Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,156
pass out on me,” he whispered. “You hear me?”
She saw Jasmine lying behind him, her body limp. What had Michael done to her? What had the child endured before her body simply gave up?
“Look at me,” Michael said, gently, as if this was some kind of seduction. “Keep looking at me, Angie. Look at Michael.”
Her head rolled to the side. She couldn’t make her eyes focus.
“Come on, darlin’, don’t pass out.” He cupped her chin with his hand again, tilted up her face. “You okay?”
She nodded, mostly to prove to herself that there was still some part of her body that she could control.
“That’s good,” he soothed, placing the gun on one of the shelves above her head, high out of the way. He took the knife out of the sheath and knelt down, holding the blade to her face so that she could see.
“No…” she begged.
He used his knife to cut open her shirt—Will’s shirt—pushing it back on her shoulders. She tried to watch him, tried to see his hand as he traced his fingers across her breasts, but she could only feel what he was doing.
“No,” she pleaded. “Don’t.”
“Lie down,” he coaxed. “Lie down and I’ll be sweet to you.”
She rolled back her head, trying to look at his face. Who was behind the mask? Was it John? Had she tricked her mind into thinking it was Michael when it was really John?
“Angie?” He was so calm. Like Will. He knew that was the best way to make her angry. She would fly off in a tantrum and he would just stand there, patiently waiting her out, staring at the floor. Oh, God, Will. How would he live with this? How would he live with himself knowing that he’d failed to stop this bastard?
“An-gie,” he sang. “Look at me.”
She knew that voice, knew that body.
“An-gie…”
She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing Will’s arm, the angry scar where the razor had cut into his flesh.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She fell to her side, her uninjured shoulder thumping into the packed-dirt floor. He helped her lie flat on her back, tugging at her shirt when it got caught around her arms. All of her weight rested on her hands, her pelvis arching up as if it was on display for him.
“That’s good,” he whispered, straddling her legs. She saw his tongue dart out of his mouth as he traced the tip of the knife down her abdomen, stopping just shy of her snatch.
Where was the gun? Where had he put the gun?
“Look at me.” He leaned over her body, pressing the knife against her neck.
The shelf. He had put it on the shelf.
“Look at me.”
She looked at him.
“Kiss me.”
Too high. The shelf was too high.
“Kiss me,” he said.
Her whole body shook, but she leaned up, pulling at the rope as hard as she could as she brought her mouth to his. He was still trying to be tender, his lips soft against hers. She could taste her own blood, feel his heart pumping against her chest as he pressed against her. When he put his tongue in her mouth, she gagged, instinctively trying to jerk away, but he pressed the knife harder against her throat, and Angie had no choice but to let him kiss her.
He made a smacking noise as he sat back up, satisfied. “If you’d kissed me like that in the back of the car, maybe it would have gone differently.”
Angie looked up at him. The bare lightbulb made a halo behind his head. She turned, saw Jasmine, saw the blood in the girl’s mouth, the dead look in her eyes.
“Angie,” Michael whispered, tracing his fingers along her face, down her body. Will had touched her like this a long time ago. Why had he stopped touching her? When had she started pushing him away?
Michael leaned over her again, his weight pressing her into the ground.
“Please…Please don’t…”
He kissed her again. She pushed her weight into her right hand, pulling as hard as she could with the left to stretch the rope. Her stomach muscles shuddered, her breath caught, as the skin started to peel off her hand like a glove. He jammed his tongue farther down her throat, his teeth clashing against hers. She could feel the shattered bones in her right wrist grind against each other. The pain was so unbearable that she finally gave into it, let it rush through her body like a red tide.