He swallowed down the renewed rise of nausea and swayed, lightheaded. With a tight grip on the wall rail, he righted himself before Marley glanced up from her phone. She didn’t notice his weakness, luckily, or she might have tried to make him stop.
Another wave of dizziness brought blackness and sharp, tiny lights around the edges of his vision. Fuck. Even if he managed to find Riley, how the hell would he rescue her without falling on his face?
…
The four newcomers grinned at what they clearly thought was cornered prey.
“What’s this?” the tallest asked Gashface. “I thought Anson said to keep them locked up until he got here.”
Gashface shifted his gaze, and Riley knew they’d been acting against orders when they first came into the bedroom. “She was trying to get out.”
“Looks like she succeeded.” Another one raked her body with his gaze, so slimy and disgusting she couldn’t believe he wasn’t riddled with pustules. He took a few steps closer. “You get a sample?”
“No one’s getting a sample,” the other guy Riley had hit in the head ordered. He’d abandoned caution and moved up on her left, boxing her in fully but holding a halting hand out toward his friends. Riley wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t helping her. He just didn’t want to face Anson if these guys got carried away. Eying the various looks of avarice and excitement, she thought he was the only one here halfway in his right mind.
Okay, then. She was down to the crazy idea. She had to time it right, though. The little bit of power she’d held onto faded completely. Twisting her body, she gripped the handle of the top oven door, which was half the size of the main oven. The action looked frightened, and she tried to sell it with wide eyes and faster, shorter breaths. It worked, and the semicircle around her shrank, closing in.
She only had one shot at this. Ignoring the heated pain in her hands, Riley drew hard on the energy flowing through the stainless steel, harder even than she’d drawn to lift the forklift.
“Come on, babe, we—” Slimy dude laid his hand on Riley’s shoulder.
With a shout, she ripped the oven door off its hinges and spun, swinging it around as hard as she could. The motion itself knocked the slimeball off her. The guy behind him yelped and scrambled back, knocking over a third guy.
Riley kept going, hitting guy number two in the head again and leaping over him as he dropped, this time eyes rolled back, body completely limp. With her momentum exhausted, the oven door sagged toward the floor and bumped her legs. Someone wrapped his arms around her from behind, shouting orders to his friends. Riley couldn’t get free to swing the door. Panic closed her throat and loosened her grip, but that stupid door was her only weapon. The only thing keeping Quinn safe.
She held on and concentrated on her own strength. She let go with her right hand and jabbed her hugger in the side with her thumb. Despite her lack of leverage, he jerked sideways, his grip loosening. Riley closed her fist around the fabric at the back of his shoulder, bent, and flipped him on top of his unconscious buddy.
“Who’s next?” she demanded. Yikes. That hadn’t come out quite as warrior-like as she’d intended. Kind of high and squeaky instead.
Gashface now stood sentinel at the end of the hall, as if keeping Riley from getting back to Quinn. But she knew he didn’t want to go up against her again. Unlike the others, he had a healthy fear in his eyes. He also, she realized, had the weakest prickle of all of them.
Two were down, one probably for the duration of the fight, the other with enough wind knocked out of him to be no threat for a few minutes, at least. That left three.
Their confident glee had given way to furious determination of the “no girl will beat me up” variety. Riley shifted her grip on the oven door handle so she could hold it up by her shoulder, almost like a shield, and pressed her other palm out toward the boys. Power zoomed through her from the metal to her free hand and blew outward in a shockwave. Two of the guys flew backward, one hitting a jutting corner of the wall with a sickening crack. The other landed on his back in the middle of the empty floor between the kitchen and living room. His breath whooshed out of him.
The third guy leaped lightly onto the island countertop and crouched, ready to spring on top of her. Riley didn’t have time to draw more energy and barely got the oven door up between them when he leapt. His weight bore her to the floor. She cried out at the crushing combination and let go of the handle, scrabbling in her pocket for the remaining smaller, sharper pieces.
He grabbed at her wrists and after a few seconds of tussling, he had the upper hand. He straddled Riley, who lay twisted on the floor on her left hip, with her right wrist held down above her head. She panted and tried not to yell again with the pain stretching her muscles.
“Get…off…me!” She didn’t stop struggling, even as he laughed and pinned her harder.
“Looks like I won this round. Anson has to let me go first now.” He leaned closer to her face. Sour breath made her gag, and she turned toward the floor trying to avoid it. “You’re lucky I didn’t learn how to suck you dry yet. But just wait. It’s coming.” He made a slurping, tongue-flipping sound.
“Oh, God, I’m gonna throw up.” Riley heaved in his direction. He jerked back but didn’t move far enough away. When nothing happened, he immediately pinned her again.
“Help me!” he called over his shoulder. “We need to get her into the room with the other one.”
Unseen hands clamped around Riley’s ankles, and her pinner swiveled to pick her up by the wrists. She bucked and arched and twisted, but with no metal, she couldn’t get the strength to break free. In fact, she didn’t even seem to make it hard for them. She’d crashed, weaker after all the power she’d drawn.
They hauled her down the hall and dropped her on the floor in the original room. But instead of locking her in alone with Quinn, who didn’t seem to have moved at all, they closed the door behind them. The one who’d pinned Riley flicked on a flashlight and shone it directly at the bed.
Riley’s heart stopped when she saw Quinn, so pale and still, her eyes closed, listing sideways under the weight of the steel bar in her lap.
“What’s with her?” one of the guys said sotto voce, as if not wanting his friends outside to hear what they were doing. And he probably didn’t, if these two were here for first dibs.
“Dunno. But she’s ripe. Can you feel it?” Excitement lit the guy’s voice. The beam of light brightened around Quinn as he moved closer to the bed. “All that power, completely unstable. It’d be easy to take.” He inhaled deeply through his nose.
Holy crap, he was insane. Riley got up on her hands and knees, but the other guy kicked her in the side. Pain exploded around her ribcage, and she fell sideways, unable to draw breath. Sam’s image flashed in her head, his fury if he saw what they were doing to her, the retribution he’d exact on them. She imagined his gentle hands lifting her, supporting her, and rolled onto her hands and knees.
“What are you doing?” the kicker asked. Riley heard him from a long way away. She had to get up, to stop them somehow, but couldn’t move any farther.
“I’m taking it. It’s right there.” Now he sounded like an addict.
Riley blinked hard. Her vision focused on his feet right in front of her, his shins up against the bed. She craned her neck and saw him leaning, reaching slowly for Quinn. She just had to grab his legs. Tackle him, pull him down. Away from Quinn.
Riley’s arms shook, barely keeping her off the carpet, and lifting even one hand from the floor seemed beyond her capability.
Okay, then, reach for the bed. Talk about addiction. If she could touch the metal, she should be able to fill her lungs and gain enough strength to keep fighting.