Standing to get a better angle, I grip her jaw, yanking her back to face me before growling out a warning. “You will give me what I want. The only question is how much you suffer between now and then. Now, answer the question. Where is Anna Cress going!?!”
Through clenched teeth she growls, “I. Don’t. Know.”
Before the last word is out, the crop whistles through the air before connecting with the top of her right thigh. Her head jerks from my grasp as she lets out a pained cry, new tears welling in her eyes.
I must admit, I enjoyed that very much.
Reaching down and pushing her dress away so I can see the welt left behind, I decide her left thigh is feeling lonely. The crack echoes through the room, much harder than the first one, and she lets out a scream.
“Try again,” I encourage, although I won’t be mad if she refuses a little longer.
A sob escapes her lips as she gasps for the air she needs to speak. “I really…don’t know. We didn’t have a plan for where we were going to after we got out. I…I swear.”
They’re just a bunch of idiot kids, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that were true, but a few more whips should confirm it.
After four more cracks across her legs and a final one connecting across her back, she maintains her claim. These morons staged an uprising, escaped, and had no clue where to go after. Kind of makes you wonder if they really thought their escape would be successful.
I have a lot more questions, and no doubt the little bitch will make me work for them, but it’s been a long day and I think it will do her some good to sit in here alone, wondering when I’ll be back.
Securing the gag back in her mouth, I turn the light off and shut the door behind me.
***
ANNA
When we escaped the compound we headed north with nothing more than a goal of putting distance between us and the church. After being attacked by David and his team and losing one of our own, Luke had been adamant we head to the Diablo Headquarters, which happened to be pretty much due south and then slightly west of here. Unfortunately, we couldn’t just go south, we’d be heading straight back to the compound. So when Luke took off a couple hours ago with the rest of the group following, he had said the safest thing would be to travel east first, then turn south. It would make the trip longer, but it was pretty much our only option. It not only took us further from the compound, but kept us from having to pass through Bonham since we all agreed that would the first place David and his men would be looking for us.
This first hour was pretty uneventful, our only issues being dodging low branches or skirting around felled trees. But no more than thirty minutes later we came across a clearing with graying wide strips of concrete stretching north and south. Luke told us it was an old highway, a road that would take travelers from one town to the next. I’d seen them in books in the library, but in person it seemed much more massive. This one had seen better days, with large sections completely taken back by mother nature, and huge cracks stretching down its length for as far as the eye could see. When we had gotten a couple hundred yards on the other side, Luke turned right, headed south.
We only made it another two hours before the night made it too dangerous to continue. When we came across an abandoned barn, we decided this was probably our best option for a camp site. Easton and Tommy set off to search the perimeter, while Luke asked Cody to find some fire wood and the rest of us cleared an area in the middle of the barn for a fire. Once Cody came back with the wood and Luke got the fire going, Easton came back in, setting out a few jars of what looked like chili. While the chili cooked over the fire, the rest of us looked on, none of us seeming to want to speak first. Despite the events of the last twenty-four hours though, that’s just not my style.
“So.” Okay, so maybe I hadn’t thought further ahead than that. I look around at each of the dirty faces of some of my closest friends, and know I have to do something to get us out of this funk. “So, Luke, will we see any cool sights on the way to HQ?”
Luke seems surprised by my spontaneous question, and it makes my heart happy when he lets out a little chuckle. “Define cool,” he says with another laugh.
It feels nice to hear him laugh, and when I look around our fire, the other faces look less forlorn and more lighthearted. I need to keep this going, take everyone’s mind off the last twenty-four hours.
“What restaurants do you recommend?” I ask, trying to suppress a giggle.
Looking at me, his eyes seem much lighter, and when he speaks, I can tell he needs this. “Well, there’s an excellent burned down Italian restaurant about fifteen miles from here.” That gets a laugh out of everyone, and Luke leaves his seat on the opposite side of the fire to join me. Nudging me with his shoulder he adds, “The town use to be called Paris, and do you know what Paris is famous for?”
The only thing I can think of is the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, but before I can guess, Cody cut me off.
“Eiffel Towers.” He says it with a laugh, not sounding serious at all.
So when Luke says, “Exactly,” he has all our attention. “Only this is Texas, or I guess, was, so this one has a cowboy hat on top.”
I’m pretty
