She swigged the lemonade down in one gulp and let out a gasp. “T-thanks. I needed that.”
“So, what the flipping hell is going on?” Pauline asked her.
“Shawcross is a fucking psychopath, that’s what. He kidnapped me and Mike. Now Mike is dead.”
Pauline put a hand to her mouth. “No!”
Annaliese got back to her feet, her body feeling renewed after only a short rest. “Yes, and he’ll be coming after me any minute, so I need to find out who is on his side and who is still fucking sane.”
“Well, I had nothing to do with it, Anna,” said Eve.
Pauline shook her head. “Me either.”
They all looked at Cassie. “What?” she said. “I didn’t know, either. I swear.”
“Okay,” Annaliese said. “So the only people I don’t know about are Michelle and Jan. Where are they?”
Blank faces.
Eve shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought Michelle was with Alan.”
“I think it’s safe to say that Michelle will be on whichever side Alan is,” Pauline explained. “They’ve been sticking together for weeks. He’s become a bit like a father to her.”
Annaliese sighed. “Great. That makes us outnumbered, then. Especially if Jan is with them.”
“I reckon he is,” said Eve. “He’s been pretty close to Shawcross these last few days – think he sees him as the boss.”
Annaliese slumped back against the wall and felt some of her newfound energy slip away. “Great. Last thing we need is having to go up against a hardened criminal the size of the Hulk.” She scratched the tip of her nose and suddenly thought of something. “That reminds me. This new guy with Shawcross. He was wearing prison clothing.”
Cassie whimpered. “W-was he black?”
Annaliese nodded. “Yeah, so what? Wait, do you know him?”
Cassie nodded and became ghostly white against the shadows.
“No way,” said Eve. “It can’t be Dash…can it?”
“Who the hell is Dash?”
“A degenerate we picked up along with Jan and Renee. We thought…well, we thought he was out of the picture.”
“Well, now he’s back in the picture, and he seems pretty psychotic.”
Cassie whimpered again.
“You okay?” Annaliese asked her.
Cassie nodded. “Dash just makes me nervous.”
Eve and Pauline placed an arm around the girl and tried to comfort her. Annaliese got the impression there were things they weren’t telling her, but there was no time to demand answers at the moment.
“We need to arm up,” she said. “Let’s get whatever we can.”
“But we can’t fight them off,” said Cassie. “There are more of them than us, and they’re men.”
Annaliese spun around and scowled at Cassie. “Mike was a man. These are just little boys trying to have all the toys. They may have the advantage, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down and get fucked. They want to recreate Lord of the Flies, then let’s make sure it’s one of them that ends up being Piggie.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Cassie.
“Never mind. Let’s just get ready.”
“I’ll go get some things to defend ourselves with,” said Eve, rushing off into the dark corners of the restaurant.
“Okay, make sure mine is something long and sharp. I need something to shove up Shawcross’s arse.”
Pauline stepped up to Annaliese and looked her dead in the eye. The woman seemed anxious, but resolute at the same time. “You think we have any chance of holding them off on our own?”
Annaliese thought for a second and then gave Pauline a smile. An idea had just brewed in her head. “We’re not going to be doing it on our own. We have reinforcements.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re going to free Nick and Renee. Nick didn’t kill Dave. It was Shawcross; he admitted it to me. He must have had Dash do it.”
“I knew it,” said Pauline. “I knew Nick wouldn’t do something like that. Let’s get him out of that damn cellar.”
Annaliese nodded and marched across the restaurant. There was a door at the back of the bar which opened to the cellar staircase. She grabbed the brass handle and twisted.