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Gripping his throat and squeezing hard, I feel his windpipe struggle for air against my palm, but he doesn’t deserve the oxygen he’d get. This is for every panic attack, every time she forgot how to breathe. I’m grinning as he rocks the chair back and forth, trying to find a way to fight against me.
Ryan’s cheeks turn red, the veins in his forehead bulge, and his lips start to turn blue. I could kill him right now. If I just held him here like this, he would never be able to get away from me. I could starve his brain and his body of oxygen for so long with just this one hand that he would be brain dead even if he did survive. “You’re weak,” I spit at him, before releasing my hold and stepping back.
He coughs and splutters with tears running down his cheeks and I turn around to face Reaper.
“He’s crying already.” I take the scissors from the counter and cut down his shirt so I can pull it open and get to the area where Reaper and I intend to carve out a few decades of pain. “Hold these for me, will ya?” I ask, and Ryan’s fingers wiggle as if to take them, but I shake my head. “Not like that.”
Ryan throws his head back and screams when I stab the scissors into his thigh.
Reaper grimaces and sucks air through his teeth. “Think you hit bone.”
Probably, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead by tomorrow. “You’re gonna have to quiet down. My ol’ lady is upstairs and she gets a little freaked out by all the violence, you understand.”
“I can play some music,” Reaper suggests, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “You have a speaker?”
“I do.”
Ryan groans while Reaper and I set up the speaker and get his phone connected. “Awrite,” Reaper says, hitting play on his phone with a smile on his face.
My eyes narrow and my brows furrow as some kind of fucking doo-wop music starts playing through my speaker. “Reaper, what the absolute fuck is that?”
“Ye dinnae like it?”
“It’s alittlecreepy.”
“Nah, just listen.” Swaying his hips around to the back of Ryan’s chair, Reaper grins down at him as he puts his hand under Ryan’s chin and tilts his head back. Working hard to mimic the American accent, Reaper sings along.
“Skip it,” I order, frustrated with the love song playing while he brings his knife up in front of Ryan’s throat.
Sighing, Reaper puts the knife in his mouth and clenches it between his teeth. “You’re no fun,” he mumbles around the blade, pulling his phone from his back pocket. He uses both hands to fiddle with the phone as the other song continues playing. When he finds what he’s looking for, he tosses his phone on the counter behind him and puts the sharp edge back against Ryan’s throat, continuing to rock side to side to an upbeat dancing song as he pretends to end a man’s life.
“You really are a fucking psycho,” I shout over the blaring music. “Don’t kill him yet. I have some more ideas.”
Epilogue
Phoebe
With Josiah’s arm tight around my waist, everything is okay. He keeps the nightmares from haunting me and my fears from touching me. Josiah is like my guardian angel, even though I’m sure he would think of himself differently. He groans in his sleep and pulls me closer.
I talked to Rhett yesterday to tell him I’m not coming back to BIBO.
“I figured that much,” he says, “but we’ll miss you. It’s weird not seeing your blue hair around here.”
I can’t contain the laughter that bubbles up in me at that. “I always stood out. I never really fit in with the aesthetic of your fancy restaurant.”
“Who gives a shit? The good news is I’ll be able to get you out of the house for a little while in December. When Emily comes back, she wants to do Christmas at the clubhouse. I’m making Christmas mandatory, so Skids will have to come. You’ll get to meet some of the other members, ones that aren’t quite as scary as Reaper.”
“Clubhouse Christmas? Bikers do Christmas?” This is news to me. I can’t picture Josiah and Reaper and Rhett in one place around a Christmas tree, and if all the other members look like the ones i’ve already met? It’s bound to be terrifying.
“Well, my daughter wants to get everyone together and-”
“And you spoil her, of course.” I could have guessed he’d treat her like a princess. He’s a softy.
“She has a crush on Reaper,” Rhett admits with a sigh. “Christmas is a ploy. Hey, can you put Skids on the phone? I need him to vote on the prospect getting a patch.”
It’s hard for me to imagine a young girl having a ‘crush’ on someone that scary, but to some people Josiah probably seems really scary, and I fell in love with him. Josiah voted yes on whatever Rhett was talking about, and now he’s sleeping peacefully, his thumb drawing circles just above my belly button.
“I’m going to make breakfast,” I whisper, prying his arm off, but he snatches me back the second I move away.
