I nod, following him through the door. But, the moment, we exit, we see it immediately, at the same time. There is a note stuck to our door, held in place by a little pocket knife.
The Boon.
Tomorrow at 9 pm.
Bring the girl if you ever want to find out what happened to Hugo.
S.
Fynn pulls it off the door forcefully, then crumples up the paper. They’re playing with us. They’ve been playing with us all this time, and we’ve fallen right into their trap.
I look over at Fynn. His nostrils are flaring. His nose is raised high up in the air, but I doubt he’ll pick up on anything. They’re long gone. Left to laugh at us, waiting for us to keep playing their game.
Chapter 20
Anderson
When I wake up, I feel like there is a whole orchestra playing inside my head. Looking too much to the left hurts. Come to think of it, looking any way other than straight ahead fucking hurts. I try to move my arms, and only then do I realize that I’m sitting on a chair, which I’m also tied to. I try the ropes, but they’re too tight. The more I struggle, the more they dig into my flesh.
I look around, and the moment I do that, a flicker of a small light appears in the darkest corner.
“Well, look who’s awake.”
It’s a voice I’d recognize anywhere. Only snakes hiss like that.
Sven’s cigarette intensifies the flame, and he walks out into the light. It barely illuminates anything, but I can see him. The first thing I notice is the scar, then the rest of him.
I try to remember what happened, but it’s all a blur. I remember sleeping in the bed, then some commotion. Someone’s hand over my mouth. Some sweet-smelling liquid pressed to my nose and lips.
“You fucking drugged me!” I growl at him, shaking the chair, in a futile effort to get loose and lunge at him.
He just chuckles. “Save your strength. You’ll need it for when your friends arrive.”
“You motherfucker! What have you done to them?”
“Nothing yet,” he tells me, shaking his head in his usual, calm manner. He’d make you almost believe that he’s just here to talk, and then he slits your throat while you’re not looking. “They’re not even here. We’re expecting them in a few hours, though.”
“What do you want?” I ask, even though I know he probably won’t answer.
“All questions will be answered in due time,” he assures me, inhaling deeply, then releasing a long, satisfying breath of smoke. “But, Hugo wouldn’t tell us where it is.”
“Where what is!?”
Sven shakes his head in disapproval. He walks over to me, then without a single word, presses the burning end of the cigarette on the bare skin of my hand.
“Aaaaaaaaargh!” I scream at the top of my lungs, as it burns through my flesh. “You fucker!”
He pulls it away, as the small red circle remains, reminding me of his anger. But, there’s more of it to come. I know it.
I breathe heavily, as the pain subsides.
“It was with Hugo,” Sven continues. “We know it was in his safe. The problem is that it’s not there anymore, and Hugo… well, let’s just say Hugo isn’t talking anymore.”
“Is he… dead?”
“That’s part of the surprise. And, I can’t ruin the surprise.”
“What surprise?”
“Didn’t I just say I can’t ruin it?” he chuckles again, finishing the cigarette, then stomping on it with his foot.
“Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” I growl at him again, angered that they took me out so easily.
Then, it hits me. If they went inside our hideout, where was Fynn? Wasn’t he supposed to be watching the place? What was he doing?
“It’s more fun this way,” he tells me. “Besides, there is a point to all this. You’ll see. Also, I’m told not to harm you. At least not until we wrap this up properly. Then, my hands get untied and I go crazy!”
He doesn’t need to say that twice. No one wants to be around when Sven is allowed, and actually encouraged, to go crazy. All I can hope for is that Fynn won’t be enough of a fool to actually come here on his own, looking for me.
I shake the chair a little more, but I know there’s no point. Sven doesn’t make such mistakes of using wobbly chairs or tying up his victims loosely. He’s way too meticulous for that.
“Like I said, you should save your strength for later,” he reminds me.
“You won’t get away with this.”
This sounds like some cheesy, worn out line from a movie, but at the moment, that’s all I can come up with. And, Sven knows it. He just stares at me, then bends down, hands on his knees, and starts laughing his ass off. He laughs for a while like that, the whole place echoing, then he finally straightens.
“That one was really good, Anderson. Got any more cliché movie lines?”
I don’t grace that with a reply.
“Silence?” he wonders. “Alright. I grow tired of this anyway. I’m just supposed to watch you until you wake up. Then, one of the thugs takes over. I’ve got business to attend to.”
He heads over to the door, slamming it shut after him. My mind races, as I look around, trying to find something to use as a means of escape. It’s a big, empty room. Probably used to be the boiler room, as there are several pipes still hanging from the ceiling and from the walls. The floor has been stripped of any flooring. It’s bare cement now.
I look at the chair. Pretty sturdy, with strong legs and back. The rope is tight, double knotted. If I had been awake while they were tying me up, I would have remembered to inhale deeply and enlarge my frame, which could have made wriggling out of these ropes easier. Now, they’re tightly wound around me.
Fuck. Fuck. I have to wait for the first opportunity to get free. Only how?
At that moment, the door opens, and an unfamiliar face walks in. It’s swollen from too much alcohol and drugs, probably. The guy is dressed all in black, and he doesn’t walk over to me. He just stops by the door and crosses his arms in front of his chest, giving me an orangutan look.
Now I get it. He’s the thug. Thugs usually don’t talk. They just beat the crap out of you.
I exhale loudly. This guy probably has instructions not to get near me, not to talk to me, not even to acknowledge me. But, I know a way he’d be forced to get near me.
I inhale deeply once more, preparing myself for the pain that’s about to follow. But, I can’t wait for Sven to return and find me in the same spot. I might not get up from this chair alive.
I remember the last time I was out of breath. It was a particularly dangerous mission, during which Fynn and I got separated. I was the first to stumble onto our target, only no one told us that the guy was a fucking bear shifter with hands the size of a football. He grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against the wall, pressing hard. At one point, I saw stars. Just darkness, with tiny freckles of light, and I thought I was a goner. Fynn smashed a brick on the guy’s head, and knocked him out cold. Needless to say, it took me a while to start talking properly again after that.