side of it, along with a dull roar I couldn’t quite place. Were we in the middle of a tornado and an earthquake at the same time?
I wasn’t thrilled about that idea, but still, the stairs led outside, and away from Stranglehands McGee back there in the basement, so I hurled myself up them and flung the door open when I reached the top.
I stopped in shock. I wasn’t emerging from the basement of a building.
I was on a boat.
And not a very large one, from what I could see. Waves crashed to the right and the left of me—which was starboard, and which was port, I wondered, before realizing that was the absolute least of my problems. I was on a boat, at night, in a thunderstorm, in the middle of what appeared to be the fucking ocean.
How the hell was I supposed to get away?
“Get back here, you little shit,” growled a voice behind me, and I turned to see the man in black lurching up the steps below.
Heart in my throat, I stumbled forward, no idea where I was going. Rain lashed my face, and I wasn’t fast enough. The man in black caught up. He grabbed me by the back of my sweater and slammed me against a wall so hard that I swore I heard something crack.
“You think you’re slick, huh?” the guy said, his hands going for my neck again. I tried to cry out, but my throat was on fire, and he was crushing more of my airway with every millisecond. “Where are you gonna go? We’re in the middle of the North Atlantic.” He leaned in close. “You’d better believe you’re gonna pay for—”
“Enzo! Where’s the boss?” Another voice cried out in the darkness, and a door opened a few feet down the wall to reveal a second figure stepping out of what had to be some kind of cabin. “That’s the second time the Coast Guard’s radioed. We’re gonna have to tell them something.”
“That’s your problem, Vince,” the man in black—Enzo, I supposed—snarled. “I’m a little busy.”
My vision was going splotchy again, but I could still see enough to make out Vince’s face through the rain. It was thinner than Enzo’s, and looked sardonic and bored, where Enzo’s was twisted in anger.
“It’s all of our problem if the Coast Guard decides they want to board our boat,” Vince snapped. “And didn’t the boss say we weren’t supposed to hurt the kid?”
“Oh, I’m sure he won’t mind a few bruises. Maybe a broken bone. As long as nothing’s poking through the skin.”
Without warning, Enzo removed one hand from my throat—and punched me in the stomach. I gasped for air. I mean, I was already gasping, but the tiny amount of oxygen I’d had left escaped my lungs in a sudden wheeze with that punch.
I was pretty sure Vince frowned, though it was hard to tell through all the rain. “I still think you should—”
But I never found out what Vince thought, because a large wave knocked into the boat just then, splashing water all over the deck and making us all lose our footing. I fell to the ground and then, realizing a little belatedly that I was free, scrabbled my way across the deck, trying to put distance between myself and the two men.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Enzo said, grabbing my ankle just as I reached the railing along the edge of the deck.
I kicked backwards and connected with some part of his body. Pulling myself upright, I leaned against the railing and looked out, panting. There was nothing—just rain and waves and a night sky so dark I might as well have been wearing that blindfold again. Every part of my body hurt, and the rain felt like hail as it battered my skin.
I turned around, looking for something I could use as a weapon, only to have the full weight of Enzo’s body crash into me as he reached the railing as well. His right hand went back to my throat and a part of my mind wondered—irrationally, unhelpfully—if he had any other moves. I almost wanted to tell him it was getting old—except for the part where I could barely breathe, let alone talk.
“What the fuck is going on out here?”
A new voice shouted from somewhere across the deck. It sounded…not familiar, exactly, but resonant, somehow. I searched for its source and located a third figure, coming up the same stairs I’d emerged from