Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

It hits the side of her torso with a thud. Slaps are louder than punches, even if you don’t use much force.

She’s wearing another layer under the gown—thin thermals, the same colour as her skin. They probably stop her from freezing to death out here, but unfortunately, they also deaden the sound.

Ivy squirms in my grip. ‘Help me!’ she screeches. Not sure who to.

I hit her again in the same spot. Harder. In Hollywood, making a fight look real takes tricky camera angles, sound effects and hours of rehearsal. I have nothing.

She’s sobbing. ‘Stop! Please!’

I grab a fistful of her hair. She stands on tiptoes, which makes it look like I’m lifting her up by her scalp. She lets out a squeal of agony. I’m not entirely sure it’s fake.

‘What’s the matter?’ I shout. ‘Does that hurt?’

Shouting is itself a form of torture. The CIA used it at their secret prisons, along with deafening music played around the clock. But if I can’t make this look real, I can at least make it sound real.

I glance back at Donnie to see if he’s buying this—and Ivy swipes at me with her free arm, raking her nails down the side of my neck, taking out a shallow gouge. Unlike me, she’s not holding back.

I snarl with anger that would be real, if I wasn’t so scared. I grab her face and press my thumb into her eyeball—but it’s an illusion. That thumb doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s a trick that will only look real for a second, so I quickly let go and twist her arm behind her back. Police learn the rear wrist lock, because it looks gentle but hurts like hell. In the training manuals it’s called pain compliance. Right now, I’m trying for the opposite, making it look like agony but keeping it painless. Ivy is shrieking so loudly that I have no idea if I’m doing it right.

Donnie isn’t convinced, though. I can feel it, without even looking back at him. I’m going to have to hurt Ivy for real.

I’m not an experienced fighter, but I know anatomy. I don’t want to damage her solar plexus or rupture her bladder. I drive my fist into her belly, halfway between the two.

She folds in half with a wrenching cry. Whatever she did to her husband, she doesn’t deserve this.

I can’t keep up the act. Need to end it somehow. I grab Ivy’s throat again, and tense the muscles in my hand and my arm to make it look like I’m squeezing. She takes the hint, going bug-eyed and gurgling in my grip. She’s actually very good at this. Maybe she was an actress before she got captured.

I do the wall-kick thing again, and mutter, ‘Go limp.’ Praying that she obeys.

Ivy gags for a few more seconds and then, to my relief, her eyes flutter closed. I drop her, and she hits the ground like a bag of groceries and lies still.

‘Whoops,’ I say. ‘Must have pressed too hard on the carotid. Sorry, man.’

I crouch next to her. As I pretend to check her pulse, I surreptitiously wipe some of the blood from my neck on her top lip. Now it looks like she has a broken nose.

My blood on someone else’s mouth. Not how things usually go.

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Down for the count. But she has a pulse.’

Finally I turn to Donnie. His expression is hidden by the mask.

I spread my arms wide, breathing heavily. ‘So?’

‘It’s a lot less work with the axe,’ he says.

‘Not as much fun, though,’ I say.

He smirks. ‘True. Okay, you get the part. But there’s room for improvement—I’ll show you over the weekend.’

Only then do I look at Thistle. She’s shaking and hugging her legs with her free arm. I convinced her, too.

‘How’d our boy do?’ Fred asks Donnie at dinner.

Donnie raises his beer in my direction. ‘Made us proud.’

‘And the FBI agent? How did she hold up?’

‘Scared shitless,’ I say.

Fred raises his eyebrows. ‘Just scared?’

‘Lux abused the Abuser.’ Donnie shovels some rice into his mouth. ‘Made the FBI agent watch.’

Fred was reaching across the table for the green beans but his hand stops halfway there. ‘You had a turn on Ivy?’

‘Yeah.’ I try to sound casual.

There’s a flicker of something in Fred’s expression. Possessiveness?

‘Is that a problem?’ I ask.

Zara watches this exchange with interest.

Fred shrugs and picks up some beans with the tongs. ‘I usually do Ivy.’

‘Oh.’ I put my water glass down a bit too hard. Thunk. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know.’

Donnie glances at me. I did know. He told me.

‘It’s all good,’ Fred says. His face relaxes back into its usual serene smile. ‘Just ask next time, okay?’

Now Donnie looks even more uneasy. I did ask, and he said yes.

But I don’t rat him out. ‘No problem. I will.’

Donnie relaxes. My heart rate settles.

Fred chews on some corn. ‘You want to go on the delivery run with Kyle in the morning?’

‘I don’t need help,’ Kyle puts in, looking offended.

‘Sure,’ I say. My plan is that Thistle and I will be gone by morning. But I still don’t know what to do about Kyle.

I wonder if Fred remembers what he told me yesterday—that Kyle does the mail run because he’s expendable. Maybe Fred is implying that I’m expendable, too.

I lie in bed, listening.

Donnie’s footsteps are the heaviest, and he goes to bed first. Someone else has a shower—either Cedric or Kyle, since Fred already had one—then goes into one of the bedrooms and paces around for a while before the bedclothes start rustling. The shower hisses again for someone else. Last to go to bed is Zara, her footsteps lighter and more cautious than the others. No pacing for her.