Instinct Jason Hough (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

anger, nearly impossible to tamp down. He’s sorry? Can’t stop? Bullshit. I tense, my fists balled so tight my fingernails start to break the skin of my palms. I want to lash out, but more than that, I realize, I want answers.

Ang misconstrues my sudden rigidness, and speaks calmly into my ear.

“Do not be afraid,” he says. “You’re doing very, very well.” We push through the group, who part like reverent cultists.

“Follow,” Ang says to them, and the reaction is immediate. Movement all around, behind us.

Someone starts to speak, but before the sound can become a word, Doc snaps at them. “No talking!”

The group falls silently in behind us as Doc and Ang guide me down the hallway.

My eyes go immediately to the front door, but before I can even think about making a break for it, Ang steers me in the other direction.

Into the main room of the massive house.

It’s a sunken living room. Bleached hardwood floors, white throw rugs in several places, and sleek modern furniture throughout. A massive flat-screen television is affixed to one wall, currently turned off.

The main feature of the room, though, is the fireplace. It’s right in the center, open on all sides. More like a firepit, really. There is open air above it for perhaps ten feet, then above that a stonework flume is built into the vaulted ceiling, rising twenty feet above us. As for the firepit itself, the surface is a bed of colored glass beads, presumably with burners beneath. There is no flame just now. Surrounding all this is a bench of the same stonework, knee-high.

“Form the circle,” Doc says to those gathered. Not “a circle,” I note, but “the circle.” A chill runs up my arms.

Feet shuffle on the hardwood floor as the group takes their places. Some begin to talk in low voices. There’s a casualness to their response, as if this were all completely normal. Their reaction, I realize, seems to be a manifestation of the tone of Doc’s command, not just the meaning. Interesting.

“No talking!” Ang barks. Then under his breath to Doc, “You have to remind them.”

Doc nods meekly, cowed by the reprimand.

Guiding me by the elbows, the pair lead me across the hardwood floor until we stand next to the firepit.

Fire is not something I’ve ever been especially afraid of, but in this situation, about to undergo some sort of test, my brain suddenly fills with nightmarish scenes. My hand thrust into the flames, skin and muscle boiling away to a sick barbecue odor. Or a red-hot brand, a satanic symbol maybe, sizzling against the skin of my arm. My stomach churns equally to both thoughts, and I bite back a sudden urge to vomit.

“Step up onto the edge, Mary,” Ang says.

Don’t hesitate, I tell myself. They’ll know the commands aren’t working. Just play along, pick your moment, then run.

But his tone, like Doc’s before, is casual, and I bet I can use that. The tone seems to indicate the level of response. No need to rush in my obedience.

I step up onto the stone bench, then again to the thin ledge above it, one deliberate step at a time. Once on the ledge I stare at the firepit in front of me, knowing they’ll turn it on any second now and ask me to… to what, to walk across?

“Turn around,” Doc says.

I do.

The others have all filed in behind us, forming a half circle around a throw rug on the floor below me.

I’m facing them now, which is a hell of a lot better than facing the fireplace in my estimation. Perhaps Ang just wants me to make a speech. Proclaim my loyalty, or repeat some oath. It could be that the punishment for failing the first time is a broken nose.

There’s eight people in all. Doc, Ang, Chief Gorman, Captain Tweaker, and four others I don’t know. Only one of them is a woman, but her expression is no different from the rest.

My gaze returns to one of the men. An older gentleman who looks familiar in the way that all politicians seem to. Could this be the senator they keep referring to? Surprise, surprise, his nose is bandaged, too.

But that’s not all he shares with the others—each has a weapon of some kind. Pistols in belt holsters, or knives, or Tasers. Shit, I think, my plan of making a run for it suddenly quashed. I can’t imagine reaching the front door before one of them can draw and fire.

Only Doc and Ang appear to be unarmed, but that doesn’t help me at all.

With an almost magician-like flourish, Doc leans down and pulls the white rug away, tossing it aside.

He steps back into his place within the half-circle and looks up at me. Between them all, the bleached-white hardwood floor beneath the rug has been revealed. It is not white, here, but stained red.

Stained with blood.

A fresh bead of sweat begins to trickle down my spine.

Ang lifts his chin. With a strong note of pride he says, “Keeping your hands at your side, and making no effort to turn away, fall forward to the floor.”

My eyes lock on that red stain as Ang’s words register. The trail of sweat on my back goes cold, and goose bumps rise all across my body.

Time seems to slow.

This is my moment. I know this, deep down. I have to run. Have to try. Outgunned, outnumbered, it doesn’t matter. I must try.

It’ll never work, though. Running is suicide.

I swallow. Can’t hesitate to obey, but don’t have to hurry, either. Just need to buy time, to think of a way out. I start to lean. Just a bit, like going on tippy toe to see over a crowd. My mind races. How to get out of this? Nothing comes to mind. Every last bit of me wants to turn now, to run, to get away from these fucking weirdos and… and…

I keep leaning forward. Have to sell this. Just need another second to think. So I tilt,