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“Fuck you, Brady.”
“That’s the idea, baby.”
I scream again and the sound echoes off the padded walls. But I shouldn’t fool myself. Even if someone heard me upstairs, there’s little chance that they’d come running to help.
He abandons his attempts to get my shirt off and instead goes for the zipper of my jeans with one hand while the other tries to capture my wrists. “Don’t be such a fucking tease, Pratt. You come down here with liquor and that smile, anybody could see what you really want. I promise I’ll be nicer to you than Drake. C’mon, you were always so hot for it before.”
I have a brief window while he’s distracted trying to literally get into my pants. Thank God that I didn’t have a chance to change clothes before the party because a skirt would have given him much quicker access than my jeans do.
With my free hand, I grope for anything that I can use as a weapon. My fingers brush the neck of the nearly empty whiskey bottle and I struggle to bring it closer.
Brady makes eager little noises in the back of his throat as he finally gets my zipper undone and starts yanking my pants down my thighs.
Rearing to the side, I grab the bottle and swing it around in an arc. My first strike catches him on the cheek, but doesn’t connect as hard as I need it to.
Brady rears back, eyes full of shocked surprised.
I hit him again, this time on his temple. Those same eyes roll up toward the ceiling and he suddenly pitches forward, unconscious.
I’m crushed under the weight of his body. I try to lever him off of me and it’s like trying to move a boulder. Wet and clammy breath blows against my neck, making me shudder.
I didn’t kill him, at least. But now I can’t get him off me.
A lump digs into the small of my back and I realize with mounting horror that it’s my phone. In the struggle, my jacket got twisted around my body and I can’t reach my pocket with Brady still on top of me.
The motherfucker is too heavy for me to move on my own, and I have no idea how long it’s going to take for him to wake up.
My whole body freezes as the door creaks open. From this angle, I can’t see who it is.
“What the fuck?”
Relief rushes through me as I recognize his voice.
I crane my head as Drake strides across the room with murder in his eyes. “What happened?”
My hands push at Brady’s shoulder where it’s digging into my stomach. “I’ll tell you after you get him off me.”
“Is he dead?” Drake asks, sounding neutral on the topic as he shoves Brady’s unconscious form off me.
“Pretty sure he’s still breathing, unfortunately.” I let him help me up as I scrub at the trail of spit that Brady left on the side of my neck. “I hit him in the head with that bottle.”
“Something tells me he deserved it.” Drake surveys Brady’s form with an angry gaze. “I got worried when I realized how long you’d been down here. Did he confess?”
“The guy is a pig and definitely a rapist, but I don’t think he attacked Olivia.” The voice memo app is still running on my phone, so I end the recording. Brady’s admission that Olivia was drugged might be helpful, but it isn’t enough. “He admitted to being in the video, but that’s it.”
“Well, shit. What do we do now?”
“Lay him out so it looks like he hit his head on the table. Hopefully, he won’t remember too many details in the morning.”
Drake shifts Brady over so he is laying on the side near the end table with the bottle turned over by his hand. If anybody comes on him like this, it will look like he drunkenly hit his head and passed out.
I can only hope that’s the story Brady tells when he eventually wakes up.
As we’re leaving, I swear I hear a skittering sound from the darkest corner of the basement. Drake is already at the stairs, but I stare into the darkness for a long moment as I search for any sort of movement.
“Hurry up,” Drake calls. “We need to get out of here before anyone comes looking for Brady.”
Shadows churn outside of the small circle of light from the lightbulb overhead. I wait for another few seconds, but don’t hear anything else.
