Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,25

It’s good to know you’re not just a pretty face. I guess Mickey’s not the only genius in da house.” He crosses his feet on my desk. “So, you going with knives or no? You haven’t yet answered me.”

I close my eyes and imagine slicing Mickey’s skin and bleeding the truth from her. My eyes snap open. I shake my head. “I can’t go stripping her down for parts if I don’t yet know the value of her whole.”

Nine shuts his laptop and shoves it in his bag. “While I truly enjoy your comparison of torture to vehicular theft, I gotta get back to my place and handle my own problems. Let me know what you get from her. If anything.”

“Poe drinking again?” I ask. Poe is Nine’s girl. She’s got more issues than most magazines, but somehow, even her anxiety levels Nine out.

Nine sighs. “No, it’s worse. She stopped drinking. Don’t know what to do with her when she’s not cradling a bottle of vodka like a baby in her arms.” Pausing on his way to the door, he reaches into his laptop case, pulling out a folded document. “I told Preppy what was going on. With the skeleton crew, the girl. All of it.”

“I’m not trying to hide shit from your brother or anyone else for that matter. I want him to be informed and assumed you’d fill him in on the not so pleasant details that my fucking life has become,” I reply.

He grimaces. “Yeah, that’s not what I’m getting at.” He hands me the document then takes a white box out of his bag and sets it on the desk. “Preppy made me promise to give this to you. Trust me. I didn’t want to, but then he said something about him being my only family and making me swear on a stack of fucking pancakes that my dick would fall off if I didn’t give it to you.”

“Sounds serious,” I laugh.

His eyes go wide. “More serious than you could ever imagine. There were cloaks and paddles and shit.”

“I’m not surprised,” I reply. Because I’m not. Preppy isn’t just off his rocker, he’s not even on the fucking porch.

Nine heads for the door. “Read it and weep. Or laugh. Or call a support hotline.”

I eye the white box then unfold the papers. I have to admit the heading is catchy and so very Preppy.

A Kidnapper’s Commandments: A complete guide to caring for your captive.

Chapter Ten

Mickey

I’ve retreated into a dark place. One where only my broken soul and the sound of my own despair are welcome. I’m drowning, choking on my own ability to break free from the prison I’ve created within myself.

Save me, I say to no one because the only person who can truly save me is myself, and at this point I’m not sure that’s possible.

The despair drains me like blood from my veins, taking everything I have with it, including the will to live. I feel my life force fading, and soon, I’m on the floor gasping for breath as my heart slows to a scary pace I feel struggling to beat within the pulse in my neck.

Sadness bleeds through me. Invading me like a parasite I can’t shake as it seeps through my vessels.

Tell him, my sister Maya’s voice whispers in my ear. Tell him and this will all be over. He could help you.

“I can’t,” I reply, tears spilling down my face. “I can’t tell him. If I do, I’ll lose you forever. All of you.”

Despite the saying, the enemy of my enemy is not my fucking friend. I don’t have any friends. All I have is logic, my memory, and a strong need to get the fuck out of here and finish what I’ve started.

One solution at a time. You don’t do one of your experiments and throw everything out at once, right? You introduce one at a time.

“Variables,” I correct her. Maya was never into science except for the time she was partnered with a cute boy as her lab partner. “They’re called variables.”

Whatever, you get my point. Don’t try to think of how you’re going to get out of here all at once like it’s one problem. Ask yourself what needs to happen before you can think of escaping.

It hits me. “I need to be untied.”

Start with that, sis.

I can do that. I can. If I prove that I can be of use to Pike somehow, maybe I can persuade him to untie me.

The answer comes to me