out the door and down the sidewalk, he didn’t look back.
“Who was that?” Adam asked, jerking his chin toward the door.
“No one you need to worry about,” she answered, spinning around to throw an arm around his neck. Pulling him close, she kissed him deep and hard. He groaned as a bit of her Touch passed into him, but she only pressed harder, stealing it back. Fuck Gabe, she thought. Az had his chance.
CHAPTER 32
She heard the screams through the door. Bloodcurdling, murderous screams, and for a second her hand froze and she couldn’t turn the knob. But then some part of her brain snapped back into place and she was inside, throwing open Jarrod’s door, Adam at her back.
Libby’s back was arched, Jarrod pushing down on each of her shoulders and still she was bucking off the mattress.
“Eden! Help me!” he screamed.
She ran, swinging herself around the edge of the bed by the post on the footboard and grabbed hold of the handcuffs already snapped around the strong metal rungs of the headboard. Jarrod grunted as he forced Libby’s arm up. Eden snapped the cuff around Libby’s wrist.
“You bitch!” Libby screamed, her hair streaming loose, flying as she thrashed back and forth. Eden ignored her, climbed over to help Adam force the second wrist up to where she could hook Libby’s other arm.
Eden yelped as the cuff locked, a jolt of pain bursting from her thigh. Libby’s teeth sunk deeper as Jarrod reached down, squeezing the sides of her clamped jaw until it was forced open.
“Fuck,” Eden groaned, limping to the doorway, rubbing the skin. The leather of her pants held a perfect dented impression of Libby’s teeth around the hole they’d torn clean through.
Adam backed slowly from the writhing prisoner, as if he expected her to rip the cuffs off and come at them.
“Let me see,” Adam said, dropping to get a better look at the wound. An angry tear settled into the corner of Eden’s eye. “She got you good,” he said, gingerly laying his fingertips against the edges of the hole in her ruined pants.
“Leave it. It’s nothing. When did she get like this?” Eden asked in disbelief.
“Ten minutes ago,” Jarrod said from the other side of the room, hovering close but out of range of Libby’s kicks. “Came out of nowhere.”
“I’ll fucking kill all of you!” Libby screamed, wrenching her head back and forth, slamming her shoulder into the headboard, trying to break the bed apart. Jarrod picked a pillow up off the floor and slid it in, buffering her attack on the bed. Suddenly the evilness dropped out of her voice as her eyes found Eden. “Please let me go,” she sobbed. “I have to get rid of it! Don’t you understand how much it hurts?” The last few words were almost unrecognizable, her voice breaking into heaving gasps.
Jarrod’s eyes widened as her focus switched to him. “You’re just going to stand there and do nothing? They’re killing me, Jarrod. They’re killing us both, the two of them,” she cried, locking eyes on him. Jarrod’s face crumbled as he looked up at Eden, unsure.
“If it doesn’t get better in an hour, she’s gonna have to pass,” Eden said, hating herself just the same.
“Jarrod…,” Libby’s singsong call sounded out. She batted her eyelashes, streaks of mascara running down her blotchy face. “They’re against you, you know. Look at them, Jarrod. Don’t her lips look a little red? Like she’s been kissing him?” Libby threw her head back, cackling. With her hands in the cuffs, pulled up on either side of her, she looked like some demonic marionette. Suddenly her head snapped up and she froze, whispering, eyes lolling up to Jarrod. “If she blushes, you know I’m right!” She kicked her heels into the mattress with glee. Jarrod could do nothing but stare, mouth agape like the rest of them. “Fucking look at her, Jarrod!” she commanded.
And he did. As he turned, Eden felt the heat start, trace up her neck and then deepen as Libby let out another round of kicks and gibberish. Jarrod’s head cocked, watching Eden. Her head slowly started to shake a denial, but then she felt Adam’s hand on her shoulder.
“I toooooold you!” Libby shrieked.
“Shut up, Libby,” Jarrod said, his voice monotone. He pushed past them, not bothering to close the door. “Adam’s been after her forever. She was bound to give in sometime.”
On the bed, Libby’s head dropped as if someone had suddenly switched her off.