He had turned her way. Good.
‘You wanna know how many hours I’ve spent thinking of you? Fuck all.’
She had no choice but to speak to Symes in a language he understood. ‘Oh no, actually, I lied, there was this one time I was laughing my head off while telling a group of guys how I single-handedly took you down and blinded you in one eye.’
She could see the rage colouring his face.
‘They were a bunch of chauvinistic pigs who couldn’t believe that a woman had done that alone. Still hurts, doesn’t it, your ego?’
She was rewarded with a kick to the left side of her ribcage. She groaned and swallowed down the pain.
‘Did you tell them in prison that you were taken down by a woman? How hard did they laugh? I mean, there are some proper hard men—’
She stopped as a second kick to the same spot sent her sideways.
‘Of c…course you’re going to win this time. You’ve got me tied up and that’s the only way you can win this. Y…you’d better hope your mates in prison don’t hear about th…this.’
The pain was making it increasingly difficult for her to speak, but while there was breath in her body she’d carry on.
‘I’m not surprised you don’t plan on going back. They’d laugh you out of the fucking place.’
She readied herself for another kick, but what she saw coming her way chilled her to the bone. A smile.
She had lost him.
‘Oh, Stone, you’re fucking good,’ he said, giving her a little clap of appreciation. ‘You know how to get under my skin, but I’m not falling for it, and I know just how to shut you up.’
He took a roll of duct tape and walked back towards the girls.
He kicked the nearest one in the knee. She screamed out in pain. He smiled wider as he turned around and approached Kim.
‘Now, you’re gonna have to listen without speaking and watch the screams and the agony I’m gonna cause.’
He ripped off a piece of duct tape and leaned down to place it over her mouth.
Kim knew she was out of time. He had caught on too quickly. She was powerless to fight him physically. She had only one weapon left.
‘If you do that you’ll never have time to get to me,’ she said, playing her very last card. ‘Take out my phone. Front of my trousers.’
His face darkened. ‘I threw your fucking phone away.’
‘Decoy. Mine is still here.’
‘Stop trying to waste my fucking time.’
‘You’ll regret it, Symes. You were right about the tracker but not the phone.’
He roughly reached into her waistband. ‘You fucking—’
‘Take the back off. You’ll see a tiny green chip. That’s the tracker.’
‘You’re fucking lying,’ he said, prising off the back under the torchlight.
‘They’re not going to be far away now. You can spend your time hurting them, but you’ll get caught before you get to me.’
He found what he was looking for.
‘You’ve got time to get away with the person who you’ve fantasised about for years, but you’ve got to do it now. It’s them or me.’