Stolen Souls

67

LENNON FELT RATHER than saw the girl slam into Paynter. He’d seen her coming, covered his head with his forearms, and weathered the battering of elbows, knees, and feet.

The girl let out an animal shriek as she set about her captor with the chair that was still bound to one of her wrists. Lennon scrambled back as she raised it and brought it down on Paynter’s head. He kicked to untangle his feet from the other man’s and rolled to his side to reclaim his Glock.

Paynter groaned and tried to deflect the blows with his hands, but the girl’s determination got the better of him. For a few seconds, it seemed he had given in, but then he turned and struck out with his boot. He caught the chair, throwing the girl’s balance.

Lennon got to his feet and raised the Glock. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll put one in you, I swear to Christ.”

Paynter stared up at him for a moment, incredulity on his face, before a high peal of laughter escaped him.

The girl went to swing the chair at him again, but Lennon forced himself between her and Paynter.

“What’s so bloody funny?” he asked.

“You swear to Christ? You think the Lord Jesus cares what promises you make?”

Lennon struggled for an answer. When one wouldn’t come, he did the only other thing he could think of: he kicked Paynter hard in the balls.

Paynter doubled up and rolled onto his side, his face turning first red then purple.

The girl lay curled against the wall, muttering something. Somewhere outside, in the cold night, sirens rose and fell. Lennon crouched beside her, said, “It’s all right. Help’s coming.”

Paynter groaned and squirmed.

“You move, and I’ll shoot,” Lennon said. “Understand?”

Paynter did not respond. Instead, he retched and spat on the floor.

Lennon kept an eye on him as he listened to the girl. Her words came tumbling one after the other, thick with her Slavic accent, a language he didn’t understand or even recognize. Lithuanian? Latvian? Polish?

Whatever she said, she repeated it over and over until it sounded like some mantra, a deranged prayer to an ignorant god.

Lennon spared her a glance. “Do you speak English?”

The sirens drew close, along with the sound of engines pushed into anger.

“What’s your name?” Lennon asked.

Still she repeated the words, blurring and smearing them until he couldn’t tell where the prayer ended and began again. It climbed in pitch, punctuated by desperate inhalations.

Lennon grabbed her wrist. “What are you saying?”

She gasped and stared as if woken from a nightmare. For a moment, Lennon thought he was looking at Ellen stirred from her night terrors.

The girl blinked and said, “Please, sir, I want to go home.”