Glimpse (The Tesla Effect Book 1) Read Free Page B

shoulder. “Is there still beer in the keg?”
    Finn craned his head around the doorway to get a look at the two guys who had approached, and he tensed with the onrush of sudden adrenaline.
    Tesla moved closer to Mal to make room for the newcomers. She and Mal and Keisha had to press tightly together to accommodate the two giants—football players in all likelihood, with their ham-sized hands, powerful shoulders, and disturbing absence of neck.
    “Well, hey, sweet thing,” said the guy closest to Tesla as he peered down at her. His eyes raked her body before he turned to the keg and bent low to pump it, an empty red cup in his other hand.
    Tesla looked down at the top of the guy’s head, which was already balding at the crown. Geez, how old are these guys, anyway? she thought.
    “C’mon, Tesla, let’s get out of here,” said Malcolm. “I’m hungry.”
    A loud thump , followed immediately by a grunt of pain and several excited voices yelling encouragement from the parlor caught Finn’s attention. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw two idiots pummeling each other. They swung wildly, with little effect but the almost certain outcome of crashing into Lydia’s antique table and flower-filled vase.
    He would have to take care of it.
    He glanced back briefly at the tableau by the keg and cursed the piss-poor timing of all drunks and their inexplicable need to show each other their beer muscles, and sprinted away to break up the fight.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 2
     
     
     
    “C’mon, Tesla, let’s get out of here,” Malcolm said. “I’m hungry.”
    Tesla jumped, just a little, as the big blond hulk straightened up quickly and loomed over her, his beer still unpoured.
    “Tesla?” he asked sharply as he stared at her, hard. “What’s your last name?”
    Tesla felt the jolt of an unnamed fear that hit her stomach, traveled to the tips of her fingers and toes, and left her breathless. She said nothing, only returned his stare.
    “Who wants to know?” asked Keisha as she stepped up next to Tesla.
    “I’m sure all the guys want to know,” said the other giant, his short dark hair cut close to his head as well. “What’s your name?” His voice was sharp, too, his eyes as hard and bright as a bird of prey, not at all like the lazy, hazy voice of some beer-soaked jock.
    Both men seemed to lean in closer, to cut off Tesla’s air supply and shrink the space around her until she was wedged in, trapped by the bodies, the keg, and the walls of the kitchen. She took a step back—approximately six-point-three inches. She knew instinctively that this would allow her to clear Malcolm’s body and make a straight line to the arched, interior doorway and the big, hotel-lobby-like room they’d been in earlier, which would be the shortest route of escape, even if only by a little over three feet. The back door was closer, of course, but she’d have to get past these two guys to reach it.
    Before she could react to his sudden movement, Tesla’s wrist was caught in the blond giant’s fist. “Let’s talk,” he said softly, and it wasn’t a question. “Out back where it’s quiet and we can get to know each other.”
    Tesla leaned away from him as he began to pull her toward the back door. “No, I don’t think—” she began, but was cut off by Keisha’s outraged voice.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded loudly. “Let go of her!”
    The other man ignored Keisha, as well as Tesla’s struggles against his partner, and stepped quickly to the back door and opened it. The unlit night was revealed as the man stepped outside, the sound of his footsteps sharp against the wooden stairs, and was swallowed by the darkness. The blond one, Tesla’s wrist still in his vice-like grip, walked toward the door with Tesla in tow, her feet actually sliding across the hardwood floor. She frantically tried to peel his fingers from her wrist with her other hand, but they were like iron