by JJ King
I pictured Dimitri’s glowering eyes in my mind and knew he would understand. A split second later, Lucian’s face appeared in my mind and my determination faltered. Would he want me to never give up? Would he advocate life at all costs?
I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and picture Chase, too, to wonder over what he would want me to do, because it was easier than being solely responsible for my own decisions.
Fuck that. I gritted my teeth. That was the response of a child and I’d seen too much in my short life to be a child. I put a hand on the wall behind me to steady myself and squared my shoulders.
“I’ll rip your throat out if you try,” I said through a clenched jaw. I balled my hand into a fist by my side.
Randall tilted his head to the side as he watched me, the grin still growing with oily disgust. “That only makes it more fun. Don’t you know that, Alexis? Or was your education stunted because of silly arbitrary rules?”
He took a step forward that had me scampering along the wall, out of reach.
My gaze darted around the room, searching for something to put between us. The chair would work, but it was so far away. If I could get to it—
I could get one of the stakes out of the dresser.
Hope swelled in my chest and I hoped Randall wasn’t right about my every thought playing out on my face. I pushed the hope down into my gut and turned to glare at him. I needed time and an excuse to get across the room.
“If you wanted to fuck me all these years, why didn’t you just do it?” I hissed, shocked at the words that tumbled from my mouth. They disgusted me and put a sick taste in my mouth, but I had to keep going. “Or were you just too much of a boot licking sycophant to risk losing Raphael’s approval to do what you wanted?”
Randall straightened, pulling back just a little. I moved farther across the wall, closing in on the dresser.
“Is that what you think I was? A ‘boot licking sycophant?’” He made little air quotes around his head and frowned.
I spat in his direction, which had him taking another step back.
“You begged for his attention,” I said with disgust warping my voice. “You all did. His approval was so fucking important to you that you were willing to torture your own sisters and mothers, for Old One’s sake!”
Actual disgust tore at my chest as I remembered the women that had lived in captivity with me.
The expression on his face would've been comical if it wasn't so psychotic. He was standing before me, having kidnapped me, and drugged me, and planning to rape me, after years of keeping me trapped in a mountain, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with his life. I was utterly confounded and let it show. If it kept him distracted and preoccupied while I'd made my way to the stakes, I'd go with it.
Plus, it would be cathartic as hell.
"You don't even see it, do you?" I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. "Do you think you're normal? Do you think any of this is normal?"
My voice rose with each question. "Randall, think about it." I tapped my forehead. "You were taken from your mother's arms as an infant and raised by a psychopath who trained you to be exactly like him. How are you surprised that I see you as a sycophant?"
I threw my hands in the air and nearly lost my balance as my legs shook from fatigue and abuse.
His lip curled. "Of course you see it that way," he said in a low voice that sent skitters of fear up my spine and made me worry that I'd pushed him too far. "You're nothing. Just a little girl who can't possibly understand what it was we were doing, what he was doing." Randall shook his head pityingly.
I embraced my hate and sneered right back at him. “I know all about the prophecy, you fuckwad. I also know your boss was a megalomaniac with dreams of world domination.” I shook my head, wondering why the insane couldn’t just see their insanity. “He had a God complex and brainwashed all of you into believing he was the second coming. You would have died for him, wouldn’t you?”
I winged my eyebrows up in question, widened my arms, and took a few steps towards my goal. It was just a few more steps away. I had to get him to look away for a moment.
Randall paused as if considering my words and I was so surprised, I allowed myself to get distracted and didn’t notice the raised floorboard. I went down hard, landing on my knees with a thud. Cursing, I reached for the top of the dresser to pull myself back up and silently blessed the old floor for giving me a reason to position myself in front of the drawer. I slipped my hands behind my back as if I were leaning against the dresser to stay upright, which wasn’t exactly a lie.
I was so shaky and weak; I had no idea what I was going to do once I got my hands on one of the stakes. Other than expending energy on beating the shit out of me, Randall was at full strength. He was also bigger and older than me, which meant I was at a serious disadvantage. I needed to be smart.
I thought back to the self-defense lessons Rose had encouraged us girls to participate in. She’d said it would give us confidence, which it had. She’d had us start with women instructors, then dummies shaped like men, then, finally, male instructors. Gradually, we’d gotten better, more confident, until taking on a man was just another Tuesday sports match.
Aim for the vulnerable bits, I thought, remembering Rose’s sage advice.
Randall’s vulnerable bits included his manhood, his stomach, his neck, and his eyes. Since he was taller than me, his neck and eyes weren’t the smartest choices. I would have to be elevated to swing down with enough strength to maim him. That left balls and stomach.
It would be beyond satisfying to castrate him, but I had to be realistic. I needed to use what I had to inflict the most damage so I could get the hell away and back to my guys.
“I would have died for him,” Randall said, shocking me out of my battle plans. “We all would have, and now he’s dead. Thanks to your friends. He was my family, and you were just a means to an end. An inconvenience on the path to our goal.”
He rose his shaky hand to his hair and combed through as emotion thickened his voice. “They took everything from me, so I’ll take everything from them. Fair is fair.”
He said those last words in a singsong voice that brought a stark realization to light.
Randall had actually lost his fucking mind. I was talking to another psychopath.
I resisted the urge to barf and worked the tips of my fingers into the top of the drawer, pulling it out the tiniest bit at a time. Any quicker and he’d notice. Not that he was particularly observant right now. His eyes had a weird, glazed look and were damp with unshed tears.
His gaze flicked up to my face. “I think I’ll send a little token along with the pictures, just to show them I’m serious.” His smile burned too bright, like a flare of the sun, wild and manic. “You’ll survive without a finger or two.”
He strode across the space between us, so fast I barely had time to think or move. I shoved my hand into the drawer and curled my fingers around a piece of wood, praying it was one of the thicker ones.
I whipped my hand free, twisting my body to provide momentum as he reached for my shoulders, and swung the stake around and into his side.
His howl exploded the silence of the room and filled me with triumph. Adrenaline pumped through my body, chasing away the pain and weakness just enough to bring clarity.
Randall was dangerous. He was insane. He would kill me if he had the chance.
Blood poured from his wound, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. I needed to give myself a chance to get away, to run, to find my guys again.
I reached for his shoulders and grabbed hold of his shirt. With a scream that burst from my gut, I pulled him forward as I lunged into him, lifting my knee in a well-timed attack on his family jewels.
His eyes went wide and glassy as he fell to the floor, one hand pressed to his side, one to his crotch.
“Sadistic asshole,” I said, glaring down at him as the adrenaline ebbed and my body began to shiver.
I ran on shaking legs acr
oss the room and through the door into a hallway, slamming it shut behind me. With no way to lock it, I had to move. I’d hurt him, but without silver to impede his shift, he wasn’t out of the game yet. I’d just slowed him down and given myself time.
Regret that I hadn’t bashed his head in, kicked him harder when he was down, done something, anything to incapacitate him further, washed over me, leeching away my remaining energy.
“Fuck,” I muttered, gritting my teeth. It was a mistake, a stupid one that might cost me more than I was willing to pay. I took a deep breath and headed for the stairs. They were worn and ancient, but sturdy, and a way out. I cringed as I forced my legs to move and bend with each step, and held on tight to the bannister, afraid I would fall if I let go.
My brain shut out everything but the sound of Randall’s curses and the path before me. I needed to find a way out or another weapon. I had no idea if he had stashed a weapon somewhere or if he would find my stakes.
Stupid, I chided myself. Stupid to leave them there. But what choice did I have? I’d had to move and rooting around in a dresser would have slowed me down. I couldn’t waste time or energy regretting the past; I had to focus on what to do next.
At the bottom of the stairs, I had a choice. Left or right. I darted left, hoping it would lead to something useful. It brought me down a long corridor decorated with dusty wallpaper, and into a dilapidated kitchen.
I needed to shift, needed the magic to tear through my body, remaking me, reforming my bones and muscles to help me heal. Heart pounding erratically, I called to her…
And hit a wall inside my mind.
Panic ripped through me. Why couldn’t I shift? I stared down at my body, bruised and torn, and began furiously skimming my fingers over flesh, looking for something I hadn’t noticed before, something—
There!
My fingertips skimmed over a bump at the base of my neck, to the right of my spine. It was small, barely anything at all, but it hadn’t been there before. I was certain of it.
The skin over it was intact, fully healed, so it had been inserted a while ago, probably when Randall had drugged and kidnapped me from campus.
Whatever it was, I had to get it out. Now.
I looked around the kitchen, searching for a knife or something sharp to cut it out of me. Precious seconds ticked by.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, curling my fingers over the protrusion and digging beneath. A moment later, I looked down at a pill-sized microchip covered in my blood. Inside the clear plastic coating, a tiny red light blinked on and off next to a piece of silver.
“You son of a—” I cut myself off, knowing Randall’s mother was innocent of his actions. She didn’t deserve to be called names because of him.
The floorboard above me creaked ominously. My time was up but at least he wouldn’t be able to track me anymore. I walked to the kitchen sink and dropped the microchip down the drain then turned and scanned the ancient room again, willing a gun or chainsaw to show up.
“Damnit,” I grumbled when nothing popped out at me.
Except an old door.
I rushed to it, limping from abused muscles. I thought about shifting into my wolf but the sound of Randall’s halting gait down the stairs set my heart racing. I didn’t have time. Maybe if she came as quickly as she had before, but there was no way to know if that would happen. No, once I was outside and found a place to hide, I could shift and be free.
I closed my fingers around the doorknob and pulled with all my might, praying it wouldn’t be sealed shut like the window.
The door groaned loudly but swung wide open. I sucked in a breath and looked out at the trees. They were thick, the perfect place to hide, but also far away and I had no idea if Randall had a gun.
“I hope you fucking like silver, bitch! Because you’ll be eating it soon,” he screamed as he descended the stairs.
Well, that answered that question.
I stepped through the open doorway, dug my feet into the ground leading out to the forest, then brushed the dirt off and carefully slipped back into the house, leaving the door wide open. I didn’t know if it was smart or not, but I’d seen it on an episode of some show and had thought it clever at the time. Bait and switch.
A dark passageway led to another door, this one already open. I wouldn’t have to worry about it creaking. I thanked the Old Ones for my naturally keen sight and took the first step into darkness.
As slowly as I could, I made my way down another set of stairs to a dank basement where light came to die. Even with my enhanced eyesight, it was almost impossible to see anything. I chewed my lips and moved silently around the room, patting the walls, searching for a door or window.
Upstairs, I heard Randall’s growl of frustration then his voice fading as he followed my tracks and left the house. I said a quick thank you to the Old Ones for watching over me and kept searching.
When my palm touched something metal, I took a deep breath and patted the area like a blind woman, trying to figure out what the object was. Finding the latch nearly made me sob.
Randall’s shouts were still audible, louder now that he was back inside the house, so if I could just open this door quietly, I could get the fuck away from him.
I worked the latch, careful not to make a sound, and winced when the hinges, probably unused for years, groaned as I opened the wooden door. The scent of pre-dawn breeze filled my lungs with renewed hope.
I climbed the few stairs, glanced to each side, then turned towards the forest and willed myself to run.
Each step was a step close to freedom, to my guys, to life.
I’d made it ten steps when my world exploded.
Chapter 24
I threw my hands out and loosed an agonized scream as a bullet tore through my thigh, sending me sprawling. Rocks ate up my palms as I hit the ground, but I was too busy praying for salvation to notice.
Sharp, manic laughter filled the air, making my stomach churn while pain radiated like lightning strikes through my leg and up my side. I rolled to my back and tried to sit up, desperate to see the damage, to know if the bullet had been silver.
If it was, I would be dead soon.
Movement sent shocks of pain through my system, making my heart thunder. I heard Randall walking towards me, heard his taunting words, but blocked everything out.
My shorts were high cut, so I didn’t need to rip them away to expose the bullet wound. They were soaked, though, with the bright red blood that poured from the hole in my thigh. I gasped for breath, praying for strength as I gently probed the area with my fingertips to see if it was silver or not.
The wound hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but it wasn’t caused by a silver bullet. I’d been tortured with silver way too many times in my life to be fooled. Still, I thought, as I angled my gaze towards Randall, who was still holding the gun in his hand, I was young and could be killed by a bullet, any bullet, if it hit the right spot.
I narrowed my eyes as he approached, stopping a few feet away from me. He was hiding something behind his back, and the wicked grin on his face, reflected in the bright glint of insanity in his eyes, made my blood curdle.
"You can run, but you can't hide," he said with a laugh.
I seriously wondered how he'd managed to pull off a kidnapping when he was obviously so close to the edge of a mental breakdown, if he hadn't already leaped over that cliff. I had some suspicions that he'd not only made the jump some time ago, but that he'd been falling for half his lifetime.
"You can't kill me," I blurted, hoping I was right. "You'll lose your leverage if you do."
I glanced from him back down to my leg, where blood flowed freely. I needed to apply pressure, or he wouldn't have to kill me. I would bleed out soon enough. I grabbed the edge of my shirt and ripped off a long swath of fabric, and folded and pressed it over the wound, hissing as pain washed over me, threatening to drag me under. I fought against the lure of the darkness. Unconsciousness might make the pain go away, but it would also g
ive this maniac free reign over my body.
Randall tapped his chin then spread his hand as if conceding I'd made a fair point.
"You're right, but I don't need you dead. I just need you to stop squirming." He pulled out what he'd been hiding behind his back, and chuckled as I went silent and still. "What? You didn't think I'd forget about my little promise, did you?"
The long old-fashioned garden shears were rusted from years of neglect, and stained green from frequent use. Still, they were sharp, steel, and deadly.
Why couldn't I have found them first?
I forced myself to keep breathing, to calm my racing pulse. The fucker was going to cut off one of my fingers, and soon, if I didn't figure out a way to stop him. Freaking out and hyperventilating wasn't going to provide me the answers I needed.
I glared at him. "I figured maybe your fucked-up brain might forget or that, you know, I'd be in the forest by now, getting away."
I fluttered my fingers towards the trees and wished my plan had worked. My wolf pushed against my mind, trying to assert herself and take over, but I pushed her back. Shifting would make me vulnerable, too, and I couldn't give Randall an excuse to fire another bullet into my flesh, not when this one hurt so fucking bad.
He advanced a step and I scuttled back, moving as quickly as I could while ignoring the pain coursing through my body.
“You were never going to get away, Alexis,” he said simply, quietly. The sudden switch in his behavior, the shift from manic to utter calm, was striking. It threw me so completely that I froze, unable to think clearly enough to figure it out, to think up my next move.
That split-second distraction was my ruin.
Randall moved like a cobra, darting forward so fast my astonished brain didn't have time to respond. His fingers wrapped around my ankle, pinning my leg to the ground, just long enough for his knee to replace it.
