“You forgot lack of brains,” growls Raffe. “I’m your target here, not her.”
“How do you figure?” asks the leader.
“You need men like me as soldiers,” says Raffe. “Not a skinny little girl like her.”
The leader leans back with his arms crossed. “What makes you think we’re looking for soldiers?”
“You used five men and a pack of dogs to catch one guy,” says Raffe. “At that rate, you’re going to need three armies to get done whatever it is you’re trying to do here.”
The leader nods. “You obviously have prior military experience.” I raise my brows at this, wondering what happened when they captured him.
“You didn’t bat an eye when we pointed the guns at you,” says the leader.
“So maybe he’s not as good he thinks he is if he’s been captured before,” says Raffe’s guard. Raffe doesn’t rise to the bait.
“Or maybe he’s special ops, trained for the worst situations,” says the leader. He pauses, waiting for Raffe to confirm or deny. The moonlight filtering through the window is bright enough to show the leader watching Raffe with the intensity of a wolf watching a rabbit. Or maybe it’s like a rabbit watching a wolf. But Raffe says nothing.
The leader turns to me. “You hungry?”
My stomach picks that moment to growl loudly. It would have been funny in any other situation.
“Let’s get these folks some dinner.” The three men leave.
I test my ropes around my wrists. “Tall, dark and friendly. What more could a girl ask for?”
Raffe snorts. “They got a lot friendlier once you showed up. They haven’t offered me food all day.”
“Are they just skittish, or are they really bad guys?”
“Anybody who ties you to a chair at gunpoint is a bad guy. Do I really need to explain this?”
I feel like a little girl who did something stupid.
“So what are you doing here?” he asks. “I risk getting chewed to pieces by a pack of dogs so you can escape, and then you run back here? Your sense of judgment could use a dash of common sense.”
“Sorry, I’ll be sure and never do that again.” I’m beginning to wish they had gagged us.
“That’s the sanest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“So who are these guys?” Raffe’s super hearing has no doubt gained him a lot of information on what they’re up to.
“Why? You planning on enlisting?”
“I’m not much of a joiner.”
Despite his usual handsome features, he looks rather grotesque in the moonlight with all those streaks of dried blood running down his face. For a moment, I envision him as the classic fallen angel out to damn your soul.
But then he asks, “You all right?” His voice is surprisingly gentle.
“I’m fine. You know we need to get out of here by morning, right? They’ll be able to tell by then.” All that blood with no wound. No human heals that fast.
The door opens and the smell of stew almost drives me mad. I haven’t starved since the attacks, but I haven’t exactly been gaining weight either.
The leader pulls up a chair next to mine and lifts the bowl under my nose. My stomach grumbles as soon as the scent of meat and vegetables hits me.
He lifts a heaping spoonful and stops halfway between the bowl and my mouth. I have to suppress a groan of pleasure at the anticipation for decorum’s sake. A pimply-faced soldier pulls up a chair next to Raffe and does the same with his stew.
“What’s your name?” asks the leader. There something intimate about the way he asks me this question as he is about to feed me.
“My friends call me Wrath,” says Raffe. “My enemies call me Please Have Mercy. What’s your name, soldier boy?” Raffe’s mocking tone brings a flush to my cheeks for no reason.
But the leader isn’t flustered. “Obadiah West. You can call me Obi.” The spoon moves away from me just a fraction.
“Obadiah. How biblical.” says Raffe. “Obadiah hid the prophets from persecution.” Raffe stares at his own suspended spoon of stew.
“A Bible expert,” says Obi. “Too bad we already have one.” He looks at me. “And what’s your name?”
“Penryn,” I say quickly before Raffe can open his mouth to say something sarcastic. “Penryn Young.” I’d rather not antagonize our captors, especially if they’re about to feed us.
“Penryn.” He whispers it as though making it his own. I’m somehow embarrassed to have Raffe witness this moment, though I’m not sure why.
“When was the last time you had a real meal, Penryn?” asks Obi. He holds the spoon just out of reach of my mouth. I swallow the saliva before answering.
“It’s been awhile.” I give him an encouraging smile, wondering if he’ll let me have that bite. He moves the spoon to his own mouth and I watch him eat it. My stomach grumbles in protest.
“Tell me, Obi,” says Raffe. “Just what kind of meat is this?”
I look back and forth between the soldiers, suddenly unsure if I’m hungry.
“You’d have to catch a lot of animals to feed this many people,” says Raffe.
“I was just about to ask you what kind of animals you’ve been hunting,” says Obi. “A guy your size must need a lot of protein to maintain your muscle mass.”
“What are you implying?” I ask. “We’re not the ones attacking people, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Obi looks sharply at me. “How do you know about that? I didn’t say anything about attacking people.”
“Oh, don’t give me that look.” I give him my best grossed-out-teenager expression. “You couldn’t possibly imagine that I’d want to eat a person, could you? That’s totally disgusting.”
“We saw a family,” says Raffe. “Half-eaten on the road.”
“Where?” asks Obi. He seems surprised.
“Not too far from here. You’re sure it wasn’t you or one of your men?” Raffe shifts in his chair as though to remind Obi he and his men are not exactly the friendly sort.
“None of mine would do it. They don’t need to. We have sufficient supplies and firepower to support everyone here. Besides, they got two of our men last week. Trained men with rifles. Why do you think we hunted you? We don’t normally go after strangers. We’d like to know who did it.”