Page 106

Holy shit. Was that all Court’s doing? My stomach flipped as I took in Tom’s appearance. His left arm was in a cast from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers, and his right arm was in a sling across his chest. His face had been smashed so thoroughly that almost every part of it was covered in scabs.

“Wow,” I said, finally raising my eyes to his. “You look like you went through a meat grinder.”

His expression turned from shocked disbelief to volatile and murderous in a heartbeat, and he pulled his arm from his sling to reach behind him. Pain twisted his features into something even uglier, and when he inhaled sharply, I ran at him.

I’d forgotten about the giant nail in my side, but as adrenaline surged through my veins, the searing pain was dulled to a manageable ache. Tom stumbled back, eyes wide, as he pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and aimed it at me. But I was already on him, slamming into him and shoving his arm to the side. The gun went off, a deafening sound in the room that made my ears ring painfully. Tom shouted at me, trying to push me away with the arm that was in a cast, but I could barely hear him over the ringing. I grabbed his wrist and slammed it into the ground, over and over and over again until he let go of the gun.

“…stupid fucking bitch!” he screamed, catching me in the side with a knee.

It was the side the nail was embedded in. It momentarily paralyzed me when a white-hot shock of pain shot through my nerve endings. I couldn’t breathe as my vision filled with black spots. Fingers snatched my hair and yanked hard, and something primal and raw surged in my chest. The need to survive. That fundamental drive to annihilate the threat to my existence.

I screamed, ripping my head from his grip, not even feeling the pain from the hair that was torn out in the process. I punched him in the face, dead center, feeling the fragile bone in his nose break all over again. Tom howled in agony, blood gushing from his nose as he clawed at me, his nails catching my face and neck while I punched him again, this time in the throat.

He threw me off him, the sound of his screams getting louder and louder as he writhed in pain.

I glanced to the left.

The gun was closer to me now, and I scrambled to my knees, lunging for it before he could even notice. When he finally registered that I had his weapon, he held up a hand, eyes wide and desperate as he begged, “No, don’t⁠—”

I pulled the trigger. His head whipped back as the bullet caught him in the cheek, his body jerking to the side.

The sudden quiet was unnerving. I was breathing hard, and I let myself flop onto my back to catch my breath.

God, I wanted so badly to just close my eyes and fall asleep.

But more than that, I wanted Court. I wanted him to hold me. Wanted to press myself into him as he wrapped his arms around me and whispered the sweetest things into my ear.

A tear spilled down the side of my face, and with a loud cry, I forced myself to sit up. The pain in my side had dimmed, but flared again with every movement. “Fuck,” I spat, bracing a hand on the floor and pushing to my feet. The room tilted around me, and I almost fell. I stumbled forward, caught myself, and stared straight ahead.

The safe.

The fucking safe.

Oh, fuck. I rushed over to it. It was embedded in the wall, the door almost as tall as I was. There was a number keypad, and right next to that was a fingerprint biometric reader.

I glanced back at Tom. Or rather, his body. I didn’t want to drag his dead weight all the way over here. I didn’t think I had the strength for that. My eyes fell on the gun, and with stilted movements, I walked to the weapon, picked it up, and wondered if I could shoot off one of his fingers.

Probably not, right?

Worth a try, though.

Kneeling stiffly by his side, I grabbed his hand, turned it over, spread his fingers, and held his index finger at the tip. I set the muzzle of the gun beneath his first knuckle and pulled the trigger.

The finger came right off.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, giddy that it had actually worked. I made my way back to the safe on shaky legs, praying that Tom’s biometrics worked, and pressed the finger to the screen.

The little red light blinked out, a beep sounded, and then it turned green as something clinked inside the safe.

I threw the finger aside and pulled open the heavy door, peering inside, my heart pounding in anticipation.

It was empty.

No money.

Not a single thing was inside.

The floor dropped out from beneath me. It was⁠—