“Aren’t you worried I’ll hurt you?” he asked, his tone threatening again.
I replied calmly. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because black.”
“Black?” he pressed.
I inched in, getting in his face. “Because I’m in the black right now, and here… I think I enjoy myself,” I said, remembering last night and the freedom of risking and fighting and meeting your match. I wanted that life. “The only part of me anyone can ever hurt is my heart, and there’s no one on the planet my heart is more out of reach from than you,” I growled.
He jostled me in his arms, and I could hear him breathing through his teeth.
“Big words for such a little girl,” he said.
“Same old, same old, from the same, scared little boy,” I shot back. “Still climbing into fountains to hide from Mommy?”
“Mommy?” he repeated. “I killed that bitch last night.”
I faltered, unnerved he would say something so odd. Of course, he was just talking shit. I’d heard his mother, Madame Delova, left Thunder Bay a few years ago and never returned.
What the hell was the matter with him? Did he want my father putting a restraining order on him? I hated Damon Torrance, but even I didn’t want that. It would just make my parents worry to learn I was having problems with him at school, and Thunder Bay would be like being in a frying pan if I got one of the school’s star players in trouble. Everyone would see it as my fault.
“Let me go,” I told him. “Let me go or I’ll bite.”
“Exactly wha
t I had in mind.”
What? Why would he want me to bite him?
“Let me go,” I said.
He didn’t budge.
“Let. Me. Go.”
Nothing.
Diving in, I sank my teeth into his jaw, hearing him let out a chuckle, and bit down harder to shut him the hell up.
Asshole.
I couldn’t reach much, given my position, otherwise I’d go for his ear and tear it off, but I clamped down on his bone, my teeth digging into the skin.
Harder. I increased the pressure. Harder.
He froze, just standing there, and when his breathing became raspy, I knew he was about to tap out and let me go. It had to hurt.
But instead of freeing me, he stuttered, “Har—Harder.”
Rage twisted my face, and I bit down as hard as I could, my teeth aching in my jaw, and I heard him pant and gasp, and then his arms fell, and I was free. I fell to the ground and pushed him away, knocking him in the nose.
He grunted and stumbled, because I heard the shuffle of buckets and brooms.
“Next time, I’ll be armed. And I’ll kill you,” I told him.
I began to walk away, and I heard his voice behind me. “You might have to.”