Simple, but effective. Those two wouldn’t be able to disengage themselves without help.
As soon as Nick and Dillon were out of the way, the trio turned their attention to me. I’d retreated to the back of the room, putting as much distance between us as possible. There was nothing close to hand that might serve as a weapon, and I wasn’t too sure I’d be able to fight them off if it came down to it.
“You’re Shiarra, right?” the short one asked, pulling out a chair. The other two followed his example, slumping into seats around the table, blocking any escape through the door.
“Yeah. You ready to tell me who you guys are?”
He smiled at me, and I flinched at the sight of elongated canines. It was daylight; vampires couldn’t walk in daylight—
“We’re the Nightstrikers,” he said. The three of them sat a bit straighter, puffing with pride.
I stared blankly.
“Haven’t you heard of us?”
“No, sorry. Should I have?”
He frowned, as did the other two. The tied-up Sunstrikers shook their heads in silent puzzlement as he turned a questioning gaze upon them. The taller, skinnier one addressed earlier as Doc started talking, drumming his fingers impatiently on the tabletop as he eyed me. “We’re only the arch nemesis—nemesi? Nemesises? Whatever, the main enemies of the Sunstrikers. We’ve got the biggest following on the Other-net Web site.”
“Never heard of you,” said Dillon in a tone of dismissal that had all three of the geeks bristling with indignation.
“You’ve got to be kidding! We’ve been hunting Charles Hallbrook for the last twelve years.”
“Thirteen, doofus,” the bigger one said.
“Thirteen, yeah.”
Dillon and Nick exchanged a look before shrugging in their chains. The geeks were not deterred, though they were a bit crestfallen.
“Shit. I can’t believe you guys don’t know who we are! Anyway, I’m Floyd, also known as Doc. That”—the talkative one pointed to the big guy, who gave me a friendly wave—“is Howard. You can call him Spike; that’s what we all do. And Hawk is our leader.”
“You!” I shouted, finally putting two and two together. “You’re the ones who trashed our cabin! And took all my underwear!”
Dillon and Nick very nearly choked on their laughter. Spike and Doc both reddened and looked away, clearly embarrassed, whereas Hawk was blasé about the matter.
“We would’ve given them back before you left. Besides—”
“I thought you said we were gonna keep them,” Spike said, his face falling.
“Shut up,” Doc hissed, while their leader rubbed a palm down his face. None of them seemed to care that I was seething.
“Anyway, that’s not why we’re here.” Hawk, so short he barely came up to my chin, rose and paced with restless energy in front of the table. “We’re not like the Sunstrikers. We’ve been biding our time long enough. We’re an elite team—”
“Headshot! I call headshot.”
Hawk gave Doc a withering glare for interrupting before returning his attention to me. “We’re sick of your boyfriend’s shit, basically. So you’re going to play bait for us.”
Under the circumstances, I think it was only fair to say I was confused. I edged around the bed so I could sit across from the three, collecting my thoughts before speaking. Whatever else was going on, these guys were nuts, so I didn’t want to provoke them into doing something that might result in them hurting me, Nick, or Dillon.
“Okay, now, I get that you guys are upset about something. Clearly you have a beef with the Sunstrikers.”
“No shit. We wouldn’t be fragging your party if we didn’t have a beef,” said Spike.
“Right,” I agreed. “Here’s the thing, though. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I have no idea what the heck you guys are mad about or why you’ve done all this. Were you the ones leaving the notes?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you see our messages? You didn’t listen.”
“We thought it was some other people messing around. Plus we didn’t know what half of the messages meant.”
Hawk pressed his fingertips to his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. When he focused on me again, I was startled to see that there were no whites to his eyes any longer—they’d gone entirely pitch black.
“We were telling you to ‘get the fuck out’—seems pretty clear to me.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, looking away so I wouldn’t have to meet those freaky eyes. “Chaz thought it was some teenagers in the pack playing dominance games. We didn’t know.”
Hawk settled into a chair again, tapping his nails on the table. “Regardless, after tonight, I don’t ever want to deal with that asshole