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“Nox, no! This is what he wants! Close the door and call the police!”
Dean threw Zoe against the wall. I screamed, watching her body fall on the ground—she was out cold. I reached for her, but Dean shoved me backward into my apartment and I landed on the floor. Dean stepped through the doorway and gave the door a quick kick to close it; my door made an eerily final thunk as it latched closed.
“Miss me?” Dean asked, leering down at me. He grinned so wide he resembled a crazed baboon. “God, do you know what a stupid bitch you are?”
I stared up at Dean. His words made no sense. He made no sense. I couldn’t grasp that he was in my apartment.
“You ran away from me and went to my family.”
I stared at him nonplussed. What in the fuck was he talking about?
“Huh? What?” My words felt like thick molasses on my tongue.
I stared past his legs at my closed door. Zoe was outside unconscious. I needed to get to her.
“Poor little Lennox runs from the big bad Dean all the way to California, only to seek refuge with Dean’s sister,” Dean said. He punctuated his words by kicking me in the thigh. I winced at the impact but tried to focus on his words. Dean has a sister?
“Who?” I asked. “Who is your sister?” I mentally ran through every female I knew in Santa Barbara like I was sifting through a Rolodex. It couldn’t be Zoe, so it could only be Claire, Lissie, or Bethany.
“It’s Bethany,” I said, realization dawning on me.
Dean nodded viciously. “Not as stupid as you seem, Lennox.”
Fuck.
I wish I could say it made sense. That I knew it all along. But I didn’t. Sure, Bethany was a weird and, at times, brutal boss, but I never would have guessed she was in cahoots with Dean. Had she told Dean where I was? Had she knowingly given me up for slaughter?
Information overload.
I was going to overheat like a computer.
Opening my mouth to speak—to protest, to do anything to get control of the situation—only a small sound escaped me. Dean punched me in the head and I had about two seconds to register the pain before everything went black.
“Whore.”
I groaned. Everything hurt. Even after falling off the rocks at the cabin, I hadn’t felt this much pain. It was like my body was short-circuiting, because even it couldn’t register the degree of pain I was in. I would numb and feel nothing, and then a spark of intense pain would shoot through me.
“Wake up, whore!”
Where was I? What was going on? I couldn’t focus on anything other than the excruciating pain I was in. I blinked rapidly, trying to get my vision under control. Colors started rushing back into my eyes like shoppers on Black Friday.
I felt a sharp yet dull pain in my side, and my vision began to blacken again.
“Wake up, bitch! Time to talk!”
I grimaced at the loud voice. Who was that? As if on cue, everything came flooding back. Dean. Zoe. My apartment. The punch.
I felt a series of pains in my side and realized Dean was kicking me. I tried to protect myself from the next impact, but it was too late: he’d already bruised my ribs and, judging by the pain, he’d cracked at least one. If I wasn’t so busy being brutalized, I’d have the breath to yell out, call him a bastard, or do something to defend myself.
“Pay attention to me, whore,” Dean said.
His name calling didn’t faze me. I stared at him through the spots dancing across my vision, daggers shooting from my eyes.
“You’re going to come home with me and never leave again.”
I barked a laugh, clutching my ribs. “And then are we going to get pet unicorns?”
Dean bent down and slapped me. I knew it was coming; I should have kept my mouth shut. Instead of engaging in Dean’s delusions, I should be thinking of a way to get myself out of this mess. I should be thinking of a way to get Zoe some help.
