“Uhm, no. They’re in the cart.”
“Uh oh, we better go get them.” My heart was beating a couple thousand times a minute as I eased around the end of the bed and headed for the door. Maybe we should have tried throwing ourselves out the window instead. It was only the second story. We couldn’t break more than a few bones in such a fall, right?
Too late now. I was only a couple of feet away from the riders, with Simon on my heels. I didn’t like the way they were looking at each other, like old friends who could exchange complicated messages with nothing but a glance.
“I think the cart’s right out there,” I said and tried to dart between them.
A hand clamped onto my biceps. I tried to jerk away, but I might as well have been attempting to escape from steel shackles. It was Violet Eyes, and he pulled me close, glaring down at me.
“Why were you searching our room?”
“Searching? Is that what you think we were doing?” I waved to Simon, hoping he could slip past and escape into the hallway where he could find help or cook up some scheme to free me, but the second man had blocked his approach to the doorway. “I told you,” I said with as much affronted indignation as I could manage, “we work here and were here to tidy your room if it needed it. If you don’t let go of me, I’ll tell the owner, and she’ll call the police.”
Blue Eyes looked more uncertain than his buddy. “Jakatra, maybe we should let them go. Nothing’s missing. I could sense if it were.”
“They are thieves,” Violet Eyes—Jakatra said. “Even in this benighted realm, that is a crime.”
“Crime?” Simon blurted. “You’re the ones who stole my metal detector up on that mountain. What’d you do with it?”
I winced. If they hadn’t known we were responsible for their mutilated tires, they did now.
“Sah,” Blue Eyes whispered. I didn’t know what “sah” meant, but his expression grew slightly contrite.
Jakatra’s glare didn’t soften. “We didn’t steal it; we required its use for a short time. We left it against a tree near where that large conveyance was parked.”
“Fine,” Simon said, “then we can all forget we saw each other and I’ll go get it.” He met my eyes.
I gave him a quick nod. These guys might not agree with his suggestion, but it was time to depart either way.
Simon grabbed the smaller fellow, trying to stomp on his foot and push him out of the way. Jakatra’s steel grip hadn’t let up, but my first escape attempt hadn’t been more than a reflex—not a particularly honed one at that. This time, I put some thought into getting away. I grabbed the wrist that held me, intending to twist it against the joint so the pain would force him to let me go. To further distract him, I drove my knee toward his groin at the same time.
But my knee hit nothing except the doorjamb he’d been standing in front of. Faster than I could register, he had twisted away, evading both of my attacks. Before I could attempt a counter, I found my face mashed against that doorjamb. I tried to wriggle free, but a heavy weight against my back had me pinned. My arms were yanked behind me, and I couldn’t find any leverage to stomp on his foot. I couldn’t even see his foot.
“What should we do with them?” Blue Eyes asked, telling me he’d conquered Simon as easily as I’d been trapped.
Damn. I’d never been in a real fight in my life, but I’d thought those hours in the dojo would translate to a modicum of competence.
A clink sounded against the window on the door at the end of the hallway. The weight on my back shifted—the man turning part way to look toward the noise. The attack came from the opposite direction though. Temi raced into view, a fire extinguisher in her hands, its muzzle aimed at us.
I squinted my eyes shut and buried my chin in my chest. A white spray of chemicals assaulted us. My attacker drew back, lifting an arm to shield his face. This time when I threw a kick, it connected with his shin. Not much of an assault, but I was more interested in lunging into the hallway. Whether because of surprise or because the extinguisher’s propellant made everything slippery I didn’t know, but his grip on me fell away.
I almost stumbled and fell on my face, but Temi flung the extinguisher at someone and caught me.
“Simon,” I started, but a familiar form smothered in white spurted out of the room beside me.
“Go,” he ordered.
We went. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t graceful, but we sprinted down the stairs and out the front door. We almost knocked over an elderly couple climbing the steps to the porch with their arms laden with shopping bags. I veered to one side of them as Simon went to the other, and we vaulted the railing, landing on the sidewalk.