Chapter Forty-Seven

Kenny fought to catch his breath. He knew Frank could have hit him much harder. He had seen the look of regret in Frank’s eyes, and he felt a glimmer of hope at the realization. His cheek still throbbed from Scout’s brutal assault, but he was determined to endure whatever the woman had planned for him. He didn’t want Hunter to risk her life to save him.

Kat’s frustration boiled. She could hear nothing of what was happening in the other room. She glanced at the MP5 slung over her shoulder. If she had to leave their hiding place, it would not be the right weapon. Scout would be using Kenny as a shield.

She returned the submachine gun to its safe.

She took out a small buck knife and slid it into her left boot. Next she removed a case containing three throwing stars, each with four razor-sharp points. She slipped one into each back pocket and the third into the top of her right boot.

She also withdrew a.38 from the safe and loaded it. She handed it to Riley. "It’s loaded. Safety’s off. Don’t use it unless you have to."

Riley nodded and took the weapon.

Kat returned to the panel to listen.

Scout stood facing Kenny, cruel intent written in the smile on her face. Her gun was in her left hand, switchblade in her right. She kept glancing around the room as if expecting Hunter to appear at any moment.

Scout put the knife to Kenny’s throat and caressed him with the razor-sharp edge, forcing his head up to look at her. Her voice was soft. "Call out for your friend, Kenny. I know she’ll want to come out and play when she hears you’re here."

Kenny remained silent. He tried to free his hands.

"Need a little encouragement, eh?" she purred. "I kind of hoped you would."

She drew back with the knife and slashed his forehead--a cut three inches long, and deep.

Kenny cried out. Blood poured into his eyes. He struggled harder to free his hands.

"Stop that!" she snapped.

Kenny froze.

Scout got behind him. Kenny’s wrists were red and raw from trying to get out of the cuffs.

"Go get those chains and padlocks she used on you and Otter," Scout ordered Frank, waving him toward the generator room.

Frank nodded and headed for the door. As he reached it, he glanced back.

Scout circled Kenny, trailing the point of her knife in a path along his body. It went around his neck, paused at his ear, and followed his arm to his fingers. "I’m through playing around," she snarled. "You’re going to start losing body parts unless you call out to her. Now!"

Her words echoed in Frank’s head as he ran to the generator room.

Kat heard Kenny’s muffled cry of pain. She fought the overwhelming urge to burst out of the hidden door to confront Scout and rescue her friend. She held her Sig Sauer so tightly in her right hand her knuckles were white. Her left hand gripped the latch that would unlock the door.

She thought she heard Scout say something, but she couldn’t make it out.

Then Kenny’s voice. "Hunter," he shouted hoarsely. "It’s Kenny."

The lights blinked out again.

None of them expected it.

So when the lights went out, there was at first a moment of shocked silence.

Then everything happened all at once.

Kenny’s chair skittered across the floor.

Scout shrieked in frustration and lunged out after him just as Kat slipped into the room, fifteen feet away.

Kenny careened into the desk. He howled in pain as his hands were pinched between the chair and desk. He kicked off hard with his feet again to keep moving. His chair hit some books on the floor and stopped abruptly. He kicked again and rolled into the wall near the bedroom door. He froze there and listened.

Scout followed the noise of the chair. When it stopped, she headed in that direction.

Kat slipped her gun into her pants at the small of her back. She couldn’t use it now. She risked hitting Kenny. And if she shot at Scout and missed, the flash from her gun would give away her location.

She reached for her buck knife and held it loosely in her right hand while her other hand rested against the wall of bookshelves to her left.

It took her only a few moments to pick up Kenny. His heavy breathing was in front of her and to her right. She crept forward.

Kat opened her mouth and inhaled, tasting the air. She faintly smelled Kenny’s sweat. Then the coppery tang of fresh blood. She gritted her teeth. She could hear nothing, smell nothing, of Scout.

There were obstacles in her path. Books. She inched forward, nudging them aside with her feet as quietly as she could.

Kat imagined she was only six feet or so from Kenny when she heard a scuffle. Kenny grunted. Then the chair skittered across the floor again. It hit the wall, and through her fingertips Kat felt a slight vibration from the impact.

Kat tuned out Kenny’s sounds as she crept closer to him. Finally she could detect a new sound--Scout’s slightly accelerated breathing, near where she had heard the scuffle.

Kat focused on that sound with her eyes closed as she sheathed her knife and reached for one of her throwing stars.

The stainless steel was cool in her hand, the weight and the feel of it familiar, though it had been at least a year since she’d thrown one. Her fingertip caressed the throwing edge as her mind went through its checklist: the grip, the pressure on the blades, the flick of her wrist that would give it just the right spin at the moment of release. She let it fly.

The star struck Scout in her left shoulder and penetrated deep into the muscle. She screamed and her gun clattered to the floor.

Kat shot forward, her hands outstretched, seeking Kenny. Her left one found his head.

Kenny cried out.

Kat clamped one hand over his mouth. The other grabbed the back of the chair and yanked hard, pulling Kenny toward the bookshelves and farther from Scout, who was gasping loudly in pain.

The chair rolled several feet before a pile of books halted its progress. Kat leaned down until her lips were against Kenny’s ear. "It’s me," she whispered, taking her hand from his mouth. She felt for his bindings. She discovered he wasn’t tied to the chair. He was just unable to raise his hands over the high back to free himself.

She sliced through the rope around his feet. Then she put her arms under his armpits and lifted him.

Kenny struggled to his feet, his hands still cuffed behind him.

Kat put her hand to his mouth again. She could no longer make out Scout’s labored breathing.

She put Kenny behind her, reached down, and picked up several books. She threw them rapid-fire in a scatter pattern toward Scout’s last location until she heard a startled grunt of impact. She reached for another star and hurled it hard at the sound, gratified by the cry of pain that followed.

Kat reached up and skimmed along the bookshelves with one hand while her other remained on Kenny’s shoulder. She found the latch and pressed it. The click of the door lock seemed unusually loud.

She pushed the panel open and shoved Kenny through it, then closed it again. She listened. She picked up a few more books and threw them in Scout’s direction. Nothing.

Scout was on the move.

Frank cursed himself for not picking up a flashlight before he’d cut off the generator. He got to his hands and knees and groped around on the floor beside Otter, searching for the one he’d had earlier. Finally he found it and clicked it on.

Frank remained still for several seconds, considering his next move. He was tempted to just get the hell out of there while he could. The emergency exit beckoned him. But then what? Wander around out there until you freeze to death?

He went into the tunnel and took a hammer from Hunter’s toolbox. Then he continued on to the door to the living room, but didn’t open it. He pressed his back against the wall and clicked off the flashlight. A good place to wait, he decided, comforted by the heavy heft of the hammer in his hand.

The second throwing star cut deeply into Scout’s left arm. It could have been much worse. It struck where her head had been a second earlier. But Scout was alert to Kat’s presence now, and she had instinctively dodged to the side after the book had hit her, marking her location.

The adrenaline pouring through her body helped her ignore the pain. Scout gripped her switchblade in her right hand as she crept toward the center of the room. She heard a click in the direction of the bookshelves.

Riley heard the click of the panel door, then the shuffling of feet. Thank God, Kat’s back. Her relief was short-lived, however, when she next picked up soft grunting sounds. Someone struggling, or in pain. They had a distinctively male sound to them, Riley decided. Her heartbeat accelerated at the realization. She pointed the.38 in the direction of the sounds.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30