Valiant(25)

Surprise registered to Tammy. She didn’t remember doing that but hid a smile, happy it had happened. She vaguely remembered using her feet to help kick off to shove her upper body from the bed of the truck. She’d thought she’d used the floor to do it. The fact that it had actually been his face made it better.

“I think two of my teeth are loose. She slammed her head into my mouth,” Terry said and grunted while he glared at her. “I say I take my belt and blister her ass with it.”

“Stop all of that whining,” the guy with the scratched arm ordered. “We need her help. You heard what our informant on the inside of that animal land told us. One of those animals grabbed and carried her off. We need to convince her to go public and tell everyone what he did to her to gain support for our cause.”

“Like that bitch is going to do that.” Ned paused. “Right. She broke my nose. She’s as much of an animal as they are. Did she come with us peacefully the way a real lady would? Hell no. She fought as though she were an animal. Now here we are stuck in the woods without a truck. That car followed us and I’m pretty sure that guy went for help. He probably got the license plate. We probably have half of the state searching for us because she wouldn’t just be reasonable.”

“We should have waited, Paul.” Terry frowned at the guy with the scratched arm. “He ordered us to wait to take her when he arrived. You’re the dick who thought she’d be easy enough to grab. You said it would be as simple as eating pie. The boss is going to be here in a few days and he’s going to tear you a new asshole and us along with you since we were dumb enough to listen to your screwed-up plan. You know the boss wants her bad, he told you he has big plans for her. He said he could talk her into doing whatever we needed her to do but now it’s all turned to shit.”





Chapter Five



Paul cursed. “I can fix this. We can convince her to tell the press what we want but it just might take a bit more time.”

“We don’t have that,” Terry ground out. “Our boss is going to have all of our asses for this mess. We screwed it up bad.”

Paul glared at Tammy. “All you had to do was come peacefully. We’re human, damn it. We’re your kind. What did that animal do to you when he carried you off? Did he rape you? Did he take a bite out of you? Did he try to turn you into one of them? Tell us the truth right now!”

Tammy glared at him. “He was a gentleman and brought me tea. After that, he asked me how my day was,” she lied. “He didn’t toss me into the back of a truck and crush me into near suffocation, nor did he drag me out into the woods and use a belt to tie my hands behind my back. He was actually intelligent and polite.”

She hoped she wouldn’t go to hell over stretching the truth because while Valiant was intelligent, the polite part would be considered a little shady.

“They are animals.” Terry glared at her. “You’re sticking up for them?”

“You’re calling them that? That’s priceless coming from four thugs who kidnapped me.” She snorted loudly and rolled her eyes.

“Bitch!” Ned yelled as he lurched to his feet. “You broke my nose. I’ll show you what kind of animal I can be.”

Paul gripped his arm. “Sit down.”

“She’s asking for it,” Ned whined but he sat.

Terry sighed. “She’s never going to do what we want. We should just get rid of her and tell our boss she accidently died when we grabbed her.”

“You don’t go against the doctor’s orders ever. I told him I’d make this happen and that, in the end, he’d get her alive when we were done with her.” Paul shot a frightened look at his men, seeming to be in charge of them. “Trust me. That’s one man you never want to disappoint. He is allowing us to get a taped statement from her but after that, he plans to use her for one of his experiments. Our informant believes something sexual happened between her and the animal who took her. He overheard a conversation between Justice North and one of the security animals. They said she could be hurt and they wanted a doctor to check her out but she refused to press charges against the animal for rape. They didn’t say attempted rape. He was clear about that.”

Tammy knew the color drained from her face. Someone had leaked information to a hate group, someone close to Justice North. She’d never met him but she’d seen him in interviews on television since he was the most well-known New Species. His people had voted him into leadership as though he were some kind of president. He made most of the decisions for them. Someone obviously was spying on him and telling these men what was being said. Worse, they knew about her and Valiant. Not good.