“Drago, please,” I beg. “Let me go.”
“You need to learn gratitude,” he snarls.
Then, as suddenly as he grabbed me, he releases me. I gasp, clutching my head, half-convinced my scalp will be bare and bleeding.
I’m desperate to retreat to my room. But the door there is flimsy and Drago is in fine form this evening. Better to stay here where I can see him.
Besides, my brother likes an audience when he’s pontificating. And I know he’s nowhere close to done.
“You’ll get him,” I whisper, because I know he wants reassurance. “Eventually.”
“I know that.” He glowers at me.
He wants more fight from me. More violence. He wants to feel something break beneath his hands. But I refuse to be that something.
His shoulders square as he turns to me, his eyes sparking with fire. “I’m going to—”
“Piss on his body,” I say, beating him to the punch. “I know. You’ve said that already.”
That was a bad thing to blurt. Drago’s eyes narrow. He lashes out instantly, slamming his fist into the side of my face.
I roll to the side at the last second, so the blow isn’t as painful as it might have been. But it hurts nonetheless. Pain washes down the side of my face. My crescent moon scar tingles like it always does in times like this.
Like it did back when I—
No, don’t go there, Renata, I counsel myself. Don’t relive that nightmare.
“You smart-mouthed bitch!” he rages as he makes another grab for me.
I duck out of his reach and scramble around the kitchen island. But he’s after me, huge and stumbling, determined to teach me a lesson.
“No, Drago… please…” I know it’s pointless pleading with him. But it’s instinctive.
“Come here, you little whore!”
I run farther around the kitchen island, forcing him to chase me. He’s slow today, but I know I won’t be able to keep doing laps around the countertop forever.
Even though that’s kind of funny, in a dark, morbid way. I’m picking up right where I left off this afternoon.
Lap number eighty-one…
Lap number eighty-two…
“I’m going to beat some fucking sense into you!”
Lap number eighty-three…
I trip and fall against the fridge.
The sound of glass clatters from inside. Something’s definitely broken in there. When I flip around on my ass, Drago is only inches from me.
Time slows.
I process things one little chunk, one little observation at a time.
His hand reaching out. Dirt under the fingernails. Pinky bent in the wrong direction from when he broke it years ago.
His eyes bulging in their sockets. Brown like mine, but mottled and muted with anger. Shot through with violence.