I warn him. “And if you take another step toward me, I’ll stab him.”
Hunter freezes, hands to his sides.
The scary part is that I’m not sure if I will stab Jax or not, not sure if I’m capable of stabbing someone.
Zay straightens as his gaze locks on me. He doesn’t say anything. He merely looks at me like he’s struggling to figure something out. Perhaps how to disarm me?
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn him.
“You don’t even know what I’m thinking,” he says, narrowing his eyes.
“Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure I can put it together,” I snap. “You’re trying to figure out how to disarm me so you can … Well, whatever the hell you guys did to me the last time that stupid song played.”
He contemplates something. “You say that like you can’t remember.”
“She might not,” Hunter tells him with his gaze trained on me. “Remember how she told us she can’t remember much from her past.”
“She seems to be able to now,” Jax drones out in that stupid nonchalant tone, like he doesn’t care that I have a knife pressed to his back.
Like he doesn’t think I’m going to stab him.
Jokes on him, because I just might.
I press the knife harder against him until it pokes him through his shirt.
He lets out a hollow laugh. “I should’ve known this entire time that you were playing us.”
My jaw ticks. “You think I played you? Fuck off. I could barely remember anything about my life up until moving to this damn town. And even then, it was just bits and pieces until I heard that stupid song playing from a phone that you guys gave me.”
“We may have given you the phone, but I promise you we’d never play that damn song,” Zay snaps, but then puzzlement creases between his brow. “How is it even playing from your phone, anyway?”
I lift a shoulder. “Some unknown sender started sending me messages about you guys earlier. I think they hacked my phone or something.”
Zay gapes at me. “Then why do you think we did this to you?”
I shrug again. “In the first message, they said I shouldn’t trust you—that you guys have secrets. And clearly, you do, since I can remember some of them now. You know, in my forgotten memories.”
Jax shakes his head. “So, you think we’re the ones who forced you to remember? Why the hell would we do that?”
“I have no freakin’ idea!” I snap. “But probably for the same reason you brought me into your group and lied to me about knowing me.”
“No one lied about that,” Jax replies, his calm tone pissing me off. “We didn’t realize who you were until now. Did we have a suspicion? Sure. But that’s all it was. And honestly, I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to come back to this town.”
“I didn’t choose to come to this town,” I growl out, poking him with the knife and for sure drawing blood this time. “My aunt and uncle forced me to move here.”
“Seems like a pretty damn convenient story,” Jax replies, his hands twitching at his sides. “Just like your story of not being able to remember anything.”
“That’s not a story,” I seethe. “It’s the truth. And quit moving your damn hands or I’m gonna stab you.”
“You know what?” Jax says with a hint of taunt in his tone. “I don’t think you will.”
Then, in the snap of a finger, he whirls around and smacks the knife out of my hand. It hits the floor with a clank, and he stares at me with this almost arrogant look in his eyes.
Something snaps inside me, something that I didn’t know existed, and before I can even decipher it, I bring my hand up and smack him across the face. And I’m not talking like a girlie slap. My hit has a technique to it, as if I’ve been taught to hit. Maybe by my dad and mom? They did teach me self-defense, but I don’t know, this feels different. More experienced.
Jax feels the smack, too, his head turning to the side, but he doesn’t reach up to clutch his face.
Hunter curses under his breath, while Zay steps toward me to do who the hell knows what?
I turn to him, fists raised. “You wanna be next?” I ask with a challenge in my tone.
My heart is racing so fiercely in my chest that the noise is almost all I can hear. And the amount of adrenaline coursing through me right now