Mason (Carter Brothers #2) - Lisa Helen Gray Page 0,95

up if you let her go on her own.’’

“I wasn’t planning on it,’’ Mal grunts, looking at Evan like he’s lost his mind.

“Let’s go. Dad, my partner will be here any second to go over everything with you before you leave. Just make sure you all listen to him. If you fuck this up he’ll only get off scot-free.’’

We rush out of the door, making a dash for the nearest car which just happens to be Evan’s black Audi A4 S Line.

Posh git!

Chapter Nineteen

DENNY

Another ten minutes passes before Carl actually leaves. I heard him arguing to either himself or to someone on the phone just before he left. It sounded more like it was to himself, because he was ranting on about no one answering their ‘fucking phones’ (his words) anymore.

Hope the fucker gets run over by a lorry on his way over to meet Harlow.

I’d already managed to take stock of everything in the room when I first woke up, but it seems without the lighting over where I know Hannah is lying, there isn’t much I can see now in the room. The place is dark, even with the beams of light streaming through the cracks in the floor above.

To the left of me where the piss bucket is still stinking the place out, not that the smell from Hannah is any better, I notice a metal pole sticking out of the wall. Maybe if I can reach it, I could use it to whack at the chains and break them. If it doesn’t work then at least I can take Carl by surprise when he comes back and hit him over the head to buy me more time. Hopefully I’ll hit him close enough to me so that when I knock him out I can still reach for the key. Not that I’ve seen him with one.

It’s just one of my many wild guesses tonight.

Stretching my leg over, keeping my hands firmly placed on the wall for balance, I try to grab the metal pole with the toe of my foot. It’s loose like I guessed, so I use all the strength I can to wiggle it back and forth to loosen it. It’s difficult when it’s only the toe part of my foot that can reach.

Finally it clatters to the floor, the sound echoing loudly in the small confided room. It’s then I squeal jumping back.

“Oh my God, I want a holiday after this,’’ I snap, looking frozen at the woodlice, worms and whatever creepy crawlies slithered out with that pole and onto my foot. Just my luck, the biggest part of the light is shining on bugs.

I hate woodlice; hate them with a freaking passion. My brother, Evan, he used to stomp on them and the noise, my word that noise when he stomped on them was disgusting, and it made me wince every time. Do you know what I’m on about? That crunch when they press their big feet on them and you hear the woodlice back crunch? Yep, I hate that sound, really bad.

I’m not even going to mention the ants. I’ve tried to ignore those little fuckers as soon as I realised there were loads of them running around. How something so tiny can scare someone so much bigger is beyond me. It’s not like they can eat me. It’s just that they can get every-fuckin-where.

And this may or may not have something to do with the ant’s nest I sat in when I went on a school trip. I’m just saying, ants and me don’t have a good experience.

“Come on,’’ I growl, trying to use the tip of my toe to roll the pole across, trying to avoid the crawlies, but all I manage to do is push the pole away a little. “Fucksake, please, if anyone can hear me, then please, for heaven’s sake, get me that pole.’’

Not seeing any other option I slide onto the grubby mattress and slide myself as far as the chains will let me go towards the pole. Once my arm is pulled as far as it will go without popping my shoulder out, I use my left leg to get at the pole. My bare toe touches it and I want to squeal with delight, but then something crawls across my feet and I scream out.

I grit my teeth knowing it’s either let a little ant or woodlice scare me or be murdered and God knows what else he has planned for me. There’s