Page 23 of Shattered King

Still didn’t feel great.

I held his hostile gaze, which was not easy. “I’d rather be anywhere but here. But I think that’s obvious. Now, have we finished with the macho bullshit?” He just stared at me. My knees started to tremble. “Excellent. How about you take me down-goddamn-stairs?” Then I yanked my arm free of Hunter’s hold. “Ruby?” I called. “Take me away from these assholes.”

Hunter would never forgive me. I was tired, exhausted, and right then, I didn’t care that they thought I was a heartless bitch. I wasn’t going to change their opinions of me anytime soon. I may as well play the part of the villain they believed me to be. It took a lot less energy than trying to convince them I wasn’t some monster.

I felt three sets of eyes on me, daggers and lasers firing at me from all sides.

“Ruby,” Van barked into the silence.

The girl shot to her feet, like he’d startled her. “Jesus. Chill the hell out,” she fired back.

Van scowled at her.

She rolled her eyes, which I didn’t think was a great idea, but she didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. Tucking her purple-highlighted hair behind her ear, she strode toward me.

“Right, let’s go.” She flicked a finger toward the door Neco had walked through and headed in that direction.

I followed, eyes trained forward, ignoring those hard stares burning holes into my back. Ruby led me down a flight of stairs to a room at the end of a short hall. She punched a number into the keypad by the door and pushed it open. There was a bed in the middle of the room, and nothing else. She shut me in and I stood there, not sure what the hell to do.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed when she came back with a drink, a sandwich, and a first-aid kit tucked under her arm.

She dumped everything on the bed. “There was only ham and cheese left. The guys nabbed all the good ones.” She opened the first-aid kit, and moved to stand in front of me. Ripping open a packet, she pulled out a sterile wipe and started cleaning my forehead. “What happened to you?”

I took a bite of my sandwich. “My head got friendly with the roof of a car.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re the wicked witch, huh? The evil cow who got Hunt put away?”

“Yep. That’s me.”

“Cold.”

“The coldest.” At this point, I didn’t give a shit what these people thought of me, especially not this oddly direct woman. Though she’d called me cold, she seemed more annoyed with having to get me a sandwich than what I’d done to Hunter. I just wanted to get out of here, get to Josh, and put New York in my rear-view mirror. There was nothing here for me. Not anymore.

“What are they gonna do with you?”

“No idea.”

“Huh.” She ran the wipe carefully across my skin. “Glad I’m not you.”

She cleaned me up, then packed everything away, shoved it back in the bag, and pulled something from her pocket.

“Here.” She handed me a phone. “Hunter said you can call your aunt. You’ve got two minutes. Don’t tell her where you are or who you’re with. They’ll be listening.” Then she flopped back on the bed, obviously instructed to stay with me.

Hands shaking, I dialed Sara’s number and waited. The phone rang twice and then her soft voice echoed down the line.

“Sara?”

“Oh thank God! I thought something terrible had happened.”

Something terrible had happened, but no way was I sharing the ugly details. “Please tell me you haven’t talked to the police?”

“I promised you I wouldn’t.”

I sagged in relief. I could tell she wasn’t happy about that. I could also tell she was worried out of her mind. “I need you to listen to me. I don’t have much time. I’m going to be away for a . . .” I looked at Ruby for some indication of how long they’d keep me locked up. She shrugged. “ . . . A few days. I need you to go to a hotel until I get back. There’s a jar of money in Jo . . .” Shit. I glanced at Ruby. She was staring at the ceiling like she was studying Michelangelo’s handiwork in the Sistine Chapel, but I knew she was listening to every word I said. “ . . . In the green, uh . . . froggy backpack.” I inwardly winced.