Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,23
when he turned and caught me staring at the seat of his jeans. “More useful as a paperweight than as a phone, if you don’t have the code. Or were you just staring at my butt?”
“I wasn’t...” I stopped, angered anew by how flustered I was. “Unless your phone is ancient, it’ll still make emergency calls.”
“True.” My kidnapper pulled the phone from his pocket and held it up. “Do I need to smash mine, too?” He looked reluctant, but willing. I shook my head because I couldn’t steal it later if he busted it now.
He pulled a clean rag from a drawer and wrapped his ice pack in it, then pressed it to his jaw again. “You throw one hell of a punch.”
“You smashed my phone.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t let you call Julia.”
“Julia?” I scowled and backed slowly toward a microwave cart on the other side of the room, where several steak knives were spread out on a folded towel, evidently set out to dry. “I told you I don’t work for her. I was calling the police.”
He shrugged. “Well, that’s almost as bad. I’m sorry about your phone, though.”
“What kind of kidnapper apologizes? And lives with his grandmother? And forgets to take away the victim’s phone?” My spine hit the cart and I slid one hand behind my back, feeling for the handle of a knife. “You’re the worst kidnapper ever.”
He watched me closely, but stayed back. “I’m not a kidnapper.”
“My unwilling presence in your home says otherwise.”
“Okay, yes.” He acknowledged my point with another shrug. “But there are extenuating circumstances. Why don’t we sit and discuss this over a drink? Or are you hungry? I’m not much of a cook, but I can handle boxed mac and cheese, if you’re interested.”
I wouldn’t eat or drink a damn thing he gave me, but...
“What happened to the stove?” I glanced pointedly at the front of the ancient appliance, where all four of the burner-control knobs were missing. Was nothing normal in his house?
“Oh. Gran nearly burned the house down yesterday, so we had to take the knobs off the stove, and now I can’t remember where Ian hid them...” He turned and took a cookie jar from the top of the fridge, and when he peered inside, I let my fingers skim the cart at my back, searching for the knives.
My kidnapper huffed in frustration and put the jar back. “They were in here yesterday, but now they’re gone...”
My fingers closed around the handle of a knife and my stomach roiled when I brandished it at him, trying not to think about the damage a different blade had done behind my parents’ locked doors. Could I do to my kidnapper what was done to my entire family? Even though he hadn’t laid a hand on me?
Yet.
He hadn’t laid a hand on me yet. And he claimed not to want me to return to Julia Tower, but hadn’t he already proved he’d do anything to get his sister back? Why wouldn’t he trade me for her? I’d do it in a heartbeat, if our situations were reversed.
“Give me your phone, or I swear I will gut you.” By some miracle, my hand was steady. The same could not be said for my stomach. I hate knives.
His pale brows rose and he crossed his arms over his shirt. “Then how will you get out of here? You don’t know where you are, and it’ll take the police forever to trace a cell phone. My grandmother doesn’t have one. And she’s not a Traveler.”
I frowned and glanced at the kitchen window, mentally working on a Plan C.
“You could break the glass and shout for help,” he suggested. “But I can’t let you go, and even if you tried, you’d cut yourself trying to climb out.” Only an idiot would leave her blood lying around for anyone with the requisite Skill to use against her. “And there’s no one around to hear you scream for help. The nearest neighbor is more than a mile away.”
More than a mile between houses? Either he was lying—though the lack of traffic noise said he wasn’t—or his range was much better than I’d guessed.
Either way, I had to get out, and I had to do it before his friends came back and my odds got even worse.
“Why don’t you calm down and have a seat?” He glanced at the kitchen table and the four chairs around it. “If I put my gun down, will you put your knife down?”