The giant just reached down and picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder and into the back of the SUV, where he scooted in right after me.
The weaselly guy jumped into the driver’s seat, and I ignored them both, turning in my seat to look at Eli, who was struggling to his feet. The SUV pulled away, and I felt the tug when he left my radius. Eli dropped like a stone in a pond, writhing on the ground in the parking lot.
“What are you doing?” I yelled at the giant next to me. I lunged across the seat and punched him, which would have been completely ineffectual if he hadn’t been taken by surprise. Instead, I got a little weight behind it and hit him straight in the nose.
He cried out in pain, backhanding me across the seat. “You stupid bitch!” he hollered.
I was dizzy with pain for a few seconds from where the side of my head had bounced off the window, and when my vision cleared, the big guy was touching his nose, holding his fingers up to see the blood. He did this again and again, fascinated, and I realized that this was a strange experience for him. I closed my eyes and concentrated for a moment, then popped them open. Vampires. Which I should have realized a hell of a lot earlier. My fingers scrabbled at the lock on my door, but there must have been some sort of child safety setting on because it didn’t budge.
I turned back and said, “I work for Dashiell, you assholes, and he’s going to be really pissed.”
To my surprise, they both chuckled, and the bloody giant leaned over and leered at me. “Bitch,” he said smugly, “who do you think we work for?”
Chapter 11
I stayed quiet for a few minutes, adjusting to both the new information and the pain. If Dashiell had sent these guys to collect me, instead of just calling, he was expecting me to be hostile. To resist.
It’d be a shame to disappoint him. I kicked the back of the driver’s seat in front of me. “Hey. Little guy.”
The giant next to me snickered, and the weasel reached up and fiddled with the rearview mirror so he could glare at me. “What?” he rumbled.
“Why didn’t Dashiell just call me?”
He turned his head to exchange a look with the giant, but neither one of them answered me.
I kicked the seat again. “Hey.”
The big guy reached for me, but the driver barked, “Hugo!”
The giant froze.
So the smaller man was in charge. Interesting.
“We’re not supposed to hurt her yet.”
Fear clenched my heart at the word yet, but I pushed forward. “Sit, Hugo. Stay. Roll the fuck over.”
“What’s one more bruise?” Hugo whined toward the driver. “She’s already going to have two.”
“Knock it off,” he commanded, and Hugo sulked back in his seat.
I waited about thirty seconds, and then I kicked the back of the driver’s seat. “Hey. Little guy.”
Hugo snarled, but the weasel adjusted the mirror again and looked at me with a flat expression. “One thing you should have learned by now,” he said calmly, “Dashiell takes care of his own. Now there’s gonna be a reckoning.”
He adjusted the mirror back. I kept trying, but no amount of kicking or whining would get him to say anything else, and Hugo followed his cue. I gave up and leaned into my window, as far from them as I could get. A reckoning? First of all, who talks like that? Well, vampires, obviously, but was there actually a point in history where that didn’t sound stupid?
Focus, Scarlett, I reminded myself. He’d said that Dashiell takes care of his people. Well, I knew that. It’s half the point of having a vampire leader, along with keeping the peace. So Dashiell thought I had done something to hurt his people or disturb the Old World...
Oh shit.
“He thinks it was me?” I sputtered, and yes, it seriously took me that long to put it together. Both vampires flinched but remained silent as we pulled into the long driveway leading to Dashiell’s mansion. And for the first time since the giant one had said they worked for Dashiell, I was afraid.
When the car stopped, Hugo dragged me by the arm through the front door and into the room with the patio doors. He had a death grip on my upper arm, but I clenched my teeth and stumbled along, determined not to cry out.
Dashiell was sitting in his usual seat at the far end of the big table, tapping into a cell phone. He looked up when we arrived and gestured to Hugo to bring me closer. Ten or fifteen feet away, I felt the immortality drain from him.
“Sit her down,” he ordered, collecting himself.
Hugo shoved me toward the chair next to Dashiell’s, and I nearly tripped, catching myself on the chair back. I fought the urge to rub my arm and sat down as calmly as I could.
Dashiell picked up a file folder that had been waiting on the table and removed a thick white envelope. “Albert,” he said to the weaselly guy, “please go deliver this to our friend in the department. Hugo, give us some space.”