Free False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (Wildfire Saga) by Marcus Richardson

stupid, here—take the keys…”
    Thomas froze, half-in, half-out of the bathroom.   His eyes darted over the spartan room.   Two beds, a cheap table, two ancient chairs, an old, low dresser with four rickety drawers, and an even older dinosaur of a TV.   Two mirrors, one behind the TV, one in the bathroom.   No other exits besides the big window and the front door.
    I’m trapped.  
    A key rattled in the lock.
    Where the hell are you, Danny?  
    Thomas lurched forward on his badly bruised legs and turned around looking desperately for a weapon, anything he could use to defend himself.   No tools, no pieces of wood, no pipes, no nothing.   His heart began pounding in his chest, a cold sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades.   He grabbed his cell phone off the dresser and backed into the bathroom.   With shaking hands, he tried to get the phone to turn on.
    The damn thing didn’t recognize his unlock password.   He tried a second time with his swollen fingers.   The phone wouldn’t let him get past the unlock screen. Thomas looked at it in utter disbelief.
    “Seriously!?”
    The front door swung open and Thomas looked up, half-crouched with the phone clutched in both aching hands.   The light from outside silhouetted the first figure through the door.   It was the local man from the church that had threatened him with a knife.   Mosby.
    “Well, look who we got here…”   The angry man smiled and stepped into the room.   His accomplice—the one at the church who’d had a bat—stepped across the threshold behind him.
    “S-stay away from me!” Thomas shrieked, one hand holding the phone like a club.
    Mosby laughed.   “What you gonna do, throw it at me?”   He looked at his partner and elbowed the bigger man in the ribs to the laughter of the next two men who slipped into the room.   They were carrying ropes and one had a roll of duct tape.
    Thomas opened his mouth to scream for help when he heard the phone chirp.   He held it in front of him like a shield.   “I’m calling the police, right now!”
    Mosby laughed.
    Officer Perkins’ large frame filled the doorway.   The cop stepped in and removed his hat.   “Don’t bother,” he rumbled.   “We’re already here.”   The other cop, McCuller, still wearing his flu mask, followed Perkins in through the open door.   The locals stepped aside and let the cops move forward, Mosby right on their heels.
    Every step they took into the room, Thomas slunk back towards the bathroom.   He reached for the door to seal himself off and missed because he couldn’t take his eyes off the huge man bearing down on him.   He yelped in surprise and fell backwards.
    “You promised!” called a voice behind the locals.   “No trouble!”
    “Shut up, Chadwick,” Perkins sneered.   He easily kicked the bathroom door aside as Thomas tried to close it.   “Knock it off, Ping-pong.   We only want to talk.”
    Thomas froze.   “W-what?”
    Perkins bent down and hauled Thomas to his feet—not very gently, but without causing harm, either.   Thomas cowered and tried to escape the giant’s iron grip.   He squirmed in silence and settled for keeping his head as far away from Perkins’ face as possible.   The cop swung him into the room like a rag doll and forced him to face the locals, one meaty hand on either arm, holding him in a vise-like grip.
    McCuller spoke, the mask moving with his jaw.   “The judge made a mistake when he turned you loose.   We aim to…correct that oversight.”
    “What?”
    “That all you can say, Ping-pong?   ‘What?’ ” asked Mosby, with a wink for Perkins.   The big cop chuckled.
    “My name is Thomas! ”
    “Whatever, Ping-pong—or Yap-Yap or whatever the hell your real name is.”   The other locals laughed.
    “Be that as it may, we’re here for a confession,” said McCuller with a slight nod of his head.   His muffled voice almost sounded reasonable.   A murmur rippled through the group