9. Jody

Chapter 9

Jody

I wanted to hiss at Aldyn to sit back down. Was he trying to get killed? Evil Santa hadn’t walked that far away. He could turn around at any second. What the fuck?

Aldyn seemed to sense what I was thinking, and he scuttled back to us after only a few seconds. Just in time too. Evil Santa came back and swiped a device off of the counter and took it with him as he went a little bit further to another aisle filled with home repair equipment.

Maybe he wanted to try and fix the device he’d been screwing with for the past few minutes? I didn’t know. But I was happy he was far enough away for us to try and figure out something.

He had threatened to kill me. The realization swept over me so quickly that I would have fallen over if I hadn’t already been sitting down. My hands started to shake and I curled them into fists to try and gain some semblance of control, but when I did that my teeth started to chatter.

That motherfucker had threatened to kill me.

He was going to kill us all. Whatever this tribute thing meant, whether he was sending us to his brother for us to be killed or to be enslaved, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to find out. We had to get out of here before that happened. And there were four of us and one of him. It didn’t matter that we were scared. We had to be strong.

Aldyn sat back down next to me and put his arm around me again. I almost hated how good it felt. It was a kind of comfort that I couldn’t ever remember. Of course, I’d never been in this situation before. So maybe that was it.

But a small part of my mind was still caught on the fact that Evil Santa had said that I was Aldyn’s mate.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Aldyn what that meant. He was right there. He had to know. But what if it was something bad? What if it was something that made me… I couldn’t think about it too hard. What if it wasn’t something good?

No. We had worked together to get out of here. I could ask him about it later. When we were free. We couldn’t get caught up on that now. If we did, we were lost.

“Anyone got any ideas?” I asked. I had to be quiet, quiet enough that Evil Santa didn’t hear me. But loud enough that Jeff, Wendy, and Aldyn could. Evil Santa could come back at any minute.

“We need to take the force field down if we’re going to get out the doors,” said Aldyn.

No shit. “Any ideas on how to do that ?” I asked. There was no time for snark, and I wanted to curse at myself for the bite to my words. We had to be productive.

Aldyn kept his mouth shut.

Great.

“Four on one aren’t terrible odds,” said Wendy. I appreciated her ruthlessness and agreed. I didn’t know what kind of weapon Evil Santa had. Clearly he had that thing that could knock us out. But I didn’t know if it needed to be recharged or if he could use it whenever we got annoying. I didn’t particularly want to find out. But rushing him might be our only option.

Jeff shifted where he was sitting and let out a groan. It was mostly caught in the back of his throat, but it sounded pained.

“Are you alright?” Clearly he wasn’t. But the concern just popped out. Jeff’s lips had gone white from his jaw being clenched and sweat beaded on his forehead. I didn’t see any blood. But that didn’t mean everything was okay.

Jeff shifted again and dragged his foot a few inches to the side. He groaned even louder this time, and reached out to clench Wendy’s hand in his own. “I fell wrong when he knocked us out,” Jeff panted. “Think I broke my ankle.”

Fuck. Okay. I couldn’t get caught up with that news. It was bad. Four on one odds were suddenly three on one. Still not terrible. But we had to keep defending Jeff. Stupid broken ankle.

“Any other injuries?” I had to ask. Who knew how long it would be before Evil Santa came back. We had to know what we could before then.

Luckily Wendy and Aldyn seemed okay, and so was I. “One of us can run,” I suggested. “Find a way to disrupt the force field and go for help.” It might have been the safest option. The other two could distract Evil Santa.

“I’m not leaving Jeff,” said Wendy.

I could have guessed that.

“I can’t leave you here,” said Aldyn, looking at me with scary intensity.

Yeah we were really going to need to talk about that mate thing.

That left me. “I guess I’ll have to run fast,” I said. Should I be okay with leaving Aldyn? Did it make me a bad person that I was willing to run? It wasn’t like I was abandoning him. I was going to get help. Aldyn seemed to have the most knowledge of what to do, so I looked at him. “Any idea on how to get the force field down?” I looked past him, hoping that Evil Santa had not made his way back. He hadn’t.

Aldyn was apprehensive. Maybe he just didn’t want me to go. Or maybe there was something else. “I think that larger device, the one with the antenna that he took with him, it’s what’s creating the force field. If we destroy that or turn it off, the force field should come down and you can get out of the store. But…” Now it was his turn to look to see if Evil Santa was coming our way. He still wasn’t. Aldyn lowered his voice and we all had to lean in close to hear what he had to say. “I think the force field device is what’s causing his portal not to work. The second it comes down, the portal will open and we could get sucked into wherever his brother is. So if you get out, we might not be here when help comes.”

Double fuck.

I slumped on the floor. “So running is not an option.” I wasn’t going to leave them there to get sucked up into a portal and dragged somewhere across the galaxy where help would never find them.

“We could fight,” Aldyn suggested. “I think it’s our best chance.”

It was our only chance. But Evil Santa was huge and he had to have tricks up his sleeve. He was going to hurt people. And I felt responsible for their safety. Maybe it wasn’t fair. Maybe it wasn’t right. But I did. It was probably the teacher in me. “Any suggestions?” I asked.

Aldyn looked determined. “We need to get him here. Then we need to get the portal opener and the force field device. And we need to destroy them both.”

“Sounds like a plan.”