“No girls,” I snap.
I’m done hurting girls. Tonight was the last time I’ll fuck with a girl, any girl. I’m done with Dad’s clients, with the girls at school, with the Darling girls. There are enough men in that family to exact our revenge. Girls are too dangerous.
“Then all I’ve got is Colin, and last time I put you up against him, you said you’d kill him if I did it again.”
Tonight, that’s what I want. No rules. No audience. No morality.
Colin Finnegan is the dirtiest fighter there is. He fights like a berserk wolverine who thinks he’s trying out for Ultimate Fighting Champion. Last time I fought him, he tried to take off my kneecap, which would have ended my football career, punched me in the nuts, gouged my eyes, and bit me. He’s lucky he’s still alive.
The smile feels strange and grotesque as it stretches my lips. “Colin would be perfect.”
two
Harper Apple
Suddenly, I’m wide awake. The sounds of the swamp are deafening around me, and yet, I find my heart beating in rapid rhythm, a scared rabbit on the run, as I listen for something more. I’m not sure if I was sleeping or passed out from pain. I only know that a sound woke me.
A soft rippling noise skims across the water, and my throat closes with fear. My mouth is so dry around the gag I can’t swallow. Pain throbs through me, constant and unbearably intense. Fear is the first thing I’ve felt in hours besides mind-crushing pain, but it doesn’t numb me. It only increases my senses, makes it worse.
I push my feet against the ground at the base of the tree, taking the weight off my numb arms and screaming shoulders. I would cry if I had tears left.
“Are you still out here?”
The voice whispers out of the darkness, sliding along the surface of the water, curling around me like a cold snake. My whole body is wracked with a spasm of terror.
They came back.
I don’t make a sound. My heart is beating so hard I think it will rupture. There’s a soft splash and a curse. Slowly, he sloshes along, plodding through the mud and water, closer with each step. I pray he won’t find me. I pray I’ll die of fear before he does.
My mind races out of control with my heart. It isn’t a cop or a search party. It’s too soon for that. They wouldn’t bother with the poor girl who attached herself to a powerful family like the Dolces, anyway. After all, they’ll say, girls like me run away from home over fights with their boyfriends all the time. No one will be surprised. Everyone knows Royal is all I have going for me.
It won’t be like when Royal was kidnapped, whenLocal News with Jackiecamped outside the Dolces’ house hoping to get a word with the rich new family who moved to town and lost their son. I saw that when I went digging for dirt on the Dolce-Darling feud.
It won’t be like when his twin disappeared, and the police organized waves of search parties to look night and day until the Ferrari was dragged from the river and they knew she was gone forever.
For a girl like me, a girl who’s already eighteen and has no family to offer rewards, the police will send out a bulletin and be done with it. If they get suspicious, the Dolces will throw a little money at the mayor to make sure no one looks for me.
“Are you alive?”
What if it’s one of them coming back to kill me? Duke wouldn’t do it alone. Maybe Baron, just for fun. He probably thought he’d give me hope by leaving me alive, and his last cruel joke will be to come back just when I thought I was safe.
Baron would untie me first, lay me on the ground, and take the blindfold off. He’d want to see my eyes, to see the life draining out of me. He’d want to study it. He’d probably get hard from it.
Royal would be fast. He’d just stick a knife between my ribs or swipe it across my throat. No mess, no words. Royal is efficient, I have to give him that. He’d throw the knife in the swamp, and no one would ever find it. It would sink into the mud and disappear forever.
“I know you’re here. Answer me if you’re alive, damn it.”
His voice sounds vaguely familiar—or does it? Maybe it’s delirium.
“I’m going find a dead body, aren’t I?” the guy mutters, as if he’s given up talking to me and is talking to himself now. I don’t care. I’d welcome Baron back, even if he jerked off while he slit my throat. I don’t want to be found, to be woken by a football player with a conscience who came back for me. I want to die.
I sag back against the tree, letting my legs go out from under me again. At some point in the night, my shoulder separated, and now pain drills into it like a bootheel crushing an ant. It’s too big to comprehend. A sound escapes me, some desperate plea for it to end. I can’t contain it. The last tether to my sanity is fraying.
“Was that you? Fuck. It’s creepy as hell out here.”
My parched throat cracks with pain from the sound. Suddenly, a spark hits the blindfold. I can only see a glint, but I know whoever is here, he’s found me. A high, keening sound rips from me unbidden, and pain slashes across the inside of my throat.
“Holy fuck,” the guy says, his voice low with shock.