“Swallow!”
I fight as I feel the pill dissolve in my mouth, trying to push it to the side with my tongue so it doesn’t go down my throat.
“Swallow the fucking pill. If you want to use the bathroom, swallow it!”
She is growing more and more irritated. I open my mouth and stick out my tongue.
“Not as stupid as you look,” she sneers. “In twenty minutes, after the pill kicks in, you can use the bathroom.”
“What did you give me?” I ask, trying to remain calm.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She leaves again, and when she comes back in the room, she looks at me. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you in the fucking head if you try anything stupid.”
She unties my wrists and then my feet. I look at my wrists, both swollen, one definitely broken.
I stand up from the bed, and she shoves me. I fall on the floor, and she laughs.
“Get the fuck up, whore.”
I push myself up on my elbows, ignoring the pain. I know it’s now or never.
I turn and lunge at her.
“You sick bitch! You sick fucking bitch!” I use what strength I have to try and wrestle the gun from her hands. It slips from her hands and slides across the floor.
She is bigger and unharmed. She pushes me off her and kicks me.
“No! Please no!”
I scramble toward the gun, and she kicks me again. I reach for it, grasping the cold metal.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I tell her, pushing past the pain to hold the gun in my hands like Jason taught me. “I don’t want to, but I will.”
I sit up, pointing the gun at her, and she laughs.
I click the safety off. “I will. Don’t you move!”
“Fuck you!” she screams and lunges at me.
Chapter Twenty - Eight
Ryan and Dr. Bennett pull up in the same car. I don’t even bother saying hello as I go directly to the passenger seat and yank Ryan out.
“You sick, sorry bastard! I know what you did to Heidi. Now you tell me where the fuck Lo is, and you tell me now, or so help me God, I’m going to rip you apart slowly and painfully like you did Heidi’s heart.”
His mouth opens and closes, but no words come out as Dr. Bennett rounds the front of their overpriced foreign car.
“Now, Jason, there must be some sort of misunderstanding. Our family loves Lorraine, and we loved Heidi as well. Ryan didn’t do anything but fall in love as a teenager with a girl he planned a future with. It was ended all too soon and tragically, but he loved her, and then we took in Lorraine.”
“What do you know?” Ryan finally croaks out.
I pull him back and slam him against the car. “What do I know? What the fuck do I know! I know you cheated on Hi. I know she wanted nothing more to do with you until you threatened to kill yourself. I know that after she died, you manipulated Lo into wearing a wig and fucking you, all so you could pretend you still had Hi. I know that you did all of this to Lo in this very house.” I point to their home behind me.
“You wonder why she went back to her own mental prison.” I look to Dr. Bennett. “Because living here, she wasn’t Lorraine, not to your twisted-ass son. She was Heidi.”
I turn my gaze back on Ryan. “And you were dead to Heidi long before she was dead to the earth. So tell me, pretty boy, who were you fucking?”
He hangs his head in shame.
“Dammit.” I shake him and slam him into the car again. “I don’t know where Lo is. I don’t know who the fuck killed her family, but I do know it ties back to this family. So, Ryan, I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you ever loved Heidi one little bit or cared for Lorraine even the slightest, you will answer me. Who were you fucking?”
He looks at his dad.
“Let it be, Mr. Stanley,” the doctor practically growls at me.
I turn to him, releasing Ryan, and hold my hands up. “You have no idea what these are capable of when someone I care about is in danger. Lo is a woman of her word. She said she was going to be somewhere, and she wasn’t there. I can’t find her, and I have a feeling you guys somehow might know where she is or who she’s with. I don’t want anything more than answers.” I shake my head at him. “You’ve gotta know, Dr. Bennett, that I’ll get those answers by any means necessary.”
“She’s missing?” Ryan asks from behind me.
“That’s what the fuck I said and why the fuck I’m here.” I look over my shoulder at him. “Honestly, the past is the past. I don’t care where you get your dick wet. I care about finding Lo and making her feel safe for now and forever.”