Rage detonates inside me.
“Don’t touch her!” I scream.
Ron clamps an arm around my throat from behind, not choking, but tight enough to make the warning clear. “Move again, sweetheart, and one of these idiots accidentally panics. I don’t want that. You don’t want that. Darlene definitely doesn’t want that.”
Darlene is on the floor, breathing, furious, one hand pressed to her shoulder.
Her eyes lock on mine.
Do not be stupid, they say.
I have never hated sensible advice more.
Ron drags me toward the rear door. “Tell Kauss I said hi, old lady.”
Darlene spits blood onto the floor and smiles with all her teeth. “Tell your father he should’ve pulled out.”
Ron’s face goes white with rage.
For one terrible second, I think he will shoot her himself.
Instead he laughs in a broken, breathless way and shoves me through the rear door into the rain.
The alley hits me with cold air, wet brick, garbage, engine runoff, and panic. A vehicle waits at the far end, black, low, expensive enough not to belong here. They force me inside. I get one glimpse of Darlene crawling toward the counter before the door slams shut and the lock engages.
I do not scream.
Not because I am brave.
Because I refuse to give Ron music.
The vehicle moves fast, leaving Halo in jolting turns and rain-slick acceleration. I sit between two gang members in the rear compartment while Ron sits across from me, holding a cloth to his bleeding nose. His eyes never leave my face.
“You broke it again,” he says.
“Good.”
One of the men beside me shifts uncomfortably.
Ron laughs softly. “God, you really are his type.”
“You don’t know his type.”
“No? Big grim monster wants the sunshine girl. Very classic. Very boring.”
“Kauss has better taste than to be a cliché.”
His smile falters. “You think he’s coming?”
“Yes.”
“Fast answer.”
“He’s very reliable.”
“You say that like it’s sweet. I say it means predictable.”
I look out the tinted window as downtown lights begin rising around us in layered neon. “You’re using me as bait.”
