Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,40
and all but dragged her into the bathroom. I threw her off balance so she fell back against the wall, and as she slid to the floor between the toilet and the shower, I shut the door. I couldn’t lock it, but it gave me a few seconds to get to Joan before she could.
I charged through the apartment, sparks on the edge of my vision. My leg was burning; Fern’s connected kick hurt worse now. Joan was at the door, the phone in her hand. For a second, she saw me and it was like she couldn’t believe it, and then she shoved the phone in her back pocket and started backing away from me.
“Give it to me,” I said, my hand out. “I won’t hurt you.”
“No can do,” she said, like she was trying to be funny.
I grabbed her thin arms in my hands. I could feel her muscle and skin. Her living breathing strength. My thumb pressed into the soft tension on the inside of her elbow. That small bit of tendon and muscle. “Did you call him?”
She tried to jerk away but I held on to her, tighter than I should.
“Did you call him!” I yelled at her.
“No,” she said, trying to hide her fear, but not quite able. “I didn’t. You have a lot of calls to a blocked number and I…I couldn’t call it back.”
She’d tried, the stupid, suicidal bitch.
Her eyes flickered over my shoulder and then narrowed. She leaned in, despite the pressure of my hands on her. Or maybe because. Maybe she leaned in so it hurt a little more.
“Good night, asshole.”
I felt a needle prick in my neck and I whirled to find Fern there, a syringe in her hand.
“What?” I yelled. I dropped Joan’s arm and grabbed my neck. The world was swimming around me. Joan was jumping and falling and weaving. Nothing stayed where it should. “What the fuck—”
The world went fuzzy and dark and then it swallowed me whole.
Chapter 12
When I woke up, I was back in the bed in the shady bedroom. I knew before moving that I was locked up again. My wrist attached to the bed frame. I put my free hand to my neck where it was sore.
“It was a sedative.” Joan’s voice floated from across the room toward me, and it took me a second to focus on her. To find her in the haze. But there she was, back on the dresser.
Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore cutoffs again and a T-shirt with a unicorn with rainbows coming out its eyes.
I didn’t know how much time had passed. From when I got shot. From when we got here. From when I got stuck with that syringe.
How the hell did I get here? I wondered. My pops—the fucking murdering, badass father—he’d be so disappointed.
Held hostage by a stripper and her aunt with a few hospital-grade narcotics.
I jerked my wrist against the handcuffs just so they would rattle. I wanted to rattle the world. I wanted to put my hands around her neck and rattle her.
“When I get free, Joan, you’d better run as fast and as far as you can.”
“Promises, promises,” she said and pointed to the stretch of bed beside me. “There’s a sandwich and a bottle of juice there. Fern, despite your manhandling—and really you should be ashamed of yourself—insists that you eat and drink.”
I wanted to pick up the plate and throw it at her head.
She lifted an eyebrow like she could read my mind. “I won’t make you another one, Max.”
“I’m not kidding, I will kill you with my bare hands.”
She waved her hand at me like she couldn’t care less about my threats and then tucked her legs up under her. In her hands was my phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I thought I’d read you some of the text messages you’ve missed. Go ahead, have something to eat. I swear it’s not drugged. It’s only ham.”
“You didn’t call Lagan?”
“Look, Max, I’m not an idiot. I know I need you to call Lagan.”
Thank God for that. Thank God she had just enough sense to not set this whole place on fire.
“I’m not going to.”
“See, and last night you made me believe if I just fucked myself for you, you’d do whatever I want.”
“You know I was never going to do that. And you fucked yourself for me because you wanted it, too. Let’s stop lying to each other.”