Countdown

'I have no idea.' He paused. 'You said your mother was dead?'

'Yeah.'

'And the rest of your family?'

'All dead.' My voice broke a little as I said it.

Silence again. 'So you're on your own.'

'I have friends. Sometimes. But it's safer to be alone. I can move quicker that way if I have to.'

'What did you do? Why would they pick you, other than the fact that you have no family?'

It sounded as if he was talking to himself.

I hissed out a sigh of exasperation. 'At the risk of sounding like I'm repeating myself, who the hell are they?'

'You haven't murdered before… so that's out. Are you …' He paused and then laughed softly. 'Of course. You must be a thief, aren't you?'

I let the darkness answer the question for me.

'A female thief without a family. Perfect.' He let out a long, shuddery breath. 'Well, little thief, I have to admit that I'm not feeling so good over here. Whatever they did to me … I don't think they'll have to worry about me finishing off my five hundred years. An eye for an eye and all that.'

I licked my dry lips. 'You're dying.'

'Sure as hell feels like it.'

'Why do you sound so calm?'

'What else can I be? There's no escape. Sometimes it's best just to accept your fate.'

'Bullshit. There's a way out of here, I know there is.'

Just as I said it, the lights flooded on in the room, blinding me. Ironic that since the darkness blinded me the light would, too. Was there no such thing as a happy medium?

I rubbed my eyes, which had started to water at the unexpected light. When I'd gotten used to it, I blinked around at the room as my vision slowly came into focus.

I sat against the wall in an entirely silver room. Floors, ceiling, walls, all made from smooth, cold metal. I'd never seen anything like it before. A silver metal band was around my wrist, and it was attached to a silver chain secured to the wall. It was all very bland, very clinical, clean and pristine.

Almost all.

My gaze moved to the other side of the room and locked with that of the most dangerous man I'd ever seen in my life.

He stared back at me with a half smile on his coarsely beard-stubbled face. His hair was dark and shaggy and unkempt, plastered across his forehead. He wore a shirt that may have once been white, but now was torn and dirty.

An angry red stain on his chest near his left shoulder stood out as the only bright color in the room. No, scratch that. His eyes. They were blue-green-the color of a tropical ocean and surprisingly jarring in their intensity.

There was a scar on his face, from the top of his left eye down to his cheek, like an angry exclamation point. It was still reddish, as if it had healed, but enough time hadn't passed to turn it to the whitish color of old scars. He wore faded jeans, also stained and dirty, and scuffed black boots that were untied. A silver shackle led from his right wrist to the chain to the wall behind him.

He looked like a murderer. Like trouble. Like nobody I wanted to be trapped in a room with now or anytime soon. I was almost sorry that the lights had come on.

'You're prettier than I expected,' he said, keeping me locked in his oddly hypnotic gaze.

I swallowed. 'Well, you have been in prison for four years.'

He smiled. His teeth were white and straight, which struck me as odd from a hardened criminal. Though I suppose it was a bit of a cliche to expect him to have broken, rotting teeth.

'That is true. Sorry I look a bit of a mess.' His smile widened. 'They didn't even let me have a shower before they knocked me out and dragged my ass here.'

'Forget it.'

His gaze slid slowly down to the rest of me, black tank top, khaki cargo pants, and my new red shoes. I felt my face warm at his blatant appraisal, until I saw his eyes move away from my body and toward my side. He frowned. I looked to the floor on my right and gasped.

There was a key lying right there, only an arm's reach away.

CHAPTER TWO

'Try it,' Rogan prompted eagerly.

I was way ahead of him. I'd already grabbed the key and found the small keyhole on my shackle, my heart thrumming loud in my ears.

I frowned when it didn't fit. I tried again. Why the hell didn't it fit?

I looked over at Rogan, who stared at me with a deep frown creasing his brow.

'Shit,' he said.

Something sparkled next to him and I pointed at it. It was another key. He grabbed it and tried his lock.

Nothing.

Then I heard a whirring and I looked up toward the sound. A small shutter at the top of the far wall to the left near the ceiling had opened, and what looked like a security camera-only modem, very sleek and silver- emerged.

'What the hell is that?' I asked.

He looked up at it grimly. 'Must be showtime.'

I clenched the key so tightly that I knew it would leave an impression in my fingertips. 'Why would they be taping us?'

'Because they like to watch.'

'Watch what?' I snapped. 'Can you stop being so damn vague and just tell me what's going on?'

But he wasn't looking at me; he was looking at my key. 'Now, if I used my great big brain and thought this through, I would have to guess that your key fits my lock and my key fits your lock.'

I frowned. 'How do you know that?'

'I didn't say I know. I said I guess.' The murderer smirked at me. 'Try to pay attention to the class, would you?'

I gritted my teeth. 'I don't like you.'

'My heart is breaking. Now, why don't you be a good girl and throw that key over here so I can test my theory?'

'Screw you.'

He shrugged, then grimaced, as if the wound on his shoulder caused him massive pain. 'We can do that too if you like, sweetheart, but I'll need to be unchained first. Then again, we can bring the chains with us if you're into that sort of thing.'

I gave him the look I gave to men who tried to pick me up. The losers and the freaks who thought sex was a sport and I was just somebody to score with. In the circles I'd hung out in lately, guys like that were the norm rather than the exception. All the good ones seemed to have left the city long ago. And you know what? With some of them, I played it as good as I could. I knew that I wasn't ugly-that despite living on the streets a little more than I'd like, I had a good body and a nice face and that men were attracted to me. I used it, I played them, and then I took their wallets when they weren't looking.

So sue me.

This guy didn't have a wallet as far as I could see. He had nothing I wanted. Nothing except that key.

I shifted my position into something a little more alluring. Boobs out. I sucked in my stomach. I raised an eyebrow and forced a smile to my lips. 'Why don't you throw me your key first?'

He studied me and my sudden change in demeanor. I still wasn't letting him have what he wanted, but the