My head is buzzing when I finally come to. The airbag is deployed, the radio is still playing, and someone is pulling me from the car, but I’m too woozy to stop him.
“Look what you did to your face, little one. You fucked it all up,” Dagger’s voice says, as my heart pounds with adrenaline. He was in the truck? I feel an ache on my cheek from the airbag, but I don’t have time to assess where I’m hurt before he’s mumbling something about wanting me pure and pretty. Dagger’s voice echoes as I’m pulled farther still, gravel biting into my legs.
“Aiden!” I try to scream, but he doesn’t respond. I cry out his name again, then once more.
“Stop mumbling, little bitch. No one can hear you out here.”Mumbling? I was screaming.
I try to adjust my blurry vision. I’m limp and easy to move and am now being dragged into long grass or brush.
Dagger leers down at me. “Do you think I’m fuckin’ stupid,lass?” he hisses. “Wherever you were planning to lead, Iknewyour boyfriend would be waiting.”
He throws me down on the cold, dew-covered grass, and I realize Dagger has no idea how close we are to the cabin. If I could get up, maybe I could run there. It’s less than a mile away.
“What are you going to do?” My words come out stronger as I regain my senses. The sky is bright with stars, and I wonder if this will be the last time I see it. “Are you going to rape me the way Gator raped my sister? Kill me?”
He drops down to straddle my waist with my wrists tucked under his knees. He grips my throat and lifts my face to meet his. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to keep you. I’ve been watching you flaunt this innocent little girl act for weeks now.” His breath smells like vodka and cigars. “I knew you werehersister the moment I fucking looked at you. It’s the eyes.” He starts to laugh maniacally.
“They’re the windows to the soul, you know. Yours are even sadder than hers. A little more fucking depressing, but just as pretty. And they’ll be even prettier when I wire your fucking mouth open, and you’re leaking drool everywhere as I fuck your throat.” He grins, and I nearly vomit. “I have a little birdie hunting for a lookalike of your sister, one even younger than she was,” he growls, shoving my head back down to the earth.
I try to turn as my stomach lurches, but I don’t even have the strength to puke.
“I’ve kept your cage for you,” he singsongs as I try to scratch at him. “My little birdie has kept it nice and warm.”
What the fuck is his little birdie?I fight to get my arms out from under him, but it’s no use.
“You won’t get away like your sister did. Gator was a greedylittle fuck. Wouldn’t let any of us touch her, but he’s not here to stop me from touchingyou.”
He licks his lips.
As my head slowly clears, I formulate the best way to attack him. I’m gonna gouge this motherfucker’s eyeballs out of his head, and then I’m gonna run. All I need to do is get close enough for Aiden or Mason to hear me scream.
“You underestimated me. You both did, you and your prez.” He grinds his hips into me, and I struggle, but his weight is crushing.
“Don’t fight me,Emilia. I still have your knife, you know. That little dragonfly. I knew another one just like that once…a tiny bumblebee.” He lifts his chin, and that’s when I see it—a long, jagged scar near his collarbone.
Attagirl, Nic.
“But now your president has it. Some people choose to keep their trophies. Not me,” he says with way too much joy and satisfaction at the look of rage on my face.
“I like to plant mine like little seeds…” He leans down and speaks against my collarbone as I will my body to get stronger. “You never know when you’ll need a safety net in this world. To take someone out in the way they least expect it.” He shakes his head and looks around the scene. “Never trusted your prez.” His eyes fall back to me. “He’s a fucking thief, taking what’s ours.”Ours?
“I was going to wait to get you back home before I sampled the goods, but you’re much too tempting for that, lying here crying into the grass.My poor sister,” he mocks me, pretending to cry, and tears well in my own eyes. “My poor, weak sister who was looking for a quick fuck and got what she deserved.”
I scream and then spit at his face, but he doesn’t try to silence me. Instead, he tilts his head back and starts to laugh.
“Where have I heard that sound before? Hmmm, let me think. Oh, I remember!” He leans down and licks up the side of my neck. He’s sick and twisted and enjoying every second of this. “The day I followed you and your sister home. The day I saw her looking at me when I was talking toyourpresident.”
My heart begins to pound, and my eyes widen. He saw Nic and me in the alley?
“I watched that little light bulb go off when she remembered me.” He chuckles, the sound wrong and morbid, as he leans down farther. He whispers, “That’s when I knewshe had to die, lass,” and another wave of nausea washes over me.
He sits up, and I struggle to pull my hands from under his knees. I watch in horror as Dagger fake injects himself with a needle and then makes a croaking sound, his eyes falling closed.
“What better way to kill a little junkie than with an overdose. Tragedy brings everyonetogether.”
My body registers what he’s saying before my brain does, and I’m thrusting my hips up with all my might while pulling my arms from beneath him. Dagger falls forward as I flip him off me.
“You fucking killed her?” I scream. “You fucking monster!” I climb onto him, my hands around his throat.