The Black God - Page 88/187

Jonny was serious.

It was the first thought that emerged from the sluggish depths of her mind. Her eyelids were lead, her body wooden. She managed to pry her eyes open and stared at the wooden beams of a ceiling she didn't recognize.

It came back to her slowly. Brandon disappearing. Her confrontation with the vamps in Oregon. Jonny's determined look when he said he couldn't just let her go.

Ashley groaned and rolled onto her side, cursing herself repeatedly. Morning light filtered in through thin curtains over wide windows. The room wasn't in Jonny's prison. It was small and comfortable with a half-bathroom behind a partially opened door in the corner. She wore her clothing still, down to her boots, and was draped in a thick quilt. She heard no movement outside the closed door to her room and sensed no one nearby.

If she had had more energy, Ashley wouldn't have dropped off into deep slumber. She had rested her head in the crook of her arm for a moment, torn between needing some serious sleep and desperation to find a way out of Jonny's prison when she toppled into sleep.

Rested, if hungry, she pushed herself into a sitting position and flung off the covers. Her body was a little stiff though not as bad as she usually felt the day after a seizure. Normally, she felt like she'd run a marathon and smashed into every tree along the homestretch.

Ashley made it halfway to the door before something tight around her ankle prevented her right leg from moving. She looked down, surprised.

"Oh, real nice, Jonny," she muttered. Her ankle was chained to the bed. She retreated to the post she was connected to, surprised to see someone had made the effort to cement the bed into blocks too large for her to budge.

She tested her distance and was able to make it into the bathroom but not close the door. Her wallet and phone were gone, along with her weapons. She had nothing to occupy her in the tiny room and crossed to the window. Her view was of the forest except … She frowned.

It wasn't the same pine forest she'd gone to sleep in. This was a forest of deciduous trees with flat leaves and white trunks. Jonny could have moved her anywhere in the world. Where was she?

Irritated, Ashley returned to the bed and sat. She didn't have time to fiddle with her restraints. The door opened, and she sprang to her feet, ready to defend herself with hand to hand combat.

The vamp that entered was one she recognized from the lodge. Jonny had seemed to favor this one. Tall and broad shouldered with red eyes and dark hair, the vamp bore a McDonald's bag in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.