Judgement 8 (Subject Alpha #1) (2 page)

Realising they were gaining on me swiftly, my eyes searched for a way out. Nothing but buildings welcomed me. I needed to hide, and quickly.

A large club appeared to my left. A huge line of people queueing for entrance meandered along the edge of the large square building. Loud music blasted from inside every time the door opened and closed to allow in another reveller.

I ran up the steps to the doors, cutting in front of the queue. A huge wall of muscle jumped in my way, my face hitting his solid chest, my feet stumbling backwards. He reached out and seized my arm, his thick fingers digging into my cold flesh before I fell back down the steps.

“End of the line is that way!” He narrowed his eyes on me and pointed towards the end of the procession.

I shook my head, looking back, my eyes hunting for my hunters. “Please, I need to get inside.”

“Uh-uh, sugar. Get in line.”

“Please!” My mouth had dried so much I couldn’t form words properly, each syllable coming out with a slur. I knew he thought I was drunk. “They’re coming.”

He stared at me then looked over my shoulder, his eyes searching. He shrugged and looked back at me. “No one there. Now wait your turn.”

I knew they were there. I could feel them, waiting for a moment to pounce. “No, they are!” I attempted to push past him and gain access again.

His fingers curled around the tops of my arms and he lifted me, my feet leaving the floor at least six inches, the whole of my 5ft 2 frame straight as a board as he carried me down the stairs and past the long line of people, each head turning in my direction, each person laughing at me.

I tried to dampen the anger inside but it overruled my mind. Blood rushed into my ears, a throb echoing in my head as I struggled against him.

His strides were wide as he calmly carried me down the line, turning into an alley when the queue bent around a corner and ran along the long brick wall, the area dark and full of shadows.

“You need to let me go,” I whispered hoarsely, my tight throat restricting my vocal chords. I was losing it, my brain firing explosions of red flashes behind my eyes. Everything seemed to sharpen; my eyes registering the hairs along my hijacker’s chin stand on end, my hearing catching a couple’s sex fuelled panting down the alley behind a large industrial bin, my nostrils even recognising vodka and beer in the sweat of people around me.

“Please, put me down.”

I sensed them then, the stench of chemicals and blood assaulting my sense of smell. Fuck! My heartbeat increased, my eyes snapping left and right, the tunnels in my ears amplifying their footsteps.

“Shit!”

The man strolled to the end of the line and finally plonked me down behind a guy with a huge bright green Mohawk who seemed to find my predicament highly amusing.

I pushed at the large guy’s chest, my fingers curling into his shirt. “You have to help me, they’re coming!”

He snorted, one of his brows lifting like I was crazy. Maybe I was, but right then I knew if they got hold of me, my life was over. “You need to stop smoking shit, sugar.”

I shook my head frantically, a sob wrenching up my throat. “Oh God, they’re gonna kill me.”

He blinked at me, a look of hesitation on his face when he sensed my urgency. He turned once again and scanned the area. His eyes narrowed, his head tilting slightly to one side. My breath caught when I spotted them at the end of the alley, scrutinising the line of people and working their way closer, evidently trying to find me amongst the throng.

A sudden scent of cigarette smoke and whisky hit me, a hint of sweat and leather blending in. My kidnapper stepped in front of me. I held my breath, knowing he finally got it and he had seen them.

“Don’t let them get me, please.”

I jumped when a gravelly voice barked an order behind me. “Jonah, in.”

We both turned. My eyes hit a broad chest of stretched black cotton, my gaze traveling down to narrow nips and long solid legs encased in black jeans, and then back up. Broad shoulders and a wide neck led to a face that quickened my heart rate. His black hair was short but thick and styled messily. He wasn’t just handsome, he was breath-taking. Strength poured from him, an aura that matched his immense build. However, he was more frightening than the men who had been chasing me for the last hour, his intensity thinning the blood that had curdled in my cooked veins.

His piercing grey eyes sliced over me, completely disregarding me as he looked at Jonah and tilted his chin towards a metal side door.

Jonah picked me up again. I wanted to tell him I had legs but to be honest I was glad, I wasn’t sure the tremble in them would hold me up for much longer.

“My office,” he grunted when we passed him. Jonah gave him a simple nod.

I jerked in his hold when the metal door slammed shut behind us, my heart beating furiously at being caged in again. “You’re safe now, sugar.”

I blinked at him, hating the pool of tears that formed in my eyes. He glowered at me, clearly not comfortable with a little woman crying in his bizarre, unique embrace.

“Reid will see you alright.”

Reid?

We slipped through another door, Jonah opening it with a stab of his chunky finger on a keypad and a push of his backside. His outstretched arms still held me in his tight grip, a hand under each of my armpits reminding me of the way a man would anxiously hold a child that had just filled its nappy with something toxic.

He strolled across a room and gently but stiffly lowered me onto a sofa. He gave me a nod then disappeared back through the door, leaving me alone.

I looked around, my heartbeat regulating as my lungs finally allowed my breathing to steady, both of them calming the fury in my head.

It looked like an office of sorts, but with many home comforts. A small kitchenette stood in one corner of the room, its modern glossy black cupboards reflecting the overhead lights with a glare. Opposite, a small bedroom area housed a large queen-sized bronze bed, the framework intricate and the sheets as black as the kitchen.

All walls and carpeting were bare of decoration or pattern, a dark grey colour swallowing all the light and making the room drab and gloomy.

A few doors led off one wall, each locked with a numeric keypad. A large desk sat against a wall of glass; a mess of paperwork, stationery and a laptop sat atop, causing my OCD to kick in, my fingers twitching with the need to tidy.

I froze when a door slammed behind me and heavy footsteps broke the silence. My eyes landed on his thick thighs when he came to stand in front of me, the stretch of denim covering his muscles doing nothing to hide the bulk of him. I gawped as my inspection ventured up over contoured abs that bulged through his t-shirt and then over a solid chest that stole any saliva I’d managed to recoat my mouth with, coming to rest on narrow, angry, steel grey eyes.

He glared at me, his stare cutting through me.

“Talk!”

My eyes widened at his husky demand. I wondered if I’d jumped from the frying pan and into the fire when he bent at the waist and brought his stern face within an inch of mine, the scent of cigarettes and whisky intensifying. “I said talk. Talk!”

THE USUAL STUPIDITY THAT had persecuted me since my childhood kicked in and I gawped at him, my mouth open, my senses stunned by him. His huge body swallowed the room. On closer inspection, he didn’t seem to be breathing. I questioned whether he’d mastered the art of osmosis, his mass just absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere.

“Talk.”

“Uhh.” Here it came, my lack of intelligence whenever I was anxious. “What . . . what would you like to talk about?”

He stiffened, his pupils widening as a tight crease appeared on his forehead. I wanted to groan at my idiocy and I knew he thought I was being gutsy but I really wasn’t. I just lost all ability to act normally when I was nervous.

“Name?”

I blinked at him. He didn’t need to know. “Sarah.”

“Name?” he repeated with one eyebrow elevated.

“Maisie.” He stared at me with a bored expression. “Pauline.”

“Name!” His tone shifted and I knew I had to stop fucking him off.

“Elina,” I whispered begrudgingly.

He gave me a simple nod, accepting my truthful answer. “Reid. Business?”

It was my turn to frown, his question baffling me. “I uhh, I’m sorry?”

He stepped away from me and walked over to his desk, sitting himself in the high-backed leather chair, amazing me that he managed to fit in it. He settled back into it after flicking a switch on his desk and a screen slowly lifted out of a unit beside him. His eyes never left mine the whole time and I marvelled at how he managed the task of moving without bumping into something.

“Little girl,” he growled, “do not fuck me off. Your business here?”

Little girl?
My eyes widened at his rudeness. I was already conscious of my
compactness,
he didn’t need to rub it in. Bloody hell! I stood up, brushing at the front of my t-shirt, pretending to remove some fluff that wasn’t there so I could avoid his stare. He leaned over his desk, his arms folded as his eyes raked over me from top to bottom. A lopsided frown appeared when he noticed my feet.

“Where are your shoes?”

I looked down at my feet as if I hadn’t noticed my lack of footwear. I scratched an imaginary itch on my head and turned to the door. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, I’ll leave now. Thank you for helping me.”

I was unsure whether it was safe to leave but I couldn’t imagine them hanging around if they hadn’t found me. They would have moved on by now, searching elsewhere.

“Wait.” He said the word slowly, as though he was training a damn puppy.

I shook my head, denying his order as I pulled at the door. It didn’t budge. Ignoring the sudden dryness in my throat, I turned back to him, trying desperately to stop the clanging of my heart against my ribcage. “Can you open the door please?”

“Who were they?” he asked, completely ignoring me and tapping a finger on the screen that had risen from the cupboard. I looked at what he was indicating to, my eyes finding Janice’s men.

My eyes snapped to his when the monitor then displayed Reid kick the living daylights out of them. My jaw dropped. I couldn’t look away as he not only beat them, but completely destroyed them.

“Did they hurt you?”

“Did you kill them?”

He narrowed his eyes, regarding me meticulously. “Would it be a problem if I had?”

I closed my eyes when my own question prompted a reminder of what I myself had done to Dr Tracey. I didn’t give him an answer as I tried the door again.

“Please let me out.” My voice was quiet and choked.

“Elina?” he continued, disregarding my appeal again, but this time with a softer tone. “Did they hurt you, Elina?”

My struggle with the door handle became frantic as I tugged at it.

“What are you scared of, little girl?”

“Why are you hounding me?” I shouted as I yanked at the door, a small whimper clawing at my throat when I sensed the danger of him. “Let—me—out!”

The lights flashed briefly before a trail of smoke plummeted from the keypad beside the door, a smell of burning copper scorching my nostrils as the door shot open in my hand, causing me to stumble backwards.

“What the hell?” he growled.

I was out before he even had chance to make it around his huge desk. I was running once again. I was tired of running. It felt like I’d been doing it constantly for the past two years.

I followed the route Jonah had brought me up but cried out in frustration when the metal door refused to budge, another locked door preventing my escape. I turned, finding a long corridor, and shot down it when I heard his heavy footsteps behind me.

Falling through a door at the end, I stumbled into a huge nightclub. Dancers and more drunken people got in my way when I bombed it straight across the middle of the room, my eyes hunting for an exit in the flash of multi-coloured strobe lights around the room. I swore at people, the deafening throb of some techno beat consuming my small voice, my mouth moving and no one hearing me, my pleas falling on deaf ears.

A door with an exit sign above seemed like a hallucination and a smile finally graced my face. Just a little farther.

The smile turned into a grin when the door gave under my push and the outside air cooled my hot skin, the thin blue hessian trousers providing little protection against the chill. “Yes!” I congratulated myself when I found myself in a different passageway to the one Jonah had taken me down.

Freedom was so close. I scanned the alley, deciding my best bet was to head for the main road and lose myself in the mass of revellers. Gravel and broken glass cut into my feet, the pain almost unbearable but I knew bleeding wouldn’t be an issue; the thick texture of my blood made it virtually impossible for me to ever bleed out.

A door on my right burst open. Jonah once again became a barricade when my body slammed into his. He scowled down at me and sighed. “Sorry, sugar.”

I frowned at him then slumped to the floor when he punched me in the side of the head and everything went black.