Chapter 8

EIGHT

ELLIS

Thankfully, I’m already holding the gun or there’s no damn way I’d have thought it through quickly enough to have it pointed at the face of the guy I’d nearly run into.

Startled, he jerks back before realizing that the only thing he’s holding is a phone, making me wonder if this is the toe licker himself. He looks about twenty, and now that I’ve met him and know how young he is, I’m even more invested in this story.

“I… I’m gonna… shoot you… so much,” I say, which doesn’t sound the least bit menacing, but somehow, it makes the guy lift his hands a little.

“Hey, man, I’m just like… I just like started this new thing with this lady, and I really like her, and I’d rather not die, you know?”

“If you don’t want to die, then you better take me to your medical supplies.”

He shrugs, clearly finding it an okay deal. “Oh, sure. I can do that.”

“And if you lead me somewhere else,” I warn as I flip the safety off—maybe I’ve never shot a gun, but I’m smart enough to know that guns having a safety is a thing, “I’m going to shoot you.”

I really hope I sound like a badass because at this moment my heart is racing out of my chest, my hand is shaking a wee bit, and my eyes feel a little misty. I’m not cut out for bad guy shit. I’m not cut out for anything of the sort! The people in the movies make it look too easy!

“Yeah, man. We have like an infirmary and everything. There’s even a guy who both shoots people and stitches up people. Maybe you could hold him at gunpoint instead of me. I bet that’d be really fun. I’m pretty useless, you know? I mostly like… get snacks and stuff. I’m really good at that. You want some snacks?”

“I don’t want the doctor; I just want the medical equipment.”

“Yeah, man. You can have as much as you want. Just don’t shoot me.”

“Don’t give me a reason to.”

“Yeah, man.”

“And keep your hands up.”

“My hands are super up, man.”

“Stop calling me ‘man.’” I quickly snatch up his gun and pat him down, looking for any other weapons.

“Uh… yeah, guy. Is that better?”

I decide to ignore it and usher him on his way as I question whether he’s leading me off to my death or not. I mean… is this Tavish guy really even worth this? I could make this guy lead me to the front door instead, but… even if I kind of hate this Tavish dick, I feel weirdly alone now that he’s gone. Like he has to know how to use a gun and stuff, right? He might get me out of this alive, right?

Right???

Fuck.

I quickly hurry after him as he keeps his hands in the air.

“I’m having some lady troubles. You married?” The question comes out of left field, throwing me a bit and making me wonder how he can be so casual during all of this.

“No,” I say.

“But you’re much older, right?”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“So you know all about the ladies then, right? How do you get her to realize that you’re more than just a penis?”

“How about you just walk faster?”

“You think she’ll like that? Do women like men who walk faster?”

“W-What? No! Like, walk faster to the infirmary.”

“Oh, yeah, but I need some real help here, man. I mean… person. When I told her my heart was bigger than my penis, she laughed. It hurt me right in the feels, you know?”

“Have you… asked her out to dinner or something?”

“I’m too shy to,” he says, like he’s not too shy to have sex with her and have phone sex at work, but to ask her if she wants to go out to dinner might be too much. “I’ve got it bad. What if she rejects me?”

“I think you should be more worried about me shooting you. She can’t reject you if you’re dead,” I threaten, trying to sound tough.

“That’s true. I wonder if she’d go to my funeral?”

“I feel like your priorities are a bit fucked,” I say.

“Maybe you could shoot me just a little and she could nurse me back to health!” The look on his face tells me he’s thrilled by this idea as I realize that I’ve been abducted by a group of psychopaths. I just grimace a little to show him that I’m not overly fond of this idea.

He reaches a door and nods. “It’s in there. Can I put my hands down enough to open the door?”

“If you’re lying to me, I’m going to shoot you,” I say as my stomach seems to twist in on itself. Like… really? Can I shoot him? Even if I had to, I’m not sure I could.

He pushes the door open and when I see that the room inside really is empty, I let out a sigh of relief before realizing that bad motherfuckers probably don’t gasp in relief when seeing empty rooms, but the guy is too busy fretting over his sad lack of a love life.

That’s when I remember that he has a phone on him and quickly snatch it up.

“Wait! No! I don’t have her number saved anywhere else. Please?”

“Do you realize that I had my head smashed into a dumpster, then was thrown in the trunk of a car, tossed into a jet, flown over to Murder Island, beaten up, threatened, and am now running for my life? Do you not think I have bigger problems than some older woman wanting your dick?” I hiss.

“Whoa, man, you seem a bit aggressive,” he says. “That’s not very cool.”

I stuff his phone into my pocket and point over at the closet. “Get your ass in there, and if that door opens even a centimeter, I’m going to blast it full of holes, got it?”

He shuffles over to it, so I slam it shut and push a cabinet in front of it. With that taken care of, I hurry around the room, opening cupboards and drawers until I find that he wasn’t joking. This Arthur guy has a literal mini doctor’s office in here. I grab some needles and sutures as well as some bandages, gloves, water, and disinfectant. Once it’s all crammed into a plastic bag, I take off for Tavish. Hopefully, the guy won’t kick up a storm and I’ll?—

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” a voice behind me asks.

I really, really suck at this.

He grabs me by the throat, wrapping an arm around it and squeezing. The gun’s in my hand, I just have to point it at him and squeeze. I just have to get him off me. I just have to… shoot him. That’s not that hard, right? Just… shoot?—

Darkness creeps into my vision.

All I have to do is pull the trigger. But what if I kill him? What if I… fuck.

My body feels light. I can feel my legs giving out. I can?—

The man jerks back and I’m yanked with him. I can’t keep my feet under me, and I start to fall until someone wraps their arm around me, catching me.

It… might have been romantic if Tavish wasn’t in the process of kneeing the guy’s nuts up into his body as he hooks me.

“What a prick,” Tavish says as he knocks the man down to the floor and steps on his throat as I try to cough up a lung, like my body’s response to being deprived of air is to choke me some more.

“I let you out of my sight for one second and this is what you do?” Tavish asks.

“W-What I do?” I choke out between coughs. “You act like I asked this guy to choke me for the kicks. And you act like we’re buddies! You put me in this shitty situation!”

“You have a damn gun, do you not?”

I do… have a gun… and I did… choose to just lie down and die instead of use it. But how the fuck was I expected to kill a man!

“He wasn’t going to kill me. They need me alive,” I say, like that’s some excuse. Like why am I over here defending the bad guy?

The guy is no longer moving on the ground and I’m not quite sure if he’s A-okay or absolutely dead. But Tavish pays him no mind as he grabs my wrist, stepping on the man before hurrying on his way.

I rush after him as he sees something that makes him skid to a halt. I’m not expecting it and end up slamming into his back. He stumbles forward a little before veering hard to the left. He lets go of my hand, pulls out his own gun, and shoots the guy watching the door so fucking fast it makes me jump. The man drops to his knees, hole in his leg as I try to decide if I’m actually with the bad guy.

The wounded man grabs his gun, but another perfectly timed shot tears it out of his hand and causes the gun to go skidding across the floor.

“If you don’t want another bullet in you, unlock the door.”

The guy grits his teeth, like he’s going to fight against this, until Tavish shoves the toe of his shoe right into the wound on the man’s leg. It horrifies me, but the man eagerly points at the keypad by the door.

“28415,” he barks out.

Tavish waves me over to it and I quickly type it in. The screen flashes that the system has been turned off. Tavish shoves me hard and at first, I assume he’s just bullying me for some fucking reason until I realize someone’s trying to shoot at us. I trip over the guy who’d been hovering on the ground and go skidding across the floor with absolutely no finesse. Tavish fires a shot that knocks the gun out of the shooter’s hand before his gun clicks.

“Fuck,” he says as he tucks the gun into the back of his pants and goes toward the man instead of away from him.

That’s when I see him rub his eyes a moment before the guy punches Tavish right in the face.