Page 93 of The Pleasure of Panic

“To be better than you.”

He stands back up. Grits his teeth. Sets his jaw. Draws his leg back, the steel toe of his boot aimed right at my teeth when…

Yelling somewhere else—some other room, some other floor, whatever. It’s loud, it’s shrill. “It’s Issy,” I manage to moan.

“Yeah,” Caleb says. And even though I can’t see his face, I can feel his smile. His evil, diabolical smile. “It’s Issy. Let’s go watch, shall we?”

I want to ask, Watch what?

He cuts the zip ties around my ankles, pulls me to my feet, and then I have to concentrate on not smashing my face into the wall, or falling down the stairs and breaking my neck.

When we get down there all the fuzziness fades. The world comes back to me in perfect fucking clarity like a wind rushing across my face in the cold, winter night.

Issy is in the center of the room wearing a white gi with a white belt, facing down a huge man who towers over her like a giant. She’s bleeding from one eye. Her lip is split, and someone has duct-taped wrist and ankle weights to her arms and legs.

“Come on, Issy,” Caleb shouts. He pushes me down onto the floor, steps on the small of my back, pinning me underneath his boot, and yells, “Fight for your life! Fight for your future! Fight for your man!” And then he drops his voice several octaves. “Because if you lose—” Everyone goes silent. It’s like a fuckin’ movie or something. A cross between Children of the Corn and Fight Club. They are desperate to hear his threat. “I’m gonna kill him right in front of you.”

Which is pretty uninspiring if you ask me. How he ever got these assholes to do his bidding, I’ll never know.

But he’s not done. Because he adds to that. “And then you and I will have a little private time together.”

I look over at Issy. Meet her eyes as she meets mine. We touch each other’s souls.

But then we diverge.

Because she nods yes and I shake no, and…

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - ISSY

My body is spinning in the air the moment after I nod my head yes. Because you know what? I’m fucking sick of this Goddamned game. I’m gonna end it. But not only will I end it… I’m gonna win it.

I grab Gargantuan by the neck, slide my body—leg extended—around his back, and push down on his head with all one hundred and fifteen pounds of girl power.

He drops to the floor and even though the weights on my ankles and wrists were supposed to make this difficult, they sure do come in handy when they connect with his ribs and his face.

I get his nose first. To make the blood flow, clog his breathing, and make him weak. Then the eye, because the eyes swell up so pretty if you hit them hard enough. Then the teeth. Just because I want him to remember what I did every time he looks in the Goddamned mirror.

A sick feeling floods my body when I hear the crack of breaking enamel.

Blood spatters everywhere. He’s moaning, and rolling over on the ground, and I’m just about to turn and take out the next guy when I’m slammed down onto the hardwood floor, face first—so the mud and melted snow tracked in from outside coats my cheek when they bind my wrists and ankles again.

I turn my head, find Caleb’s face, and spit in his direction. “There’s your show,” I say, smiling at him. “I hope you got a kick out of it.”

He doesn’t smile back. I don’t get the brave face. I don’t get the attitude, or the jokes, or the threats.

I just get that look. That look I know so well from my memory. The one that said, Go to bed, Izett. I’ll be up to tuck you in later.

The look that would make me go directly to the upstairs hall bathroom, sit in front of the open toilet, and throw up.

Every. Single. Time.

And it takes every fuckin’ ounce of strength I’ve built up over the past eight years not to puke right now.

I think he’s going to rape me.

“Aw, come on now, baby. Don’t be afraid.” Caleb bends down right next to me to grab my hair and pull my head up off the floor so I can look him in the eyes. He strokes my cheek. “Izett,” he whispers. “Don’t worry. We know just how you like it. Did you know that your boy here sent his boss a text last night? And do you have any idea what he said in that text?”

My heart skips. Remembering Finn, sitting in his car outside my house, texting on his phone.