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He swore and smashed me harder against the console table’s edge.
Fresh pain detonated across my stomach. I cried out again, my head swimming with black smudges, my tummy on fire.
“Keep fighting, pussy cat,” Dewey snarled in my ear, “and I’ll show you how clichéd I can be.”
For a second, I did just that. I bucked and writhed and clawed at him as much as I could. His surprised and pained grunt filled me with a sense of fierce triumph, and I fought harder. Hard enough to dislodge myself from between him and the console.
Hot relief flooded through me, followed instantly by cold determination.
I ran. Sprinted, in fact.
The panic room. I had to get to the panic room.
Now.
“You’re only making this worse for yourself, Veronica,” my new friend shouted after me. The solid thud-thud told me loud and clear he was chasing me.
I increased my speed.
It wasn’t enough.
He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me off my feet.
I let out a yelp, scrambled to regain my balance and spun around to face him.
The sudden move took him by surprise and, eyes wide, he gaped at me as I barged into him, shoulder first.
It was his turn to stumble backward.
The second I felt his balance fail him, the second his fingers raked over my back, I threw myself away from him and ran for the stairs leading down to the bottom floor.
“Cunt,” he roared after me. “Get back here.”
I flipped him the bird just as I hooked the fingers of my other hand around the stair banister, flung myself around the corner and sprinted down the stairs.
He came after me, thundering down the stairs. I thought I heard what sounded like a gun clicking, but I didn’t turn around or look over my shoulder to see. I couldn’t risk tripping.
The panic room. That was my sole focus. The panic—
A deafening crack destroyed the air just as dry wall burst from the wall directly above my head.
I screamed. Ducked. Kept running. Even as my brain told me over and over that he’d fired a shot.
More drywall exploded beside my head.
I damn near fell down the last two stairs trying to run faster.
When the next shot fired and chips of slate burst up from the floor just in front of me, I squealed.
“Next one’s in your leg, pussy cat,” my new friend bellowed behind me.
Sick with terror, heart wild, breath burning my lungs, I stumbled to a halt.
“Good girl,” he said, a second before grabbing my wrist and twisting my arm up behind my back until my hand felt like it was drilling into the spot between my shoulder blades.
I tried to bite back my cry of pain, but it tore from me before I could, sharp and strangled.
Dewey laughed, once again pressing his lips to my ear. “We’re going to go back upstairs, Veronica. And then you are going to call Lucas and I’m going to cable-tie you to a kitchen chair. Understand?”
