Unbreakable (City Lights, #2)(28)

But how long did it take a cell phone to charge up enough to open it and find a selfie of Amita, or a text with her name on it? I figured I had a minute at most to come up with something, anything, but my mind had seized up.

No one looked at me. They were all mesmerized by the cell phone, waiting. As if there were some other outcome. As if we didn’t all know the truth.

Frankie let out a whoop and Alex grabbed my arm with her other hand. On the floor, the cell phone’s screen came to life. Frankie crouched by the phone, his finger dancing along the trigger guard of his weapon, his face breaking open into a wide grin. “Ha! Not even a passcode! Amita f*cking Patel.” He cackled and pointed at me like a schoolyard tattletale. “Liar! You’re dead meat, liar.”

“Don’t do it,” Tanya cried from our left. “Please.”

“You’re no murderer,” Carol told Frankie. “You’re a good kid…”

“Shut up, you old bag.”

Wolfman glanced down the hallway, shifting uncomfortably. “Let it go, Frankie.”

“The hell I will! You heard Connor. He’s mine!” Frankie’s AR-15 was still strapped to his shoulder. He took it in hand and aimed at me. “Get on your knees. Middle of the floor!”

“Whoa, hey, you can’t do it here,” Wolfman said, coming into the room. “There’s another office in back. Do it there.”

Frankie shook his head. “Uh uh. No way. I want them to see. Especially her. Red.”

I felt literally petrified—as if my body had become heavy stone instead of flesh and blood. It took an effort to turn my head, to look at Alex and try to give her some measure of assurance. It’s going to be okay, I wanted to tell her. You’ll be okay. Her beautiful face was a mask of horror. Some perverse happiness found its way between the cracks of my stony fear, but it pained me more to see her like this.

“Cory…” Alex breathed.

Then Wolfman was there, hauling me to my feet. “Not here.”

I suppose he held some authority over the younger man because Frankie said, “Yeah, yeah, fine. Let’s just do this. I can’t wait to do this.”

“No,” Alex said with a voice breathy with fear. “No. No. NO!” She surged to her feet and I was too slow to stop her. She flew at Frankie, swiping and clawing at him, but he grabbed both wrists and twisted, eliciting a shriek of pain and bringing her to her knees.

“Not now, Red,” he said, laughing. “But you’ll get your turn. I’m going to play with you later, oh yes.” He looked at me. “See this? See how she’s on her knees in front of me? I want you to remember. I want it to be the last thing you think about as I blow you away, because…” He laughed, an idea coming to him. “Oh damn, yeah! That’s what she’ll be doing to me later. Blowing me—”

Red rage, molten hot, washed over me, freeing me from the rigor mortis of fear. I shoved Wolfman aside to get to Frankie. The little f*cker let Alex go and danced out of reach. He reached for his gun but it didn’t stop me. I was going to die anyway. I had nothing to lose.

Frankie fell back, his stupid grin falling away as I charged him. I expected Wolfman’s bullet in my back at every instant but that fear was distant, unimportant. I grabbed Frankie’s gun before he could level it at me and used it to drive him back. He was slight and weak, it took nothing for me to slam him against the wall between the window and door. I pinned him there with his weapon, jamming it under his throat as I leaned in hard.

His eyes bulged, his pale, pocked skin turning red. I felt a rough hand on my arm and then Wolfman was pulling me away.

“That’s enough,” he said, his voice hard. “Let’s go.”

Frankie slumped and gasped as I released him, but he started for his gun again. Wolfman stepped between us. “Let’s go.”

Frankie rubbed his neck where indentations from the AR were visible. “Oh, you’re dead, motherf*cker,” he said hoarsely. “You are so dead.”

He slunk out of the room, into the hallway, while Wolfman nudged me to walk. The other hostages protested but he turned on them, silencing them by sweeping his weapon left to right, sending them cowering. At the door, I looked for Alex, but Wolfman was shoving me out and shutting the door behind him and she was lost to me.

#

We walked down the hallway, the same direction as the bathroom. Frankie shuffled ahead, whining and cursing and rubbing his throat. Wolfman walked closely behind me, the muzzle of his gun in the small of my back.

“You make sure he doesn’t touch her,” I muttered. The anger was slowly draining from me, leaving me watery with fear. “Promise me. Promise me.”

“Yeah, okay,” Wolfman said as we turned down a short hallway off the bathrooms. I could see a door at the end, and I felt like a prisoner headed to the chair. Dead man walking.

Frankie opened it and slipped inside and then Wolfman’s face was close to my ear. “It’s not loaded.”

“What…?”

“His gun isn’t loaded,” Wolfman hissed, too low for Frankie to hear. “Just don’t kill him.”

Then he shoved me inside and shut the door behind me.

Frankie’s eyes were wide with surprise at this development but he had his weapon at the ready, keeping it between us.