Adrian pulled me away from the fridge then pushed me hard to the floor. My back slammed against the metal footrest of the barstool. Pain ripped through my ribcage knocking the wind out of me.
“You’re mine!” Adrian said, his voice spiteful and loud, but not enough to alert the neighbours. “You always will be. I can’t go on without you!”
He cracked his neck. The sound of his bones falling back into place made my stomach twist in knots.
“Do you think Thomas will still want you once you tell him about this? Once he finds out every dirty little secret from your past? Do you think he’ll even look at you?”
Thomas stayed at the back of my mind, but the look on his face changed from determination to disdain.
“Face it, puppet. You might be messed up in a different way than I am, but you’re still fucked up. Only I know the real you. Only I know how seriously fucked up you are.”
“Shut up, shut up,” I muttered, rocking back and forth to block out his word and their effect.
Adrian crouched in front of me, grabbed a handful of my hair, and pulled hard to make me look him in the eyes.
“You came back to me. You knew how this would end, but you came back. You want this. Deep down you know it makes you feel alive.Imake you feel alive.”
He stood and yanked me up by my hair. The moment I supported my own weight, he shoved me back at the floor. My face crashed against a round handle on the cupboard door.
Tears blurred my vision when I spotted the knife I dropped on the floor, a foot to my left.
“No one can love you like I do,” Adrian seethed. “This is it, puppet. You and me, forever.”
Forever played out in my head, the vicious cycle never ending, always going around like a looped roller coaster. Love, pain, hate, remorse…forgivenessand again. Over, and over, never ending, never changing.
I inched toward the blade, my breathing shallow, quick.
This couldn’t be my life. I refused to settle for hell when I tasted heaven.
I grabbed the knife, my hands shaking, but my mind made. This time, I wasn’t afraid to hurt Adrian. When he lunged forward, I stabbed his stomach. His brows furrowed and lips parted when he glanced down.
“You…” he gasped, looking as if he sobered up in an instant.
He cringed. Pain registered in his brain, but it lasted mere seconds. His eyes darkened; jaw clenched; wrath quadrupled.
PCP had that effect on people—it made them feel invincible.
There was no time to react. No time to run. He gripped my throat, lifted me off the ground as if weighed nothing, and pinned me to the wall, squeezing so hard he cut off my air supply.
“You’ll pay for that!”
I scratched his hand, kicked his legs, and smacked his face, survival mode in highest gear. I balanced on the verge of fainting when the door to the apartment opened.
Ty sprinted it across the living, throwing his hand back then forward with full force. His fist slammed against the side of Adrian’s head once, then again and again. Adrian let me go to push Ty away as if he weren’t more than an annoying insect.
I broke into a coughing fit, desperately pumping air into my lungs, my breaths erratic, shallow.
Adrian pushed Ty away, then turned to me again, his moves slower as if the drugs were starting to wear off. He outstretched his hands, but Ty was faster. He grabbed a bottle of wine from the counter and smashed it on the back of Adrian’s head. He tumbled to the floor with a thud, unconscious.
I scuttled away, sliding on the floor until my back rested against the couch in the living room.
Ty kneeled in front of me and cupped my face.
“Look at me,” he pleaded. “We need to call an ambulance, or he’ll bleed out, but youcan’ttell them you did it.”
“But…” I choked; my body shaken by the hysterical sobs. “It was self-defence, Ty, he…”
“I know.” He pulled me into his arms. “I know, but they’ll want to question you, and it might take days before they’ll let you go back to London. I’m not having it. You’re going back first thing tomorrow.” He kissed the crown of my head, then looked me in the eyes. “I’ll call the ambulance, and you go along with anything I say, okay?”