“I’m not scared of you.”
Owen gripped my hair in his fist and pulled my head back until I was faced with his twisted and contorted features. He loathed me—that much was obvious. He hated what I stood for and represented. At that moment, he didn’t have to say why he’d done what he’d done. I could see it in those piggy little eyes of his.
“I hope they tear you limb from limb and beat you withinan inch of life and leave you for the rodents to feast on, you sad piece of useless shit.”
It wasn’t a slap this time. I felt the impact of his fist on my jaw, felt some of my back teeth loosen, and shuddered at the pop in my neck as it snapped to the side. White lights burst in my vision. Bells rung so loud that I couldn’t make out what Owen was screaming at me.
It took a while for the ringing to clear, even with the subtle shakes of my head to ward it all off. When sound finally started to penetrate again, Owen was still ranting over me.
“... won’t kill you yet, but you will fucking hurt, whore.”
“You hit like a girl,” I mumbled, wincing in pain. I knew I was provoking him again, but I needed an excuse to bend over and get the switchblade from my pocket because if I tried to reach it now, he’d know I was up to something, and I couldn’t risk that.
He took the bait, this time swinging at my stomach, so I was forced to double over. I could barely breathe through the pain. He’d winded me so thoroughly that my brain slowly started to panic as oxygen became thin. I tried my best to focus on the fold of the knife digging into my hip, and I gripped my stomach, hunching over myself.
It hurt so bad as the pain rattled down my thighs, and the sharp sting twisted in my gut.
“You’ve got a big fucking mouth on you. No wonder that boy is pussy whipped. Next thing you know, cooches like you will be wearing the cuts and calling the shots. Drew Tucker has made a fucking joke of this fucking club. All because of a decent lay.”
I groaned, slipped the knife from my pocket, and pushed it up my sleeve, my thumb finding the small button to releasethe blade.
“You don’t think much of women, do you?”
“You’re good for two things: fucking and reproducing.”
“Misogynistic pig.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I pity your wife,” I spat at him.
“Don’t you pity her. She’s living the high life now, well clear of Babylon.”
I frowned hard, both from the physical pain I was in and from the sudden confusion that was making riddles out of my thoughts. “You sent her away from here, didn’t you? You knew all this was coming?”
“Fuck knows what Drew sees in you.” He sighed heavily, avoiding my question. He slapped my cheek lightly, as though trying to sober me up as I blinked away the spots in my vision, and he gripped my face painfully. “Where’s all Harry’s shit on me, Ayda?”
I shrugged. I was humming from so much pain and adrenaline now that I was feeling slaphappy and reckless. Two things that had pretty much managed to get me into the predicament I was in already. I wasn’t sure if it was the ringing in my ears, but I swore I could hear the roar of bikes somewhere in the distance. When Owen shook me again, it took me a minute to realize that he’d heard them, too.
“Get up.”
“Why?” I asked, slurring a little.
“Because I’m planning on keeping this conversation between the two of us. And you’re now my leverage.”
“You’re going to use me as a hostage?” I laughed.
Owen ignored me and dragged me to my feet, the cold barrel of his gun pressing to the underside of my jaw as hepushed and dragged me through the building. The bar was still completely empty, but the noise of the bikes was growing louder, the sound of them all together like an angry hive of bees.
I knew I had to stall somehow and slow this all down. If Owen got away before Drew and the others got here, I was in trouble. Once we were outside of these walls, the evidence we had wouldn’t matter. He would get away and kill me out of spite because he knew that would hurt Drew.
I pulled and tugged against Owen’s grip. I writhed and kicked, my body fighting his every step of the way until sunlight flooded my vision, and I was pushed out onto the porch and down onto my knees just as the bikes approached the yard.
“He’s going to kill you, and I’m going to watch,” I said coldly as Owen tried to drag me by my hair to his bike. I pulled back, crying out at the feel of handfuls of roots shifted from my scalp.
Owen lifted his hand as though to slap me, and I struck. In a series of motions almost too smooth to believe, I ejected the blade, launched my body forward and drove the sharp end deep into Owen’s thigh, praying that I hit something good.
I didn’t.