Stolen Secrets

Stolen Secrets- Chapter 10

His blade appeared in his other hand, something I had become accustomed to.

“You will not speak while they are here,” he said running the blade over my collar bone. “You will do a good job of pretending you are sick and can't speak because it hurts. You will not do anything to give away what has happened since you left school. I will slit you’re pretty little throat. Are we understood?” Scary Man asked.

As he had been talking, the blade had started to creep up my neck, making a zigzag pattern as it did so. Now the point was pressed right where neck meets my head. I choked back a sob and restrained myself from squirming away from the cold, hardened metal.

“Yes,” I said simply.

Scary Man smiled and the blade disappeared. “Good. If you don’t…” he pulled his finger across his neck, miming have his own neck cut. I shivered in fear. When most people did it, they didn’t mean it. But on Scary Man…I knew he was dead serious.

Oh bad choice of words.

Scary Man smiled again. Like usual, there was nothing happy about his smile. If anything it made me want to just curl up and hide from everyone in the world, good and bad.

He left the room and Suze pulled my ponytail, forcing me to as well. I half fell half walked down the stairs and never once did Suze release the iron grip she had on my hair.

I was pushed into a chair at the kitchen table and a plate of toast sat in the middle, making my mouth water at the amount of food. I hadn’t had my meal yet, as it was still the morning.

But I didn’t reach out and bump the plate of golden bread into my mouth. I folded my hands in my lap and instead stared at the crack in the table.

“Well?” Scary Man said from behind, making me jump. “They will be here any minute. Do something normal, eat,” he said.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I took a napkin and placed it on the table in front of me. Then I grabbed a piece of toast and the little bowl of butter and began to spread the creamy goodness over the most delicious thing I have laid eyes on in days.

I bit into it slowly and savoured the sweet taste on my tongue. I sighed in happiness.

Tony sat across from me at the table and also took a piece of toast. I think he only sat down though so he could keep an eye on my without it being too obvious.

I heard a dull thud and it took me a moment to realize that it was someone knocking at the door. Scary Man gave me another silent warning of cutting my throat before going down the hall to answer it.

“Donald Herring I presume?” a man’s voice asked. Donald? Donald was Scary Man’s name? Like as in the duck?

“Yes come on in,” he said with a sickening sweet voice. My stomach churned and threatened to send the amazing toast back up, but I managed to keep it down. But if I kept feeling this way, pretending to be sick so I wouldn’t have my throat slit was going to be a snap.

“If you don’t mind, I will be having a look around,” the man said. I took another slice of toast and started to eat it the same way as my last one.

I looked up as the stranger entered the room with Scary Man –excuse me, Donald- entered the room.

“And these are?” the stranger said addressing the question to Scary Man instead of the rest of us.

“My cousin,” Scary Man said nodding to Craig. “My nephew and his girlfriend,” he nodded to Tony and then Suze, “and my daughter,” Scary Man finished nodding now to me. I guess he had made up a story earlier to explain why we were all living in the same house together. I doubt that any of them are actually related in any way.