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“Of course he did.” I shrug.Ouch. “You’ve got a sick, twisted relationship.”
“He raped me!”
“It wasn’t rape. It was role-playing.”
“Relationship is going a little far,” Micah breaks in, smirking at Heather. “I don’t do relationships.” Then he looks at me. “She was a tool, and not a particularly effective one. She’s been boring the fuck out of me lately. I’m glad you chose her. I should have gotten rid of her a long time ago.”
At her shocked look, he laughs. “What? You think you deserve to live? A woman with no loyalty, a woman who would betray her best friend knowing she’ll be tortured to death?”
Darlie lets out a little scream and claps her hand over her mouth. Robin hugs her sister fiercely.
“No!” Astrid cries out in horror. “You’re not going to torture Tamara to death! You’re not!”
Heather suddenly lunges at Micah and grabs for the knife. He dodges her easily, and in one smooth move, he stabs her in the stomach.
She makes a choked sound of disbelief. We all freeze in place and stare as he gives the knife a vicious twist and then yanks it back out again and the air fills with the smell of blood. It occurs to me that he dressed her in white to make sure that the blood showed. Heather makes horrible screeching noises and falls toward him, landing on him and throwing him off balance.
While he’s distracted, Astrid tries to grab the knife, and he punches her in the eye.
Suddenly, Darlie lunges at him and bites his hand savagely, clinging to him like a pit bull, and the knife falls to the ground. He raises his fist to punch Darlie, and I somehow thrust aside all my pain and weakness, just for a moment. I hurl myself at him and headbutt him so hard that I hear his nose crunch. Stars explode behind my eyes, and I stagger back.
Robin lashes out and kicks him behind the knee, making him stagger and almost fall, at the same time that Julie snatches the knife from the floor and plunges it into his thigh. The smell of blood is choking me. All my food comes up in a rush, and I vomit on the floor. My body is seizing up, and my eyes are watering and I can’t see.
“Side of the neck! Hit him with the heel of your hand!” I scream to anyone who’s listening. “In front of the ear! Hard, hard!”
There are screams and grunts and then a thud, and my vision clears a little, and I look down at Micah. He’s lying on the floor, eyes rolling back in his head. Oh God, it worked! Julie is standing over him, panting with triumph and looking at her hand. Robin’s trying to pull the knife from his leg, but it’s stuck.
Heather is lying in on her side in a red lake of blood, twitching feebly. Her eyes plead with me and her mouth opens and closes like a fish, but no sound emerges. She’s as good as dead, and she deserves it. I make no move to help her.
Robin stomps repeatedly on Micah’s throat. She’s only wearing sneakers, though.
“The door!” I cry. “The retina scanner! Pick him up, we have to go!”
Astrid and Robin manage to lift his dead weight, and they wrestle him over to the door. He groans. Julie grabs a handful of his hair and lifts his head and peels back his eyelid and presses the button on the panel. And the door clicks open.
My heart pounds with wild elation.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
We might actually make it. We might not die here.
I limp behind them as they drag him down the hall, leaving a long trail of blood from his leg. The knife is still sticking out of it. We get to the front door and repeat the procedure with the retina scanner there, and it opens. He’s starting to wake up now, grunting and struggling.
The front door opens, and Astrid and her daughters drop Micah on the floor. He lands with an agonized groan that warms my heart. I kick the knife in his leg, which sends agony pulsing through my battered body, but his strangled cry is reward enough.
Astrid and her daughter run out the door, and I limp after them. The front yard is wild and overgrown, with waist-high weeds. A long paved driveway curves behind tall trees. I try to follow them, and something grabs my ankle with a death-grip.
Micah.
As they run, they’re glancing behind them to make sure that Micah’s not chasing them. When they see what’s happening, they stumble to a halt and stand there, unsure.
No fucking way am I letting them die when freedom is so close. Their escape? That’s my happy ending.
“Go!” I scream at them. “Get help!”
It won’t be in time, but it doesn’t matter.
They’re free.
