Page 4 of The Hangman's Rope
Something must have been in my voice because his arms tightened marginally and his voice took on that soothing tone as he said softly, “Okay, it’s okay. That’s good enough for now… just… keep trying.”
I scoffed and sniffed, paralyzed with fear. Not knowing anything but that these men could and would hurt me and that I’d just seemingly woken from being supposedly dead and that I wasn’t eager to go back to it.
He held me fast while the other one Ihadn’twoken up to with his cock in my hand strode up to us, his dress shoes sounding in smart reports against the shiny waxed floor.
“You got her?” he demanded, running a hand over his hair, and putting a hand over his mouth as though he was fit to be tied… him… wasn’tthatjust something?
“Yeah, go figure out what the fuck this is,” the man holding me demanded. “And take Reap with you!” he called at the man in the suit’s back. The man in the suit, with the dark hair, went overto his companion who was stiffly lumbering to his feet and took him by the elbow, winding back and forth up the switchback ramp and disappearing through the double doors.
“Just stay here, stay calm, while we figure out what the hell just happened,” the man holding me said.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I murmured, and I felt him nod once, his bearded chin tapping lightly on my hair but just shy of contacting my head.
“What year is it?” he asked me and I frowned and rattled off the number.
“Who is the president of the United States?” he asked. I told him that too.
“How can you know all that, but not know your last name or anything else?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, worried.
“What do you know?” he asked, and I tried once again to push through the swirling empty miasma that were my muddled memories.
“I used to live in a house. It was white. There’s a woman with dark brown hair and a man who is a ginger – I think they’re my parents. I don’t really know more than that. I can’t explain it.”
“Okay, so childhood memories, that’s not bad. Just keep going through them if you can for the important stuff.”
“I’m not even sure Lorelai is my name,” I said with a wince. “I mean, I don’t know if I want it to be or if I like it.”
“Just sit tight,” he said. “It’ll get figured out.”
“Why not just let me go?” I asked.
“And do what? And go where?” he asked.
“I won’t tell,” I said. “On your friend or whatever. I won’t say what he did.”
His arms tightened around me and he swore softly, “Shit.”
He sighed, and it was a heavy thing that stirred the hair on the top of my head.
“No,” he said. “You won’t.”
I swallowed hard at the undercurrent of threat in his tone, but then, surprisingly, it softened some, and he whispered gently, “I’m sorry he did that to you. I don’t know what he was thinking.”
I swallowed hard and asked him honestly, “Do you really want to?”
He snorted.
“No. No, I do not.”
We were silent for a long time as I shivered in his grasp and I tried again. “Please, just let me go. Call the police or whatever you would normally do in a situation like this. We’ll just say I woke up and scared your friend and he scared me and that will be it. I’ll – I’ll go to the hospital orsomethingand it will all get figured out and we’ll never have to see each other ever again.”
“Just wait for Grim to get back and we’ll go from there – yeah?” he said.
I felt myself shrink in his grasp with defeat and we sat for a long time still before the echoing sound of approaching footsteps, a single set, had me stiffening in his hold again.
One of the double doors swung open and the man with dark hair and serious five-o’clock shadow stepped back in, pulling his tie loose from around his neck.
