Hunted

and I drew in a deep breath, readying myself to call whatever element I’d need to combat this new faceless threat, when Kramisha stepped calmly out of the shadows. She gave Erik a long, considering look and said, “Boyyyy, you is workin’ it here in the tunnel? Damn! You got some game.”
    Erik turned to her as he tucked me under his arm. I didn’t need to look up at him to know that he had an easy smile on his face. Erik was a seriously good actor. The face he was showing Kramisha was under control, with just the right amount of sexy, got-caught-in-the-act to it.
    “Hey there, Kramisha,” he said smoothly.
    On the other hand you have me. I could barely stand, let alone speak. I knew my face was beet red and my lips looked bruised and damp. Hell, I probably looked bruised and damp. “Kramisha, did you see anything over there in the tunnel?” I jerked my chin in the direction of the shadows behind us and managed to sound only semi-porn star and breathless.
    “No, girl, I only seen you and your boy here sucking face,” Kramisha said quickly.
    I wondered if maybe she hadn’t answered a little too quickly.
    “Aww! Are Erik and Z making out? That’s so sweet!” Seemingly from nowhere, Jack suddenly materialized behind Kramisha, Duchess woofing and wagging by his side.
    “Z, don’t freak. You probably just saw more of those bats,” Erik said, squeezing my shoulder reassuringly before he nodded at Jack. “Hey there, Jack. I thought you’d be basking in a hot shower by now.”
    “He’s gonna, but he came to help me get some towels and stuff,” Kramisha said. “And, yeah, there is definitely bats down here. They don’t mess with us if we don’t mess with them.” Then she yawned and did a seriously impressive stretch that made her look like a long, lean black cat. “Since you here, how ’bout you two helping Jack carry the stuff back to the showers and I’ll just take me a little beauty sleep?”
    “No problem. We’d be glad to help,” I said, regaining my voice and feeling like a moron for letting bats in a dark tunnel almost scare the poopie out of me. Jeesh, I must really need some sleep. “Erik and I were just heading to the bathrooms.”
    Kramisha gave us a long, slow look that wasn’t any less knowing because she was sleepy. “Uh-huh. You looked like you was headin’ to the bathrooms.”
    I felt myself blush again.
    She turned, and I thought she was going to (bizarrely) walk right into the tunnel wall behind her, but instead she disappeared into it. Then I heard a match strike and a flickering lantern illuminated a hollowed-out section of the tunnel, just a little bit smaller than Dallas’s room. Kramisha hung the lantern on a spike and then looked over her shoulder at us.
    “Well? What you waitin’ for?”
    “Oh, yeah, okay,” I said.
    Jack, Duchess, Erik, and I moved up beside Kramisha to look into the new room. It actually had shelves built into the squared cement walls and looked just like a tidy closet. I gazed at neat piles of folded towels and, weirdly enough, big puffy bathrobes that Duchess was nosing around.
    “Is that dog sanitary?” Kramisha asked.
    “Damien says that a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s,” Jack said, patting the big yellow Lab on her head.
    “We ain’t humans,” Kramisha said. “So could you please keep her big wet nose off the merchandise?”
    “Fine. But try to remember that she’s been through a trauma and her feelings are easily hurt.”
    While Jack pulled Duchess over to him and had a very serious conversation with her about keeping her nose off things, I stared at the piles of stuff. “Huh. Who knew all this was here?”
    “Aphrodite,” Kramisha said as she filled our arms with terry cloth. “She paid for it. Or her mama’s gold card money did. You wouldn’t believe all the stuff you can order from Pottery Barn if you got unlimited credit. It’s made me decide once and for all on my future career.”
    “Really? What do you want to do?” Jack asked. Duchess sitting politely beside him, he held his arms out to be filled with towels and robes.
    “I’m gonna be an author. One of those rich ones. With an unlimited gold card. Do you know people act different to you when you got you some serious credit?”
    “Yeah, I guess. I have seen store people kiss the Twins’ butts,” Jack said. “Their families have money, too.” He whispered the last part like it was a big secret, which it wasn’t. Everyone knew the Twins’