“Yummy,” Sammi said faintly, rubbing her stomach with one hand. “I can’t wait.”
“You’ll see—I’m making your favorite!” He grinned at her and then, mercifully, left the bedroom.
Sammi heard his heavy tread on the stairs and then the creaking of the door. She was hoping desperately that he might forget to lock the door in his excitement over their “date” but unfortunately, she heard the snick of a bolt turning next.
She was trapped down here with only a limited time to think of some way to save her own life.
What was she going to do?
Forty-Nine
“Who’re you and whaddya want?” The human male who had driven Samantha away from the HKR building blinked owlishly up at Roark. He seemed to be either inebriated or drugged in some way.
There was a strange, bitter odor hanging around him, leading Roark to think that maybe he had been smoking a drug that humans used to relax or sometimes to ease chronic pain. The drug didn’t do anything for Kindred but it made humans stupid and slow—at least as far as he could tell.
“What I want is to know where you took my female?” Roark shoved his way into the small, dingy apartment. He looked around wildly. “Where is she? Where’s Samantha?”
“You mean Professor Grey?” The man frowned stupidly. “She’s not here. Why would I bring her here?”
“So you admit you took her?” Roark rounded on him and grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt. Dragging the male up so their noses were almost touching he growled, “Where the fuck is my female?”
“I dunno, man!” Some of Roark’s fury seemed to have penetrated the male’s drugged haze because his blood-shot eyes went wide and frightened.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Roark demanded, shaking him until his teeth clicked together like dice rattling in a cup. “You took her!”
“I know, I know—but I only took her where he said to,” the male babbled, his face turning white. “And then I deleted the instructions, just like he said!”
“Just like who said?” Roark roared, shaking him again. “Who told you to take her? Who has my Samantha?”
“Don’t know his name!” the male protested. “I just met him outside of class one day. He said he wanted someone to give Professor Grey a ride to his place sometime soon. He offered me a hundred bucks to do it so I figured…” he shrugged. “What the hell, ya know?”
“So he offered you a hundred Earth dollars to kidnap a female—the female I love—and you accepted?” Roark felt sick. Had Samantha really been sold for so little?
“It wasn’t kidnapping exactly…” The male looked uncomfortable. “I mean, I never woulda forced her into the car—she came with me on her own, ya know?”
“Because you tricked her, no doubt,” Roark growled. “You probably told her you’d drive her to her female relative’s house—to her Aunt Vicky.”
The guilty look on the human male’s face told him he was right.
“Aww, c’mon, man,” he protested. “He told me they were old friends and he just wanted their reunion to be a surprise. What else could I do?”
“You could have refused to kidnap her and deliver her to the male who had been stalking her for months!” Roark growled. “You must have known he was lying!”
“I mean, I dunno…” The male shrugged again, his bloodshot eyes shifting from side to side. “All I know is he offered me a hundred bucks and the bitch was failing me in Biology, ya know? So I figured maybe she deserved it. She gave me a twenty on my last exam. A fucking twenty. You know what that does to your grade? I mean, I had to get high for a week to even start feeling better about it!”
“You…”
Roark couldn’t even find the words. So Samantha had been sold to her stalker for a paltry sum because of resentment this male harbored towards her for a grade of all things!
“Listen to me,” he said, glaring directly into the human male’s bloodshot eyes. “You are going to tell me exactly where you took her right now or I will reach down your throat and rip out your lungs!”
The male went white and his entire body began to shake.
“But I can’t!” he mumbled in a husky whisper. “I told you, man—I deleted the instructions—just like he told me. He sent them to me on my phone and I got rid of them just as soon as I dropped her off. Almost couldn’t find my way home again!”
Roark gritted his teeth in pure frustration.
“But you drove there,” he reminded the idiotic human male. “Surely you can find the way again!”
“I dunno, man…” The male shook his head. “I mean, it was way out in the boonies, ya know? He had this kind of an old shack—it was in the middle of the woods, down this long, winding dirt road…” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could find it again even if I wasn’t completely baked.”