Leave Me Breathless

His hand swings out again, catching me clean on the cheekbone, my hands coming up to defend me too late. The dizziness returns, the pain intensifying. ‘You cheating, lying, betraying whore,’ he seethes. ‘You think I’m going to let—’ He’s cut off abruptly. ‘Fuck!’ he curses, and I jolt in my seat, being thrown against the door. Through my hampered vision, I just catch sight of something flying across our path and disappearing into the overgrowth on the opposite side of the road.

Jarrad curses as the truck veers off into the bushes, shaking to a stop. I blink, fighting the blur and dizziness away, scanning the area, searching for . . . ‘Ryan,’ I whisper without thinking. He knows these woods like the back of his hand. I’ve no doubt he’s gone off-road through the overgrowth to get ahead of us. No doubt at all.

‘Your boyfriend is one determined fucker,’ Jarrad growls, grabbing me by the hair and yanking me across the cab of the truck. I hiss, scrambling as best I can, blood seeping into my eyes. I land on the ground with a thud, and he kicks me for my trouble, yanking me to my feet. I immediately feel the tip of his gun pushing into my temple, my back to his front.

Sticks and twigs dig into the bottoms of my bare feet as he walks me backward, moving away from whatever ran us off the road. Ryan? Was it him? I frantically search for him, silently begging him to stay away. ‘Maybe I’ll kill him first,’ Jarrad whispers in my ear, making my skin crawl. His forearm is wrapped around my neck, my whole body covering his front, shielding him, as he drags me backward. His breathing is heavy. He’s shaking against me. He’s nervous.

I can barely see where we’re going, my vision clouded by blood trickling into my eyes. ‘You’ll have to kill him first,’ I whisper quietly, feeling Ryan close by. My senses are alert to him. I can feel his presence. Smell his rage. My tangled mind seems to unravel as I gain my composure. Jarrad jerks me in his hold angrily, tightening his grip around my neck. It forces me to reach up and cling onto his arm, trying to relieve the pressure on my windpipe. He stops moving. The leaves and twigs stop crunching beneath our feet. The sun is struggling to break through the branches above us, keeping us shadowed.

It’s deathly quiet. No sound, no movement, for such a very long time.

Then Jarrad startles when a bird crows from behind, and he swings us around, his head snapping from side to side, searching. ‘Come on, where are you?’ he whispers, turning us back the other way. ‘You want to watch me kill her?’ he shouts to the trees. ‘You want to watch her bleed out?’ The gun is wedged into my temple with force, and I whimper, my feet clumsily dragging against the ground as I’m hauled around again. Then he stills, and it falls eerily silent once more.

And I realize: Jarrad won’t kill me first. It’ll leave him exposed and without bargaining power. Has he realized he’s out of his depth? Has he realized he’s made a grave mistake?

Has he realized he’s about to die?

A loud rustle sounds in the distance, and Jarrad spins us toward it, firing blindly into the trees. I flinch, the bang echoing around us. He’s breathing heavily. Sniffing constantly. And then he jerks on a pained yelp, and I just catch sight of something in my peripheral vision. ‘Duck, Hannah.’ The sound of Ryan’s voice has me whimpering my relief, yet my fear for his safety rockets, too. But I have to keep it together. Jarrad’s hold of me loosens, and I wrench myself free, staggering a few paces before I land in the dirt a few feet away.

I hear Jarrad yell, and then see him hit the ground with a thud. He loses control of his gun, a shot sounds, and Ryan lands on top of him, launching his fist into his face with a deafening crack. He doesn’t give his victim a moment to react.

I scramble back on my arse until my back meets a tree trunk, watching as Jarrad has holy hell rained all over him, Ryan’s fists slamming into his face repeatedly as he straddles him. It goes on and on, pound after pound, and in this moment of complete, ferocious madness, I wonder if there are enough strikes being delivered to Jarrad’s face to match those I received over the years.

Appallingly, probably not.

I’m shocked by the violence pouring out of Ryan. He’s a machine, powered by a rage that doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon. Only when Jarrad stops moving does Ryan halt his assault.

He leans back, his adrenaline ebbing. All I can see is blood. It’s covering Jarrad’s face and Ryan’s fists, splattered on the ground around them. And now it’s quiet again, though the sound of silence is more eerie. Somehow more unnerving. I see Ryan’s muscles tense again, his arm drawing back. He’s not done.