Page 11 of He Had It Coming

She set the knife on the top of the built-in dresser next to her. I couldn’t see anything else. Calculations spun through my mind. The distance to it. How fast I’d need to be to get it. If I tipped the chair over, could I beat her there, plunge that blade into her stomach, and end this?

If she wanted blood I’d oblige. I’d offer up hers.

“I can see those tiny wheels turning,” she said.

Her words didn’t fully register until she fell silent. I looked at her and the haze cleared. She’d fallen back on taunting, or her attempt at it.

She continued. “You’re betting you magically can remove the ropes and get to the knife first.”

Anyone would. And that was part of her fun, right? To make me work for it.

She nodded in the direction of the knife. “Go ahead. I’ll even give you a head start.”

She sounded so pleased with her challenge or whatever that was supposed to be. I didn’t say a word. Her babbling covered my shifting as I wedged the heel of my sneaker against the inside edge of the rope around my ankle. I’d been trying to stretch the bindings and get enough room to maneuver ever since I came to. The subtle turning of my wrists, the friction, rubbed my skin raw but I kept going. Kept pushing.

“You’re quiet all of a sudden.” She folded her arms across her middle “You were so loud eight years ago. Shouting about being followed by the media and having your life examined. No apologies. No explanation. Just an unending serenade of poor me griping.”

“I lost everything I’d worked for. I had to leave college.” Everyone conveniently forgot those facts in the rush to tag me as the bad guy.

“My sister left the earth, you psychopath.” Her voice grew louder with each word. “By your hand.”

There it was. The real Sabrina Forde. Her newly acquired steadfast control immediately faltered when challenged. She slipped back into the same emotional ball of rage from eight years ago. The one who punched me at the courthouse. In front of the cameras. In front of my father.

Now I just had to figure out how to use that instability against her.

It had almost been too easy to lure out the real her. “Feel better?”

“I will when you’re dead.” Her voice sounded flat now. No more eagerness and amusement.

“Sabrina, listen to me.” God, she sucked the air out of the room. That hadn’t changed one bit since the first time we met, purely by accident, at the police precinct. “This scheme of yours doesn’t make sense. You’re not going to stab me.”

“I definitely am, actually.”

Bluster. Bullshit. Whatever this was she couldn’t sustain it. Even during her most unhinged tirades of the past, she’d petered out. Her parents pulled her back. Law enforcement or Dad’s lawyers stepped in and she folded. She walked away and regrouped then came back filled with fire only to be knocked back again.

This time wouldn’t be any different. “You’re not going to hurt me or try to kill me.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” She let out a loud exhale. “I can’t believe the last thing Ruby heard was your pathetic voice.”

That fallback on sarcasm shoved me onto the defensive every single time. “Wrong. The last sound that night was her begging.”

Please stop. Jerek, no.

Sabrina’s face flushed. She stalked forward, closing the small space between us. I braced for a new kick or slash of the knife but she pivoted at the last second. Slipped out of my direct sight line and stood behind me.

I tried to swivel around. Moving brought the pain screaming back. It bounced from one side of my head to the other.

“What are you doing?” I forced the words out over the ringing in my ears. The sounds of her breathing filled the room but I couldn’t see her face.

Her arm slid around my neck, just under my chin. My throat lodged in her bent elbow.

Panic swamped me, choking out the punch of dizziness. A jumble of ifs and buts filled my brain. Scattered reasons for her not to go one step further. “Okay, no. Don’t do it.”

“Too late.” She sounded light now. Free.

I tried to shift but she only increased the pressure. Pressed her arm against my windpipe and I froze.

“This is called a sleeper hold.” She sounded like she was giving a lecture. Cold. Methodical. Clear. “One of the moves I learned in an underground self-defense class to fight off garbage men like you.”