Hot Revenge Box Set 2

James

Michael looks me up and down. “You fit to walk?”

“I’ll manage.”

He gives a short jerk of his head and turns to Charlotte, arms outstretched. “You walk. I’ll carry Cara for you.”

She retreats, clutching Cara to herself, shrieking. “No!”

Michael steps back, holding up his palms. “Whoa… Calm down. It’s me. What do you think I’m going to do?”

She bursts into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

He takes a step closer, moving carefully. “Charlotte, we have to leave. I’m not sure you can carry Cara and walk too.”

“No.” She swings her head in denial, tries to step out, then totters, Cara still tight to her chest.

Michael exchanges a look with me, shaking his head, then he moves in… “Hold on to Cara.” …. sweeping her up. His voice changes to a kind of fake yokel accent. “Come, Mr Frodo!” he says. “I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.”

She gives him a watery smile. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that. You’ll be fine when we’ve got you home and rested up for a few days.”

Klempner shoves a knife into his belt. Another into the top of his boot. A handgun into a pocket. Then, picking up his SMG, “We need to get moving. I'll go to the front. Michael, you with Jenny in between. James, cover our backs.”

*****

Michael

My arms full of Charlotte, we clear the first flight of stairs to the corridor of ‘cells’. “Klempner, we should release the other women.”

then looking along the passage and its

have time for that. Once we're out, you can sing

him short. “By that time Finchby and Baxter could

won’t. Whoever’s in those cells represents his working stock. His property. He’ll not be eager

a lot of screaming, panicking women, running around the place, creating chaos, trying to escape, is likely to make

the man with the highest bid. Get on

have my axe. James, can you take

him, clinging to his Cara with one hand,

ahead, unslinging the axe from my shoulders, I aim… swing… and strike at the first padlock. The angle’s a little wrong. The blade bites

my aim, this

after a brief struggle with the bolt,

something at me. Dark-haired and eyed, fair-skinned, she would be beautiful if she weren’t

her, “Quick,

James with Charlotte and Cara.

his head around the door. “Você quer partir? Venha conosco.”

then scrabbling up, dashes

He jabs a finger to me… “Ajudem-no.” Then he stands back, plucking

on to the next.

Klempner taps me on the shoulder. “Keep at

four, five. I lose count. The crowd of women grows; black-skinned, white-skinned, coffee-skinned. Asian, Caucasian, Afro. Few seem to share a language, but all come bursting from their grim prisons, flooding down the cells. A couple of boys emerge from one cell, ten, maybe eleven years old. Another, with eyes like blue ice and

them into the hands of the first woman we

tugs at his

Em toda parte. Eles não podem encontrar todos

“What are you saying?”

telling them to scatter. Finchby can’t catch all of them and Baxter

final door opens,

Gunshots…

wall and spitting brick-dust. I duck, and screaming and shouting, chaotically, the women scatter. Splitting and flowing one way and the other; maybe

“Suba as

limp is heavier, more pronounced. He must already have been exhausted as he arrived at the cell and he’d taken a beating. He may not want to admit

with a gun in your hand. Charlotte, give James yours. Arm around my neck. I need you to hang on

me a dry