Beneath the Neon Moon (3 page)

"Quit looking a gift horse in the mouth."

Mal looked irritated. "What the fuck is that stupid saying anyway."

"You really want to know? I can tell you."

"I said I didn't want to sleep now, thanks."

Zach bumped his shoulder back. "No? So we'll talk about something else. Why would kidnappers let me keep my wallet?"

Mal shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. You got anything in there that'll help us?"

Zach dug into the back of his jeans pocket and opened his billfold. "Let's see. There's a five, three ones, and a … never mind … and a penknife."

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"You've actually got a knife on you?"

"Sort of?" Zach pulled it out of a credit card slot and held it up. Folded up, it was about the length of his index finger, the handle ridged and black. "I could try and stab someone in the eye with it, I guess. Maybe. If they didn't check my wallet, they don't even know I have it." He put the knife back where he had it, then shoved the wallet into his back pocket.

"That's good. That little penknife is our ace in the hole. We'll catch them unawares with it and we'll do … uh … what will we do with it?"

"Stab them in the eye, remember?" Zach said helpfully. He tapped his fingers on the ground. "You're distracting me. We need to look at your ankle."

"What, pour water over it? Not going to help much with the prongs still sticking into my skin. Back to what we were talking about. We've been kidnapped, it was planned, been done before, we're doomed…."

"You're not funny."

Mal was silent a moment. "I think I am."

"Un-fucking funny. I mean it. "

"What do you want from me? Told you panic isn't going to help." Mal hitched a shoulder and rubbed against one of the protruding rocks again.

"Well, if it's something that's happened before—somebody missing, somebody held hostage—the news would have picked it up, right? We'd probably have heard something."

Mal shrugged. "I don't know. Not necessarily, not if somebody just went missing. It'd be different if somebody saw something suspicious, saw someone dragged away or something like that, but if they just disappeared, well, people take off all the time. But maybe I'm way off, thinking we're not the first. I hope so." Mal leaned over and looked at his ankle. After a moment, he blotted carefully at the blood oozing from under the chain with the hem of his jeans. He sat back and looked at Zach. "Yeah, that fucking helped. Not."

"I'm sorry," Zach said again. He couldn't help it, though it felt useless to say so.

"I told you before. You didn't do this. Shut up about it, okay?"

Zach cleared his throat. "I don't know about you, but I don't have money. I don't have any family to speak of, either. Hell, I'm the next thing to homeless." He gestured at Mal's ankle. "And even if we were being held for ransom, nothing explains that piece of work."

"I'm thinking that being held for ransom's got to be the lesser of evils at this point, but my family's not rich. They're not exactly poor, either, but still. There's plenty of better targets to pick if this were just about money." Mal sighed. "Any other ideas?"

Zach shrugged. "I can't figure any reason why anybody'd be after me. You?"

"Not a clue." Mal rolled his head against one of the rocks in the wall and looked up at the ceiling. "Not one fucking clue." He looked at Zach. "Time to move again, okay?"

Zach took a deep, sighing breath and sneezed. The air smelled musty, heavy with age and cold earth and things too long in the dark. "Okay. Which way we going?"

"Forward again. Away from the wall. You have allergies?"

"Nah." Zach sneezed again.

"They develop at any time, you know."

Zach pulled a breath in and thought about it. "If you look in a horse's mouth you can tell if it's young or old or sick, stuff like that. Somebody gives you a horse, you don't look in its mouth because that'd make you an ingrate."

"And you're telling me this because why?"

"I thought we were trading useless information."

"Damn, I like you." Mal's grin crinkled the corners of his eyes. "So, your turn. Tell me what you were doing last night. Shit, not the part where you—not
that
," he said hurriedly when Zach gave him a look. "Before."

"I've been laid off for a few weeks from my job. Some of my friends thought I needed a night out drinking. I had a few too many." Zach rubbed his nose and thought about it. "More than a few."

"Laid off, huh? It's a damn good reason to throw a few back. All the good college boys do it."

"I wouldn't know. Never went." Zach looked down at their feet. "And you're not putting me off anymore. I'm gonna look at that ankle, okay? Grab the water jug."

Mal rolled his eyes and leaned over, grabbing the pitcher by the handle. He put it by Zach on the ground. "Okay, Nurse Nightingale. But you pull that chain and I'll show you some real hysterics."

Zach nodded impatiently, then moved closer and bent over Mal's ankle. "They took your sock."

"Easier to carve the turkey that way, I guess. The turkey being me of course. Nice of them to give me my shoe back."

"Man, you don't ever stop. Don't move." The chain was thinner than the wall chain and the same thickness as the chain that ran between them. Zach tried easing his little finger in between it and Mal's skin. "Damn, that's tight." He gave up almost immediately. He'd hoped to try and work the jean material from Mal's pants leg in under the prongs, but nothing was going to wedge in there without gouging him further.

He leaned down again and studied Mal's ankle more closely, saw the metal prongs disappearing into swollen, bloody skin. "Damn it," he swore, couldn't help himself. "I don't see how you're sitting upright, much less talking through all this."

"Doesn't hurt too bad if I don't think about it," Mal said softly.

Zach shook his head, giving him a dubious look. There was blood all over Zach's hand. Blood caked on Mal's ankles and down below, into his sneaker. Zach winced, remembering how he'd pulled away from Mal earlier.

He picked up the jug and looked at Mal, making sure he was ready. Mal nodded, and Zach tipped water out of the jug. He heard Mal's breath hiss between his teeth. His hand jerked, splashing water over Mal's shin. 

"Sorry," he said, not looking up. He kept pouring, a careful, slow flow.

"The water's making the prongs cold. Are you almost done?"

Zach stopped, looking up again. "Does it hurt?"

"I don't like it. Feels weird. Like I feel them cooling inside my skin."

"Almost done." Zach resumed pouring, stopping when the runoff was finally clear. The water was nearly gone. He put the jug down, then settled his hand on Mal's knee, looking at him intently. "I just don't understand why anyone would do this to you. What's the purpose here?"

Mal scratched his nose. "Don't know. We can ask them again next time they come down."

"Don't joke. This is so, so far from funny. They've got this shit rigged specifically to hurt you. I'd like to know why."

"I know it's not funny, damn it, but they didn't give me any answers. You're the one that spent time with these guys, not me. I'm sorry to ask, but do you remember anything at all from last night that might help us figure out what's going on? What they want from us?" He paused. "Not that I want to think about you with those guys, but if there's anything—"

"Sorry to offend you, man," Zach interrupted, ice in his voice. "This is fucking stupid."

"No,
you're
stupid. Or blind, maybe. I'm not offended. I was kind of wishing I'd met you first."

Zach stared at Mal, taking in the high cheek bones, the eyes tip-tilted like a fox, green-brown, alive. There was no revulsion there, only an openness to being seen that Zach envied, and suddenly he felt that Mal deserved to know whatever it was he could tell him.

"I just needed to blow off some steam. I went with them. They liked things pretty, uh, rough, but I can handle a little enthusiasm." Zach felt his face redden, but he kept talking. "You talked about the smaller guy being strong, but both of them are powerful. Really in sync, too, like they know each other really well. They didn't threaten me. They didn't do anything at all that made me think twice about being with them. I was pretty drunk, like I said, and I passed out afterwards. I woke up here."

"You didn't hear any noise this morning before they brought you down here? Because I put up a fight." Mal laughed, short and bitter. "Lasted about two seconds, but still."

"No," Zach mumbled, rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand. "Been a really shitty week. Month." He sighed. "This is not helping, Mal. Nothing felt off. Nobody acted freaky. It was a pickup, that's all. At least that's all I wanted."

"Did they talk? What'd they say?" Mal asked hesitantly, as if he knew he was pushing it.

Something snapped inside Zach. "Yeah. Spread your legs, turn over, you like it like this?" Zach's voice was fast, impatient.

Mal's mouth fell open. "Shit. Don't do that to me."

"You wanted to know, didn't you." Zach said it flatly, suddenly enraged and knowing it wasn't at Mal. He didn’t want to talk about his sex life with anyone, even this shaggy-headed motormouth who already made Zach feel easier with him than anybody else had managed in a long time.

"I didn't. Not the way you make it sound." Mal's voice was soft.

Zach looked at him sharply. "Yeah. Listen, it's just … I don't talk about this shit, okay? Not anyone else's business." He sighed again, tried to relax. "The dark-haired one's name is Kane, and the bigger guy is Aaron. Not that it helps or anything, but…."

Mal nodded, then stared at the dirt floor, his face expressionless. He rubbed a finger idly in the dirt.

"Mal … guess that's short for something?" It was the first thing Zach could think of to break the awkward silence.

"Yeah. Sometimes my friends call me Malach, too, but it's short for, uh, Malachi."

Zach eyes went wide. "Do your parents even like you?"

Mal's eyes shot up to meet Zach's. His brows drew down. "Hey, now."

"Well, I mean it's a little … unusual."

"They've always acted like they like me, but there's no possible way they'd lay a name like that on a baby if they really did, so no. They do not. And thanks, I was completely unaware that my name was unusual until you so kindly pointed it out."

"Listen, bitch, I like odd. I'm odd. It's Biblical. It's great." Zach smiled.

Mal eyed the smile with suspicion. "Lots more Malachis than what's in the Bible."

"Like who?"

"Never mind. Most of them were pretty creepy. Unlike me."

"Of course."

"So is Zach short for Zachary or what?"

"Isaac."

"Ah. Also Biblical." Mal looked absurdly pleased, as if he felt the playing field were somehow leveled between them.

"Yeah, but Isaac isn't … embarrassing."

"You sure about that?" Mal punched him in the shoulder. "Sounds like somebody's grandpa to me."

Zach grimaced, and Mal smiled at him. It knocked Zach back a little—it was a great smile, complete with dimples.

The smile disappeared as suddenly as it came. "Damn."

"What?"

"Here they come."

Zach looked at Mal, question in his eyes.

"Don't you hear them?"

Zach listened, finally hearing the floor creak close by the stairway. The door opened.

Chapter 4

L
IGHT
WIDENED AT the top of the cellar stairs and outlined two silhouettes, one of which followed the other downstairs. Mal's hand found Zach's and held on. Zach jumped a little, nearly jerking away. Mal glanced at him with something unreadable in his expression, then quickly squeezed his hand and let go as Aaron approached. Kane stood back, watching.

"Bathroom break, guys. Mal first," Aaron said, stopping in front of him. "I'm going to unlock you now. Stay still and both of you will be fine. Otherwise Kane will be happy to come over and help me. You won't like it." He knelt at Mal's left side and unlocked the cuff, freeing him from the wall chain, then looked up at Mal and grinned. "In case you're wondering, the other one isn't coming off. It's made to fit really close. I guess you noticed." He stood up. "But don't feel bad. If I took it off, I'd only have to put it back on again. Imagine how that'd feel."

Aaron moved to Zach's side and unlocked his cuff, then slid the connecting chain from it and held it up.

Kane stepped forward to take it, then handed it to Mal. Mal looked surprised, then furious. Kane grinned. "Yeah, you get to carry your own chain around. I guess I don't need to tell you not to pull it too tight, do I? And don't get any brilliant ideas about what you can do with it or I'll pull your fucking foot off with it." 

Aaron hooked Zach up to the wall chain and grabbed the water jug, then followed Mal and Kane upstairs. The door closed behind them. Zach stared at it, unmoving, trying his damnedest not to imagine the worst.

Twenty minutes later, the door opened again. Zach hadn't moved an inch. He watched Mal, Aaron and Kane climb down the stairs. Mal caught his eye and nodded, reassuring him he was okay. The chain clinked as he moved, and he scowled at it.

Kane stayed back as before. Aaron put the water pitcher back in front of the pink dresser, then freed Zach from the wall and locked Mal up in his place.

"Aaron. What are we doing here? What's going on?" Zach tried to sound calm, rational.

Aaron wrapped a hand around Zach's arm. His fingers were blunt, the nails bitten to the quick. "C'mon, walk. Move slowly. Nothing sudden, okay."

Zach didn't budge. "Just tell me what's going on."

Aaron exchanged a glance with Kane, then shrugged. "You were there right when we needed you, simple as that. Nothing personal, just your bad luck. Let's go." Aaron pulled at Zach's arm, but Zach still didn't move.

"Zach." Mal's voice was low, but Zach heard the push beneath it.