Revenant (The Midnight Society #3) Read Online Free Page B

shotgun the night of Isadora’s wedding, the same shotgun that smacked me upside the head and drew blood. This man’s orders were responsible for the deaths of everyone at the wedding.
    I prayed Aria made it out alive and found her way back to Shadow.
    On the third day of captivity I decided to retaliate. They may have secured my arms with chains, but I still had a strong pair of legs.
    “Give me your name,” I demanded from the asshole, just as he entered my cell. He had a plate of food in his hands and a hunger for violence in his eyes.
    The man laughed. “Since when do the dead have a right to speak?”
    “Hate to break it to you, but I still feel alive and well.”
    The man delivered a hard punch into my gut that knocked the wind out of me. He leaned in and whispered into my ear, “That’s a minor technicality.”
    The idiot got too close. I took the opportunity to square him in the nuts, taking immense satisfaction as I felt his testicles crunch against the bones of my knee. Immediately, he grabbed his groin and gasped for air.
    He looked wobbly.
    Perfect.
    I followed up with a hard kick to the back of his legs and watched with satisfaction as he tumbled to the ground, falling with the grace of a large oak tree.
    I walked over to him and wrapped the chains around his neck and began to pull—not enough strength to kill him, but just enough to make him feel very uncomfortable.
    “Your name, asshole,” I demanded.
    I knew he wasn’t able to speak with the thick chains crushing his larynx, but I enjoyed taunting him anyway.
    “You look like a Dickface. Is your name, Dickface? Grunt once for yes, twice for no.” I tugged a little harder and listened to his gasping which played out in my ears like a sweet love song.
    “How about Ichabod? I always enjoyed that story of the Headless Horsemen, scared the shit out of me as a kid. There’s something about not having a head that’s just damn creepy. Speaking of which, I think if I pull any tighter on the chains, yours just might go pop.” 
    Suddenly another masked man burst through the door and pointed a gun at me.
    “Let him go,” the man said.
    I feigned ignorance. “Let who go?”
    “Him!” the guy shouted. “Let Buchanan go.”
    So I had my name.
    “Buchanan,” I said. “That’s a solid name. I was hoping for something a little more whimsical, but oh well.” Now it was time to see his face.
    I released my grip on Buchanan, who immediately unraveled the chains from around his neck.
    While he struggled to get away from me, I managed to hook my fingers underneath the back of his mask, and peel the whole thing off like the skin of an orange.
    So this was what Buchanan looked like.
    He had a hard-edged, weathered faced; a man who had downed his fair share of hard liquor over the years. His bald head and unkempt beard reminded me of a Viking, which I supposed suited his personality. The most distinguishing feature of his roughneck face, however, was the deep, cracking scar that started at the top of his left brow, and fell all the way down, past his cheekbone.
    “I’ll fucking kill you,” Buchanan seethed, sucking in heavy breath as he struggled back to his feet. “I’ll rip out your heart with my bare hands.”
    “I guess that’s a fair exchange seeing as how I just decimated your left nut with my right knee.” I taunted.
    Call it a bad habit of mine, but I just couldn’t resist taking that quick jab whenever the opportunity presented itself. Buchanan wrenched the gun out of the other man’s hands, and pushed it up against my forehead, hard.
    “Say that again, boy. I dare you to make another wisecrack,” Buchanan spat.
    This time, I decided to stay silent.
    “You gotta keep your calm,” the other man said. “You know her terms. We only get paid if this guy stays alive.”
    I raised a brow. “Really? I wonder what the going rate for my life is these days. It better be in the seven-digit numerical range, otherwise I’d be highly