Page 18 of Kept in the Dark

His eyes widen in panic. “M-maze,” he mumbles, pointing.

I release him. While he tries to tuck his cock away, he gets an elbow to the nose and a fist in his stomach. He windmills his arms, falling back against the last man, whose singing cuts off abruptly as they go down in a heap.

They scramble together, but the blow to his overfilled stomach is too much, and the second man vomits all over the first as he attempts to extricate himself from the thorns and dead flowers. The singing man has passed out, evidently needing no better excuse than simply being horizontal.

The rage making my fists shake tempts me to do more—a well-placed kick to shatter a kneecap or a sharp punch to the throat to collapse a trachea. These idiots may be angry, but they are easily beaten. A concussion and a ruptured spleen are enough to make them cover their balls and run, abandoning their fallen comrade.

I head into the maze, feeling my anger slowly drain and my pulse calm.

“Erm… What was that all about?”

I shake out my hand as I try to think of a suitable excuse other than that I wanted to. My hand hurts, my knuckles are split open again, but that felt good—so good, in fact, I think I will do the same thing to thisKylewhen I find him. He must be the date she spoke of. The one she was avoiding. The asshole.

“I am clearing the way through the maze.”

“Sure,”James returns, sounding wholly unconvinced.

“I’ll watch to make sure they don’t report Dimitri to security,”Wesley offers.“If they do…”

We will have other problems. Three more body-sized problems.

Fuck.

That was foolish of me. Depending on who finds thatbratok’sbody, the police may become involved. Wedding guests will be questioned. And now three men will recall the large, scarred man who attacked them unprovoked.

Still, I feel no remorse. Instead, I feel as if I have wrought a suitable punishment for their thoughtless insults, unearned superiority and the crime of being very, very annoying.

Since I am going in blind, and I need to focus, I temporarily mute the lines. There is little chance we will be completely alone in here, since the maze is quite large, but my first few turns leading me deeper reveal nothing more than grass and leaves rustling in a too-quiet corridor.

Nicole’s voice sounds distant, so I know she is deeper in the maze. “This is so fucking lame, Kyle! I don’t want to play whatever messed-up game this is. I want to go home. Please,” she adds after a moment.

Her tone catches my attention—sad, tired, embarrassed.

My jaw clenches.

Kyle’s answer is in an eerie, strange tone. “Don’t worry, Nicole, I’ll make sure you get taken care of…”

A very ominous answer that makes me pick up my pace. My next turn leads me down a dead end. Another turn twists me back around the wrong way.

Fuck! I hate mazes!

6

Nicole

I’m generally against spooky shit.

The shadows have shadows.

Just when I think my eyes have adjusted, I find a darker darkness. The light breeze is right on the cusp of cold, and it rattles the leaves together around me, making it hard to tell if any of the noises I’m hearing are natural or human-made. It’s freaking me out. I’m freakingmyselfout. My heart rate is elevated, and it feels like I can’t quite get a full breath in. I wish I’d brought my inhaler.

Not that it would matter, because it would be in my purse.

The one Kyle currently has.

Fuck that guy!

It’s only after I start stumbling around in the dark that I realize most women probably wouldn’t follow a man they didn’t know or like into a maze at night, even if he had their phone. Now, if it were Lev doing this? Not that he would, but… Yeah… I’d probably just let him have the purse. I’m not chasing down nearly seven feet of scarred muscle mass for something replaceable.