Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Order’s many eyes have not missed her. “You brought someone. With a sick, small animal and a limp.”
“Fuck off,” Tessie snaps. “He’s not sick. He’s just old.”
Order looks skyward. “Is every human in this city so rude?”
“Listen, buddy, you can insult me all you want, but Obigor is perfect and beyond reproach. Get it?” Tessie is strident, stern, and apparently completely unbothered by the strangeness of Order.
“What is wrong with your leg?” He walks around me, leaving me dangling awkwardly as a third wheel.
“Leave her alone!” I utter the order knowing that there’s no chance he’s going to listen to me.
As I expected, I am ignored.
“I was shot,” Tessie says, blunt as always. She doesn’t seem scared of him, though she has to be shitting herself. I see her rock back slightly, as if she’s thinking about taking a step away from him. She chooses not to though, and instead stands her ground as he comes to stand over her, his strange form looming over her and Obigor.
“Is someone going to get me the fuck out of here?” I raise my voice. I am starting to get impatient with my captivity.
“Detective?”
Finally, Justice arrives. And when I say arrives, I mean he squeezes out of the gap between the containers. He does not seem surprised to find me trapped in the web.
“Can you get me down, please?”
He ignores the request and instead asks me a question.
“Have you come with news?”
“I’ll tell you what I have to tell you when you let me down out of here. It’s an offense to set traps for officers of the law, by the way.”
Justice puts all four of his hands on his hips, or just above them, and peers down at me with narrowed red eyes. He seems taller than ever from this nearly inverted position.
I feel like I am in trouble, which makes no sense. I am the one who tells other people that they are in trouble. I do not get in trouble myself.
“You want the bad news, or the worse news?”
His eyes narrow even further in a serious way. “Tell me what has happened.”
“I found him, tased him, cuffed him, and then he flew away.”
I turn my gaze from him to check on Tessie. Before I can see her, my chin is grasped and my face is gently, but firmly directed so I am looking at Justice.
“So he is flying about with his hands cuffed?”
“Presumably. Or maybe not. He seems like the resourceful kind. Look. Let me down from here. This is starting to become obnoxious.”
“I agree,” he says firmly.
“HELP!”
I hear Tessie squeal. Obigor barks. They both share the same pitch of shrill outrage and fear.
I renew my struggles, which, as before, only serves to get me even more stuck in Order’s web. I can just barely see where she was standing. She is gone. Obigor is gone. Order is gone. I see her walking stick lying on the ground. As I watch, one of Order’s limbs comes briefly into my limited field of vision to snatch it up.
“What’s he doing to her? Let her go!”
“I need reassurance that you will not attempt to take my brother into your custody. I believe that is what you intended to do, and I will not tolerate it. I need you to help me, detective. I do not need for you to help yourself.”
“Fuck you. Let me out of here, and give Tessie back, or I swear to god, I will have both of you freaks inside a cell before you can say giant can of insect spray.”
Justice lets out a grim chuckle. “You’re impertinent and your threats are ill-advised. I think I will let you dangle a little longer, detective, until you come to terms with who is in charge here.”
Oh, this asshole is really annoying me now. “If any harm comes to Tessie, or her dog, I will not stop. I will destroy the both of you.”
“She is in no danger.”
“She’s been abducted by a massive human spider!”
“He won’t hurt her. Probably. You should have known better than to bring us a hostage.”
“I thought we were on the same side.”
“We are not. We are on very different sides. It’s just that for the moment, our interests align.”
“I’m going to give you fair warning,” I say, swinging lightly in the breeze with the momentum of the web set in motion by my struggles. “I am not the girl you want to be fucking with on this.”
Justice laughs, reaches out, and spanks my upturned ass. Hard. I didn’t notice that I’d somehow put myself in the perfect position to be punished, but there’s no denying that my bent, trapped knees present the rounds of my rear for his discipline almost as perfectly as if it were intentional.
His slap makes me squirm and makes the web shake. I am once again set swaying back and forth. Justice takes full advantage of that, slapping my ass, letting me swing away, and then smacking me again when I swing back.