Nine Minutes by Beth Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

me, and I bent over, gasping for air. He kept telling me to calm
down while he led me to the couch. Then he flipped on the TV, turned up the volume
and faced me.
          “It’s not what
you think,” Grunt said. “It’ll be okay. Try and take a breath.”
          I couldn’t reply.
For the first time since my abduction, I broke down and started to cry.
          He started to sit
next to me and put his arm around me, but jumped back as soon as he did it.
Instead, he sat on the small coffee table and faced me, just watching me as I
sobbed.
          He went in the
bathroom, brought back a cold washcloth and handed it to me. I put my face in
it and cried harder.
          I looked up when
the door opened and Grizz walked in. He looked at me,
then at Grunt.
          “Leave.”
          Grunt nodded and
got up, walked past him and out the door. I looked down at my lap. I felt so
defeated, and the hysterics had made me physically exhausted. I could tell Grizz was walking toward me. Before I could look up, he
gently laid the kitten in my lap.
          I was stunned. I
looked up at him, and he must have read the question on my face.
          “Blue told me
what Monster did. What he was planning on doing.”
          I didn’t know
what to say.
          “It’s gonna need some fixing up. You can keep it in here and take
care of it, but you gotta keep it away from Lucifer and Damien. I don’t know what they’d do. I mean it,
though. You figure out a way to take care of it. I find one pile of shit in
here and I’ll have Grunt take it to the pound. Got it?”
          I could only nod.
          “You’ll never
talk to me like that again. Got it, Kit?”
          “Yes. Thank you.”
I said in a whisper. “Did you yell at Monster? Did you let him know to stay
away from it from now on? That it’s mine?”
          “No, I didn’t
yell at Monster, and no, he won’t bother it again.”
          Three things
happened that night. That was the night I got my new name. Kit. That was the
night I saw a different side of Grizz . And that was
the night the others around the campfire would come to disagree about what they
witnessed.
          Some said, “Yeah,
an eyeball does make a sizzling sound like bacon frying.” Others said, “No, it
don’t sound nothing like it.”
          But they all
agreed on one thing. It was hard to tell for sure what kind of sound they heard
over Monster’s shrieks of pain.

Chapter Seven

 
    That night
I slept with the tiny kitten curled up against my chest. Like every night I’d
been there, I slept on top of the covers of an extremely comfortable king-sized
bed. Grizz’s bed. He slept on top of the covers, too, in his T-shirt and
jeans. Our backs almost touched. Every morning when I woke up, I would find a
blanket draped over me.
          I didn’t see
Monster the next day. I was surprised that everyone acted like everything was
normal. As horrified as I was over what Monster had done to the kitten, I was
even more appalled at what Grizz had done to him.
          I was sitting on
the bed the next morning playing with my kitten when Blue came in. Blue was
second in command of this group and Grunt’s older brother. He told Grizz that Monster had taken off and they weren’t sure if
he was coming back. I secretly hoped he was angry enough with Grizz to go to the police about my abduction. No such luck.
          He rolled in
later that afternoon like nothing had happened. The only evidence of the night
before was a patch over his eye.
          I was still under
the watchful eye of Grizz and never had a minute to
myself to get near the phone. He saw me eyeing it one day and told me not to
bother even trying to leave or call for help.
          “I would be
stupid not to try to leave here.”
          “No,” Grizz countered. “You would be stupid if you did try.”
          “Really? Why’s
that?”