“You call this keeping me safe? Tying me up, dragging me around?”
While Tattoo Face speaks, Nordic Man is drawing my arms behind my back and securing them in place with the plastic straps. I scream my hatred and my fear and anger at them, but they all ignore me.
Tattoo Face starts telling the others what to do.
Silver Eyes and Pharaoh are stationed by the door. Gladiator picks me up over his shoulder and moves me to the corner of the room, then starts stacking furniture around me. I’m being barricaded in, and not a moment too soon, because the sheriff’s guard have come to the aid of a corpse, and are apparently not going to heed Tattoo Face’s wise advice.
There is chaos in the next room over. I can’t see it, but I can hear it. The sounds of battle are much worse than the sounds of normal death. The kills are not as clean. There is screaming and gurgling and nastiness I wish I could close my ears to, but my hands are behind my back and I am forced to lie there and listen to men unleashing their brutality on other men until in the end there is silence.
Total silence.
I hear nothing.
There is a ringing in my ears, a panic that threatens to overwhelm me. I don’t know who won that exchange. If it was the mercenaries, then they will be back for me. And if it was the sheriff’s guard, then they will find me eventually and my fate will be worse.
I try to wriggle out of the bindings on my wrists, but they’re impenetrable. It’s going to take something sharp to snap them off. They left my legs untied, so I push up to my feet and start trying to climb over the barricade without my arms. It is awkward and ultimately, impossible.
“Stay there, girl!” It’s Tattoo Face. He’s back. The others are behind him. Nordic Man, Zen, Gladiator, Pharaoh, Cowboy, Mattias, and Elias return to me and pull the barricades away.
I face them, nine men, covered in blood. Nine men who just forged their fates together in battle. Mattias and Elias must have been part of the fray. There is blood all over their once pristine robes. Though they wore no armor, they seem not to have been damaged at all. It is a relief to see them. Nine men... no, eight. There is one missing.
“Where is Silver Eyes?” The question slips out before I can bite it back. I don’t want them thinking I care. There is no reason for me to care. I don’t know them. They are nothing but more brutes in a long line of brutes who have sought to take advantage of me.
The question is followed by a chuckle as the man I asked after walks into the room behind them. He has washed his hands of blood, but it doesn’t make him look clean, because it only means that the blood is gone from his hands. He wears sanguine gauntlets up his arms.
“Worried for me?” He flickers a wink, which makes me quiver.
I have no reason to worry for any of them. I am sure now they have killed the sheriff’s guard, they will take me as they always intended to. But I am relieved to see him alive. There is some little spark of hope in me that dares believe this might be a rescue—but I know it can’t be. These men lined up to buy me. That is not the action of good men.
“She calls him silver eyes,” Gladiator smiles. “Have you named us all, little one?”
“...maybe.”
“Tell us what they are.”
“Untie me first.”
“You killed a man today. You’ll be lucky to ever be untied,” Cowboy drawls. I knew it. He’s from around here. Native to these parts. He speaks the way I do, while the rest of them have various accents. They must have come a very, very long way to claim me.
“You all just killed a lot more men than I did! Nobody tied you up!”
“She’s got a point,” Zen says. “And if the nine of us can’t handle one frightened girl, I think we have a problem.”
He comes over to me, walks behind me, and I feel the plastic being snapped free from my wrists. Free at last to use my hands, I draw them up around myself, protecting my body from these big, brutal men.
“Now,” Gladiator says. “The names. I need amusement after battle.”
I give a shrug, and start going down the line, starting with Cowboy, who smirks at his name. Pharaoh seems pleased with his, as does Gladiator. Nordic Man seems a little nonplussed and tells me his name is Tore. Tattoo Face gets a laugh from all the men, including Tattoo Face himself.
“My name is Keanau,” he rumbles. “But you will call me sir.”
“No, I fucking won’t.”
He lifts a brow and I reconsider that decision a little, but hold my ground.
“She’s disrespectful,” Tore says. “Needs discipline.”
“She just has high spirits. She’s brave,” Gladiator cuts in.