I didn’t know which was worse, the cold slime that had soaked through my clothes or the smug little glint in his eyes when he glanced over at me. The mud had somehow found its way into my socks, my hair, and I was pretty sure into my soul. Bagel was tucked in her carrier against my chest, giving the faintest, unhappy squeak.

  I ran a hand over the side of the carrier, feeling the tiny warmth of her fur, and muttered, “Don’t worry, sweet bean, Mommy’s just negotiating with the enemy.”

  The one who had carried me, let’s call him Grabber, since “Kidnapper McHornface” felt like too big of a mouthfeel, took a step back, like he was giving me space. His gaze lingered longer than necessary, tracing over me in a way that wasn’t exactly predatory… but not soft either. Just watchful, like he was waiting to see what I would do.

  The other two? Not so charitable. Silver-Eyes and Stocky-Bronze exchanged a look like I was a wet dog they had been asked to house-sit. Silver-Eyes even wrinkled his nose.

  “She’s going to reek for days.”

  “She reeks now,” Bronze said flatly. It seemed like my smell was so enjoyable that it could stimulate a neverending conversation about these morons.

  Grabber’s jaw twitched. “Enough.”

  The tone wasn’t loud, but it cut through their muttering. They quieted, though I caught Bronze muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like mud rat.

  I pushed myself to my feet, wobbling in the slippery muck. “Alright, listen. I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

  Bronze snorted. “Wrong foot? You trespassed, you got caught, you screamed in our ears, and now you smell like a latrine. That’s the wrong everything.”

  I gave him a bright, falsely polite smile. “Me, trespass? I was kidnapped, you idiotic piece of toast!”

  Silver-Eyes muttered, “She talks too much.”

  Grabber glanced at me. “He was kind of right, you talk a lot when you are nervous.”

  I hesitated, because he wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “Or maybe I talk a lot when I am trying to negotiate terms of survival.”

  That earned me a faint, blink-and-you’d-miss-it upward twitch of his mouth. Not a smile, exactly. More like his face forgot it was supposed to be stone for a second.

  “I could be useful,” I continued, wringing out my sleeves. “I am handy. I know things. I certainly would not be very useful dead.”

  “Everyone knows things,” Silver-Eyes said without looking at me.

  “Yeah, but mine are fun things. Like baking. And, um… first aid. And I have Bagel.” I patted the carrier.

  All three looked at the lump under the canvas flap. Grabber tilted his head. “That’s a pet?”

  I tried to muster all of my strength and gave him the most annoyed look possible, “Duh.”

  Bronze frowned. “We aren’t feeding some animal.”

  “She isn’t ‘some animal.’ She is family. You feed her, or I make your lives hell in ways you can’t even imagine.”

  Bronze let out a sharp laugh. “You think you are in a position to make threats?”

  “No,” I said sweetly, “I am in a position to make noise.”

  That got a real reaction, Silver-Eyes and Bronze both glanced at Grabber like this was his problem. Grabber’s gaze stayed locked on me for a long beat before he said, “We’ll feed the animal.”

  I let out a little breath. One point for me.

  Leaving me in the corner, the three men wandered off towards the window, Grabber in front now, the other two flanking me. They talked in low tones to each other, but not low enough that I couldn’t catch pieces. There was an easy rhythm to their voices when they weren’t aiming them at me, little jabs and short laughs that made it obvious they had known each other a long time.

  “…still owe me for that knife,” Bronze said.

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  “I told you, it’s not a knife anymore if the blade’s bent,” Silver-Eyes replied.

  “It bent because you tried to wedge it into a wall.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?”

  “No. You broke it and the wall.”

  Grabber shook his head, but there was no real annoyance in his face. Just that same quiet watchfulness that kept sliding my way. Every time I thought he was looking ahead, I caught him in the corner of my vision, glancing back.

  I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I wasn’t sure if I hated it. But it was better than being ignored.

  Grabber leaned against the wall while the other two lingered by the window, their low voices bouncing off the wooden beams. The place smelled like old timber and smoke, a faint tang of metal underneath. I could see a table shoved against the far wall, maps and scraps of paper scattered across it, the kind of chaos that said they had been here a while and weren’t planning to leave anytime soon.

  Silver-Eyes flicked me a glance and then deliberately looked away, like I was an eyesore he didn’t want to acknowledge. Bronze wasn’t as subtle, his gaze dragged over me with open disapproval, as if I had personally offended his sense of order just by existing in the same room.

  Grabber, though… yeah, he was still doing it. That watchful, measuring look. Not in a licking-his-lips way, not even in a you’re-a-threat way. More like I was some puzzle piece he hadn’t figured out where to put yet. Okay fine, maybe a little bit in the licking-his-lips way, too.

  They slipped back into talking among themselves, this time about me in the vaguest terms possible.

  “She’s a liability,” Bronze said.

  “Could lock her in the back,” Silver-Eyes offered.

  “That’s not, ” Grabber stopped himself, shifted his weight. “We keep her here. Easier to keep an eye on her.”

  Bronze moved toward me, pulling a coil of rope from a shelf.

  “Oh, wow,” I said, “we are really doing this. What is this, amateur hour? You couldn’t even spring for handcuffs?”

  “It’s not for fun,” he said flatly.

  “Didn’t say it was for fun,” I countered. “Just saying… you tied a girl up in your cabin, people might get the wrong idea. Kinda kinky, don’t you think?”

  Bronze actually stopped for half a beat, then grunted like he had decided I wasn’t worth the mental energy.

  Grabber’s eyes were still on me. “It’s so you stay put.”

  “Or,” I offered, “you could just ask me nicely to stay put.”

  Bronze snorted. Silver-Eyes shook his head like that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.

  Grabber, though, didn’t look away. “Would you?”

  I hesitated, because for some reason the question felt more serious than it should. “…Probably not.”

  The faintest twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth again. “Then the rope stays.”

  Bronze was not gentle about it. The rope bit into my wrists, scratchy and stiff, and he gave an extra tug on the knot like he was worried I might Houdini my way out of it. Spoiler alert: I might.

  “You guys always tie up your guests?” I asked, leaning back against the chair he had shoved me into.

  “You’re not a guest,” Bronze said.

  “Yeah, yeah, you kept saying that. But you were feeding Bagel and giving me a chair. Sounds guest-y to me.”

  Silver-Eyes muttered something I couldn’t make out, but it had the cadence of a swear word. He leaned against the wall near the table, folding those freakishly long fingers like a man who thought patience was a weapon.

  I tilted my head toward Grabber, who was still planted by the wall like he was keeping me in his peripheral. “So, how long have you three been a merry little band of kidnappers?”

  Bronze didn’t answer, but Silver-Eyes’ gaze flickered toward Grabber before he said, “First time.”

  “Well, you certainly seemed well-acquainted for kidnapping first-timers!”

  Silver-Eyes sighed and replied, “This wasn’t how we all met.”

  “Uh-huh. And how did you meet? Book club? Axe-throwing night?”

  Bronze exhaled through his nose. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me. See, if I knew your origin story, I could decide which one of you was the heartthrob, which one was the brooding loner, and which one was comic relief.”

  Silver-Eyes smirked faintly. “You think this is a game.”

  “No,” I said, tilting my head. “I think there is an awkward silence in here unless someone fills it. Might as well be me.”

  Grabber finally pushed off from the wall, crossing the room at a steady pace. He didn’t loom, well, he did, because he was huge, but it wasn’t meant to intimidate. He stopped just in front of me, looking down.

  “You want to know?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  He glanced toward the other two. Bronze rolled his eyes, Silver-Eyes gave a tiny shrug like, your funeral.

  Grabber looked back at me. “We met when we were young, maybe teens. Different places, different lives, but we stuck together.”

  “Aw,” I said, all syrupy sweet. “So it was a lifelong bromance. That’s cute.”

  Bronze muttered, “Wasn’t cute.”

  Silver-Eyes added, “Still isn’t.”

  I leaned forward a little, ropes creaking. “And what did you three do together? Basket weaving? Scaring off travelers? Lifting logs for fun?”

  Grabber’s mouth twitched, not a smile, but close enough to make me suspicious he was at least slightly amused. “Worked. Fought. Survived.”

  “Wow. Riveting details. You should write a memoir.”

  Bronze turned away, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe Grabber was even entertaining this conversation. Silver-Eyes, though, watched me with that same patient stillness, like he was trying to figure out what my angle was.

  And maybe I didn’t have one. Maybe I just wanted to keep them talking so they stopped looking at me like they were calculating my expiration date.

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