RECRUITED: A Mike Humber Novella (Demon Series Book One) by RR Haywood Page A

and chest before looking back at me. She views left and right, checking the view and nods discretely at me. I reach the open door as though to give her a hug. With a deft movement she reaches back in, pulls the lever to move the seat forward and clambers into the back. I’m already lowering to get in when she slams the seat back.
    He stares in shock, too polite to protest but clearly thinking he should say something. I reach down and clamp a hand on the seatbelt where it connects into the fastener. He looks down then back up to see I’m not smiling anymore.
    ‘Drive,’ she orders from the back and presses a blunt metal nail file into the side of his neck, ‘or I’ll cut you open.’
    The blood drains from his face. He freezes and locks eyes on me. ‘Do it,’ I growl, ‘drive or die.’
    With fumbling, terrified hands he gets into gear and pulls out into the road without checking.
    ‘Slow down,’ I snap, ‘mirror, signal and then manoeuvre. Don’t they have the highway code here?’
    ‘What?’ he gibbers and glances at me again before rattling something off in French or Belgian or whatever fucking language he speaks. Elizabeth leans forward and snaps out a long sentence in French. He nods and goes to reply but grips the steering wheel, swallows and stays quiet.
    ‘We’re stealing your car,’ she says in English, ‘stay quiet and drive properly and you’ll be okay.’
    ‘Okay…okay,’ he nods and drives, ‘where I go?’
    ‘Somewhere quiet,’ I reply, ‘somewhere we can drop you off…but er…no cameras…no police station…no witnesses either…’
    Elizabeth translates my words. He nods and the slightest look of relief comes into his face. The eternal hope of the terrified. We just want his car, that’s all. He doesn't even contemplate why anyone would be stealing a shitty old hatchback. It’s the glimmer of hope that he’ll walk away from it that makes him believe everything we tell him.
    ‘Forest?’ I ask, ‘woods…somewhere like that.’ He stares in confusion until Elizabeth translates. He nods in understanding and gabbles something off. ‘He said there’s a place about two kilometres away.’
    ‘That’ll do fine.’ I nod at him remembering the last time I saw his face was when he was repeatedly raping a schoolgirl and I want to kill him right now. He senses the anger coming from my glare and spares me a frightened look with eyes that are rapidly filling with tears. The sight of him about to blubber fuels my rage to a higher degree until I can barely stop myself from attacking him.
    Verhoeven pulls off the road and into the entrance of an old track. We bounce along, heading deeper into a wooded area and he keeps glancing over waiting for one of us to tell him to stop.
    It’s a nuance that triggers me. One of things that people do, the things that make them that person. Some cough or clear their throats when they are nervous. Others rub their faces. Verhoeven wipes the end of his nose with the back of his hand in a nervous gesture I saw him do in the footage and I explode, smashing my fist into the side of his head. He screams and slams the brakes on but I’m on top of him punching again and again with my hard knuckles breaking his nose. Blood spurts out thick and red and I’m out the car and racing round the front to wrench his door open and drag him out.
    ‘His seatbelt,’ I grunt at Elizabeth clambering out from the back. She stops and looks at me, then at him and seems confused for a second until she realises I can’t pull him due to his seatbelt being on. She pushes the red slide down and he’s out, being dragged free of the car while screaming for me to stop. A dark stain forms at his crutch as his piss spurts out like a frightened dog. I hit him again, driving him down to the ground as my memory floods with the vicious assault he perpetrated on the girl. He stood over her like I’m standing over him now. He relished the power he had. I don’t relish that power. I