Dance in the Rain: Chosen Book 23
Page 1
Copyright © 2019 J.D. Light
Edited by Ann Attwood Editing and Proofreading Services
Chapter One
I gripped Malik's hand, holding my breath as the door opened. We didn't want to hope that they were bringing someone else in, because that would mean someone else suffering the same fate as us, but we also didn’t want them coming in to get anyone.
Malik and I were all that was left.
I thought at one point, the purpose of the room was probably a type of safe room. I knew from the brief glimpse of the house that I had gotten when they first brought us in that it had once been an old plantation home which had been remodeled and modernized. The room had probably been added for storms or home invasions since it had a phone jack––with no phone plugged into it––electricity and even a bathroom.
Or hell, maybe it had been designed for the express purpose of holding people against their will, since there was a stage and a catwalk in one of the other rooms that our temporary owners used for showing and parading chosen for our potential new owners.
Most of the chosen that were brought in left within a day, sometimes hours. I didn't, and because I didn't know what waited for me if I did, I wasn't sure if I was happy about that or not. At least sitting in that room with the solid steel walls for… however long I'd been in there, I knew what to expect.
Three somewhat warm meals, a place to sleep, a relatively private place to go to the bathroom, and showers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Malik and I had been there the longest. Him, probably because of his scars and attitude and me because of my leg… and the fact that I walked with a severe limp from a childhood injury that didn't heal correctly.
I could walk unassisted if necessary, and since they'd taken my cane away when Malik used it to attack a guard who grabbed one of the other chosen a little too forcefully, I'd really had no choice but to go without it. I used a hand on the wall to get around quite often.
"Meyers!" someone yelled from the hallway, just as the door flew open and a man I didn't recognize stormed in, looking angry and more than a little terrifying.
I only had a quick moment to take in the stunningly handsome man before another guy entered right behind him, gun raised and looking around the room like he was ready for someone to attack.
"You can't just run in here like that," the guy with the gun said, finally lowering it, and tucking it in the holster strapped on his side.
"There are only two in here," the angry guy said, his frown heavy and a bit intimidating, which made the fact that I had the urge to immediately hobble my ass over to him more than a little disturbing. Nothing about the man should sending the strange feeling of safeness through my body while I was looking at the huge, angry looking guy, who just kept glaring at me.
For some stupid reason, my stomach flipped. It wasn't just that he was gorgeous, though he definitely was, with his big sculpted body, plastic-wrapped in that dark gray T-shirt and light stonewashed jeans. I had been in the presence of attractive men before––though maybe not quite as attractive as him––and I hadn't felt that strange stinging-slash-dropping sensation around them. And I didn't think it was because his voice was deep and almost hostile.
It was just something about his presence in general, a calling I didn't understand.
"Is one of them him?" Gun Guy asked, looking back and forth between Malik and me, and then back over to his angry friend.
"Yeah," he answered, his gaze still focused on me. On my face
Did that mean I was him? Was being him going to get me killed?
"Hi," the angry guy said, stepping over to stand in front of the chair I was sitting in, his heat engulfing me even from over a foot away.
When he knelt in front of me, I couldn't help but gasp as those intense hazel eyes were suddenly on the same level as mine.
Brown burst from behind the pupil, looking almost like someone took an eyedropper and plopped a watery brown drop right smack in the middle of a stunning emerald green, the brown bleeding subtly into the green except for the few spikes that broke through, joined by bright yellow specks.
"My name is Meyers." He threw a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his friend. "This is Recker. We're here to get you out of this place."
I wished I could say that I didn't shiver right there in front of everyone in the room like an idiot, but I did, and I wasn't all that subtle about it. Hopefully the big guy would think I was cold and not embarrassingly turned on by his deep, delicious voice.
"No thanks," Malik said brightly, breaking me out of my Meyers-induced daze, and giving my hand a squeeze. He gave me a reassuring smile when I glanced up at him, probably thinking my reaction to the man kneeling in front of me was due to nervousness, and I blinked before looking back into those intense hazel eyes.
Meyers glanced at where my fingers were laced with my only friend's, narrowing his eyes before looking up at the little spitfire who'd just refused him. "I'm sorry?"
Malik stepped forward, doing his best to slide between Meyers and me. "Listen. We're not interested in being someone's baby-makers. I'm not leaving this hellhole only to end up in another, constantly knocked up and not even allowed to eat cake."
Meyers frowned, raising an eyebrow at the man who was still trying to worm his way between us, reaching up to put his forearm against Malik's thigh and pushing him back into his previous position.
"What the hell are you talking about? I don't give a shit if you eat cake," he growled, turning to look back at me.
I didn't know why he did that. Why I seemed to be where his attention was focused, It was both nice and a little unnerving, since I was awkward on my good days and I still wasn't completely sure what these men wanted with us.
Did I really want to be the chosen in the scenario that might have this man choosing which of us he wanted to knock up?
"But you do plan on keeping us knocked up?" My friend tried once again to step forward, but stopped when Meyers' throat made some kind of noise that sounded something like a growl-grunt hybrid.
Whatever it was, it sounded serious and a bit threatening.
I visibly shivered again, and my face heated with embarrassment as I felt my body start to respond. This was not the time for that.
"No, no, no." Recker said, stepping forward with his hands in the air. "We're here to get you out. We aren't here to buy you."
"You're here to let us go?" Malik asked, glaring at the man.
Recker cringed slightly, before shrugging. "Sort of. Yeah."
"Sort of doesn't sound anything like definitely."
"Well," Recker said, looking a bit uncomfortable. "We'd have questions, and we'd want you guys to stay kinda close, so the same thing that happened last time, doesn't happen again, but we aren't going to keep you prisoner."
Malik crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at first Recker and then down at Meyers. "I'm super convinced. Take us away to your not dungeon."
"He's just trying to be honest with you," Meyers growled, glaring. "You're safer around people like us who can keep you safe."
"You mean keep us safe from… dunt, dunt, dunt…" He looked up at the ceiling crossing his eyes and uncrossing his arms to motion dramatically with each syllable. "Other people like you."
"I don't have fucking time for this," Meyers growled, climbing to his feet. "Grab him. I still have about three people to interrogate when we get back, and I know for a fact Rowe isn't going to go in there and get the information we need, because he's squeamish."
He seemed huge as he stood over me, looking angry. I got the impression the gentleness he'd shown me so far wasn't something that he used very often. His composure spoke of brutality and control.
"Oh, yeah. Keep talking about how your friend likes to watch people bleed and tell me why we should go with you again?" Malik asked, readying his body for a fight.
Jerking him back with my hand in his, I shook my head when he glanced at me before turning back to the two men, one of whom was slightly crouched, like he was waiting to catch Malik if he made a run for it, and the other steadily watching me, his eyes occasionally wandering to where my hand was still joined with my friend's.
Why didn't he like that we were holding hands? Was he a homophobe, or something?
"Um, I'll come easily," I said softly, looking up into his crazy hazel eyes, then down at the black leather pouch with the tiny little windshield on his belt. "I can see your credentials from here." I frowned, pushing my glasses into place where they'd started to slide down my nose, and then looking back up into his eyes. "But you'll have to be patient with me. I can't really walk all that well."
I tried to stretch my leg out as far as I could, the motion causing only a mild amount of pain since it was still fairly early in the day and I hadn't been moving around on it a lot lately. Even with the weird scrub type pants they'd given us that they rotated out every time we got to take a shower, there was no denying the strange bow in my upper leg. It was even worse when I stood on it.
He was kneeling in front of me again in a flash, making me startle at just how fast he moved, his hands hovering in the air close to my thigh. "Were you hurt?"
The man wasn't just a human, which was something I'd already suspected, he was like those men who had been holding us. Was he a good guy though, or a bad guy? Was Malik right and we were about to jump from one shitastic situation to another? And why did he look even angrier than he had earlier at the prospect that I'd been hurt?
I had been. And the recovery, especially with a family like mine, had been long and painful.
"No," I said quietly, giving the man a small smile as I rubbed my hand up and down the muscle, massaging. "This happened a while ago."
A stupid accident when I was twelve and thought I was big enough to jump off the top of the barn, because my older brother told me he'd done it at my age. I ended up breaking my femur. Every doctor I'd gone to as an adult said that it would have been an easy fix as a child since it hadn't moved a great deal, but as an adult, it wouldn't be that easy. There were options, but the prospect of multiple surgeries and not being able to work for that long––even in the craptastic paying job I had at the local movie theater in my tiny town in North Dakota––would have been detrimental since it was just me.
So, instead, I'd decided to just keep hobbling along on a leg that had healed so bowed that it was a few inches shorter than the other, being made fun of by the same people who had made fun of me nearly my whole life, and trying not to wish that my parents were burning in the fiery pits of hell for putting me through all the shit they'd put me through in life, simply because they didn't believe in doctors, or modern medicine of any kind, or anyone or anything, really.
Frank and Barbara Wilson were crazy ass conspiracy theorists who lived in the boonies with their two kids and thought the whole world was out to get them, until the day they decided living was too hard and sat everyone down in the house for breakfast with poison in our OJ.
I was fifteen when my entire family passed, throwing up and convulsing right there on the kitchen floor. I'd only survived, because I'd had a huge sore in my mouth from where my brother had dared me to eat five whole tomatoes the day before out of our mother's garden. I hadn't drunk any orange juice, because I'd known it would hurt.
There wasn't a phone in the house, because my parents thought the government would be listening in to their phone conversations––like anyone gave a shit what the Wilsons were up to in nowhere North Dakota––so I'd had to hobble a mile down the road to the nearest neighbor's to call the police.
The next few years were spent with a woman I still communicated with daily. At least, I had before I'd been kidnapped. Maryann Walters' home had been like Heaven in comparison to what I'd come from. We hadn't had the weird rituals my parents had made us go through every night, so they could be sure we weren't some kind of traitor, or possibly a clone of ourselves trained to infiltrate the house.
Again, like anyone wanted to know what was going on in the Wilsons’ lives bad enough to go through that kind of trouble.
"How many guards have you seen coming in and out of here?" Meyers asked, breaking out of thoughts of my crazy ass parents and all the shit they'd put me through.
"Uh, six, I think."
He frowned, looking over at his… friend? Partner? "Keep an eye out for that last one."
Recker nodded, moving toward Malik, who raised an eyebrow at him, glaring him down. The man I was pretty sure was a shifter, cringed away, like he was afraid the tiny little human he outweighed by about eighty pounds and was like twenty times stronger than, was going to hit him with a rolled up newspaper or something.
Meyers' forehead crinkled and he looked around the room for a moment, then down at my leg and finally back up into my face. "Would it make you mad if I offered to carry you? It's just that we need to hurry."
He was a man who gave off the impression of not giving two shits about anything, but he was worried about making me mad. About offending me. I had a feeling he didn’t usually care about offending people much at all.
I shook my head, biting my bottom lip to keep from making an undignified noise at the prospect of him touching me, and he once again climbed to his feet before stepping to the side, just bending down and picking me up.
I might not be a huge, muscular guy like him, but I wasn't exactly a lightweight either. My upper body was fairly muscular due to having a small gym in my garage––though I'd lost a bit of muscle since my original capture. I'd originally started working out because of a few mishaps with some assholes in town who found out about my sexuality and thought for some reason it was their business, but the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it. Enjoyed feeling myself get stronger and stronger, and though it hurt sometimes, I'd even gotten quite a bit of bulk in my legs by using a leg press.
I was by no means light, but Meyers didn't seem to be straining at all.
"What's your name?" he asked, giving me a moment to settle comfortably in his arms, his attention focused completely on my face.
"Braden." I tried to be normal, hoping to not give the possibly homophobic man a reason to think I might be hitting on him, but my voice had dropped, and my face lit on fire.
I nearly fogged up my stupid glasses.
I could have sworn I saw a smile tipping the corner of his mouth, but then his attention was drawn to his friend Recker, and when I looked over, Malik was swinging the chair Meyers had just gotten me out of at the guy.
When Recker grabbed the back of the chair, Malik shoved, sending the guy off balance. I was pretty sure he could overtake my mouthy friend easily, but he seemed to be trying to be gentle.
"What the hell are you doing?" Meyers barked, making Recker and I jump. Malik simply picked up one of the plates that hadn’t been cleared from the room yet that day and sent it flying at Recker's head, growling slightly when the man jerked the chair he'd snatched up in front of him to keep from getting hit in the face.
"I'm kinda thinking we might need to tranq this one," Recker said, looking a little nervous.
"Malik," I said, sternly, getting the guy's attention just as he raised another plate. "They're here to help."
He lowered the plate slowly, his face adorably incredulous. "You believe them?" he demanded, beyond baffled.
I gave him a small nod and a smile, suddenly feeling more tired than I'd ever felt in my entire life. "I do."
"We don't know anything about them. They could be worse than the ones running the house," Malik said quietly, narrowing h
is eyes at Meyers like he thought the man might have done something to me to get me to comply.
Nothing besides somehow making me feel safe when I haven't felt safe… maybe ever. I hadn't even felt that safe with Maryann.
I shrugged, letting my head fall to Meyers' shoulder and closing my eyes. "They're FBI," I mumbled sleepily.
Malik snorted, but his voice sounded like it was moving toward the door. "I hate to tell you this, but I used to have a badge that looked a lot like that one, and I got mine out of a treasure chest at the dentist's office for sitting still while I was getting my teeth cleaned when I was ten."
I chuckled into Meyers' neck, my body getting more and more lax. I felt the earth move, and gripped his neck tighter, burying my face deeper against his skin. If he cared, he didn't mention it.
"What about the guards?" Malik asked, and his voice sounded far away. Or maybe he was just out in the hallway.
"Already taken care of," Meyers yelled back, startling me out of my half doze.
Malik's head poked back around the corner, his eyes narrowed. "How so?"
"They're dead," Meyers said simply, and I could have sworn his shoulder shrugged beneath my cheek.
Maybe I should've worried a little, but no matter how illogical it was, I couldn't seem to dredge up even an inkling of concern that he was so nonchalant about death.
"Did you kill them?" My friend asked, and I didn't know what to make of the small smile on his face.
Maybe I should worry about all the people currently in my life.
"Three of them, yes." Meyers deep voice rumbled against my side, and I lifted my head to see his face. "Recker got two, but the last one hasn't come out, so I'm betting he just isn't in today. I'll have to find him another time."
I didn't whether to laugh or not, so I just settle on blinking into his face when he looked at me, and then let my head fall back to his shoulder.
"Do you know if there are any more chosen in the house?"
"Not that we know of," I said sleepily. "We don't leave this room unless they have a client they think might be interested in us. Malik and I haven't left the room since we got here."