Savage Hearts

“Do it now,” Todd says again, still in that calm voice that makes it clear he knows he’s won. “You know I don’t bluff. You take one more step with that bat and he loses an ear. I saw the dents in Jeremy’s head. I don’t need a matching set.”

Sam stops, swaying on her feet for a moment before she crouches down, laying the bat in the dirt. “There. It’s down. Now let him go.”

Todd chuckles. “Take five steps to your right and sit down against that tree.”

Sam’s eyes meet mine and I shake my head. The movement ends in a groan as Todd’s knife slices the skin at my throat, but it will be worth it if Sam will run.

Please, Sam, I beg with my eyes. Please, run. Run!

“Stop,” she says, voice breaking. “Don’t hurt him. I’m going.”

“Run,” I gasp. “Run!”

Todd silences me by wrapping his free hand around my neck and squeezing until the world goes black around the edges. I buck against his hold, but in this position I can’t get any leverage. All I can do is arch my back, flex the muscles in my throat, and fight to keep him from crushing my windpipe. I fight back as best I can, but by the time he releases me, I’m dizzy and weak, with black spots dancing in front of my eyes and blood thudding heavily in my ears.

“Next time you talk, you die,” he whispers into my ear, his lips moving against the sweat-slicked skin of my cheek, making me shudder.

His whisper is more convincing than a scream.

He isn’t making a threat to scare Sam. Sam probably couldn’t even hear him. He was making me a promise, one I know he’ll keep if I open my mouth again.

Swallowing hard, I look up to find Sam seated against the tree, her legs drawn to her chest. She’s in an upright fetal position, arms clenched tight around her legs, but I can still see her shaking. Her entire body seems to vibrate, making the curls that have escaped her bun dance around her head. Her eyes are wide and she looks terrified, but I know her better than that.

Sam doesn’t shake like that when she’s scared.

She only shakes that hard when she’s angry.

I try to take comfort in the fact that she’s going to fight back, but I’m too damned sick to my stomach. I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want her to be forced to watch. And I sure as hell don’t want her to die.

I want to marry her on a beach in Thailand. I want to take her home to Croatia and celebrate with my family. I want to watch her hair grow out to its old beautiful brown with the red streaks in it and the joy return to her eyes. I want the happiness and the time and the love and the children and the life that this monster and his friends have done their best to ruin.

I don’t want evil to win another round and steal all of it away before our second chance has even gotten started.

“So what happens next?” Sam asks, her voice rough with emotion. “What do you want?”

“I want to show you what happens to people who fuck with me and my friends,” Todd says, then adds with a laugh, “I’m kidding. I don’t give a shit about Scott ending up in jail or J.D. and Jeremy being buried alive. Or whatever it was you had planned back there with that hole in the ground. People stupid enough to drop their guard deserve what they get.

“But I know I would have been next, Sammy, and that isn’t okay.” He pauses, teasing the knife up and down my throat. “How did you plan to do it? Strangle me in my bed after you were finished filling in that hole?”

“Poison,” Sam says flatly. “We were going to bribe a maid to bring you a nightcap, then break into your room and watch you die.”

Todd makes a considering noise. “Not a bad plan, but poison is kind of a girly choice, don’t you think? Weak, especially for a big guy like you, Daniel Cooney.”

He reaches around, hitting me in the stomach hard enough to make me groan and leaving his fist pressed tight to my gut, making it hurt to breathe. “I thought you looked familiar that day at the pool, but when I saw you the second time everything clicked. That’s when I knew I had to start watching my back, and the other idiots, too. I figured you were responsible for poor, dumb Scott and that the rest of us must be on your hit list.”

The fist he’s digging into my mid-section relaxes, his fingers uncurling until his palm rests lightly on my abdomen.

But his touch is no less terrifying in its gentleness.