Brawn - Laurann Dohner [20]
“Fuck you.”
Two more black-clad figures entered the bathroom, weird weapons drawn and they pointed them at her. One of them spoke. “You okay, Randy?”
“Fine,” their leader sighed. “She nicked my cheek but I dodged for the most part.”
She looked up and realized they’d shot through the wall separating the bedroom and bathroom too high to have hit where she’d been standing. It was confusing since she’d been sure they were trying to kill her.
“Who are you?”
Randy reached out suddenly and grabbed her by her throat, yanked her away from the wall and fisted her hair again. He pulled hard enough to jerk her head back as he pulled her tight against him. She could detect cigarettes on his breath, which fanned through the material over his mouth.
“Is she one of them?” One of his men stepped to the side of her.
“Nope. Human. I’m sure. She’s not a New Species. Her eyes are normal.”
Someone else entered the bathroom. “We’re picking up chatter. Our second team just intercepted the cops. They are coming. We’ve got four minutes.”
“Fuck,” Randy hissed. He let go and shoved her against the wall. He grabbed his uninjured ear and tapped it.
“This is alpha dog. We have a female inside the male’s bathroom. She’s obviously screwing him since she admitted it’s her house and they are both locked in his room.” He paused for seconds. “She’s alive. I checked and she’s not one of them—she’s human.” He paused again. “Understood. I’ll bring her in with him.” He tapped his ear to cut the transmission.
He grabbed her hair, jerked her away from the wall and fisted the back of her shirt too as he spun her around. “It’s your lucky damn day. You get to live. Move. You try anything and I’ll hurt you bad. My orders are to bring you in breathing but nobody said I couldn’t make you suffer.”
He stopped her at the bathroom door. The dead guy was inches from her bare feet. She felt wet heat on the floor like warm syrup. She didn’t look down to verify she stood in blood. She didn’t need to see it to know. Nausea roiled up and she made a gagging sound.
The hand tightened on her shirt and the man jerked her. “You puke and I’ll break your damn jaw.”
Becca frantically fought to thwart the urge. She watched helplessly as two men lifted Brawn off the bed. They gripped him under his armpits and dragged him toward the door.
Who are these assholes? She was terrified. Any law-enforcement agency would have identified themselves before attacking. That left the opposite of law enforcement. Maybe mercenaries? Becca quaked at the thought. Her father said the difference between one of them and a soldier was that his men would only kill when issued orders.
Three more black-clad men, their faces and hair concealed, walked into the room. One of them pulled another of the unusual weapons, aimed at Brawn’s leg and fired. The dart embedded in Brawn’s upper thigh but he didn’t flinch, still unconscious.
“That’s two,” the man who had shot him sighed. “Let’s keep track. We don’t want to kill him. In fifteen minutes we’ll dose him again.”
“Fuck,” another man softly swore. “That won’t kill him? That’s a hell of lot.”
“They have high drug tolerances from all those years of testing and they have a fast metabolism. You don’t want this bastard to wake up until we get him in a cage. It would be the last mistake you ever made.”
“It wasn’t so hard getting him.” Randy chuckled. “It was easier than I thought.”
The man who’d shot Brawn with the dart shook his head. “It was the female. He couldn’t flee so he had to fight. If it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t have caught him. He would have been out the window and miles from here before we reached the room. He locked the door and was waiting for us when we attacked, to protect her. He heard us coming.”
Becca felt bad. Brawn wouldn’t have been captured if she had spent the night at her dad’s house. Shit.
“Let’s move out. The police will be here soon.” Randy shoved her from behind. “Walk.”
The shooter holstered his bulky gun against his thigh, moved forward and grabbed Brawn’s legs. The three of them carried