I wasn’t going to explain that my best friend had gone in through the same incision he made just to make sure he hadn’t butchered me inside.
“I tell you,” he said warmly, running his fingers over the muscles in my abdomen. “Your body is really something. I bet all the boys want to fuck you.”
There was only one boy for me, and hopefully when Hartley was done with me, I’d still be pretty enough for Ian Doyle. God, not that I would tell him that. I could only imagine the knock-down, drag-out fight we’d have about how shallow that would make him sound.
“I feel you’re not focusing on your imminent peril.”
I was so tired of being scared, of jumping at my own shadow, of thinking that the bogeyman was behind every door, even the refrigerator, in every room before I turned on the light or on my front stoop whenever I left the house. I had a reoccurring nightmare that I would open my eyes in the morning and find Hartley looming over me.
“Miro,” he said, pressing the gun hard up under my chin. “What do I have to do to get you to tremble in my presence?”
All of it, from the start—back when I was a detective—was mind games. He had always told me that one day he’d have me, would be there when I woke up in the morning, and at some point along the way I’d internalized that threat and given it life. I’d turned him from a logical threat to a supernatural one, and that knowledge coming as a blast of realization chased out the fear and replaced it with anger.
“We’re going to take a ride, you and I, and once we’re all alone, I can teach you some respect. I suspect that further instruction is needed.”
No.
Never again.
“You fuck,” I growled before I forgot caution, shoved him back hard, turned, and limped away as fast as I could.
“Miro!” he roared, and I heard the gunfire a second before my right bicep felt like it was blown off.
Running down the hall, Hartley behind me firing wildly, I skidded on the heavily waxed floor as bullets bounced off studs inside plaster walls, cracked glass in picture frames, and destroyed a vase beside the bannister I ran by on my way to the dining room.
Plates exploded in the hutch, another vase, and water splattered everywhere as I flew into the kitchen. I stood behind the door, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, panting not from exertion but fear, and when he sprinted by me, I flushed from my hiding spot and went out the same door he’d come in.
A bullet hit the wall beside my head, and I had a fleeting thought that maybe Hartley had tired of our dance and was ready to simply shoot me dead.
“Come on, Miro,” he yelled after me. “There’s more parts of you I want in my collection.”
I squelched down the urge to puke and almost went down—the rubber grip on the bottom of my cast had shitty traction and once again I was back on the wax. But I managed to scramble up the staircase, the cast making all kinds of noise as it collided with each step.
Why did I go to the second floor—why not out the front door? Outside was always better than in. But Hartley was between me and my truck—and my gun—and because going to the basement was never a good idea, I bumped up the staircase ahead of him and hopped and hobbled down the dark hallway.
It was a huge house, three stories, and as I limped through it, I opened every door I passed, finally careening through one and darting inside what looked like the master suite. I ran inside the roomy walk-in closet, closed the door to a crack behind me, and searched for anything I could use to defend myself with. I listened at the same time over my own pounding heart and then simply… stopped.
Even if I happened upon a gun safe, what was I going to do, stand there and try and figure out the combination? And how long did I have before he found me? I had to be smarter than the serial killer.
I wasn’t some virgin in a slasher flick; I was a deputy United States marshal. I needed to start acting like one. If I was protecting a witness, I would have been on the offensive from the get-go. What had taken me a moment to realize was that in this instance, I was the witness.
If I lived, I was never going anywhere without Ian again. With him by my side, I never worried about the outcome. I simply knew I’d live. And it wasn’t that I couldn’t save myself, but the autopilot of certainty was a very compelling argument for having a partner.