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“No, you’ve changed—”
I didn’t let her finish. I snatched up the book, and with a throw a baseball player would have been proud of, hurled it at her head. The pages fluttered, and just as I’d hoped, Loretta automatically put up her hands to protect her face. I didn’t waste a single second and lunged for the bathroom. I ran with long strides, only needing a few paces to cross the room. The whole time, I expected the probes from the Taser to slam into my back and throw me, rigid and voiceless, to the floor, but it didn’t come. I swung around the doorframe into the bathroom. The air was still slightly muggy from my shower, condensation down the inside of the glass.
The handle to the shower door was a metal fingerhold that was on both the inside and out. I yanked it open and threw myself inside and hurriedly dragged it shut again. There was no way to lock it, so I just had to hang onto the fingerhold and pray I was physically stronger than she was.
My entire body shook with fear.
Please, Hayden. Wake up. See what’s happening. Come and help me.
Loretta stalked into the room. She saw what I’d done, and a cold smile stretched her face. There was a red mark on her cheek that hadn’t been there before, and I knew it was from where the book had hit her.
“Very clever. You think I can’t get you if you’re in there.”
She reached the shower door and took hold of the handle on the other side and pulled against me. I used my entire body weight—which wasn’t much—to hold it closed, every muscle tensed, my teeth gritted, my eyes squeezed shut.
I should have gone for the Taser. Fuck. I should have been bolder, braver. I’d made a mistake. If I’d managed to wrestle the Taser from her hands, she wouldn’t have had any hold over me. But I’d been fearful and had only wanted to put distance between us, and something that would protect me. Besides, my hands were still cuffed, and even though she was older, that was still a disadvantage for me.
Loretta let go of the handle and stood back slightly.
“Yah!” she yelled suddenly, slamming both hands, including the one holding the Taser, against the shower door. I jumped, a scream tearing from my throat, and held onto the handle tighter.
I sobbed, tears of fear rolling down my face.
She looked up at the top of the shower, where there was a gap between the ceiling and the top of the door.
Oh God. I hadn’t thought about that.
“No,” I begged, shaking my head. “Please, don’t.”
Could I knock her away? Wrestle the Taser from her?
She glanced around and spotted the toilet. Putting down the seat, she climbed up on top of it. She didn’t look stable at all, and I prayed the toilet seat would crack and give way under her weight, but it held strong.
Loretta reached up into the gap, the Taser muzzle pointing through.
“No!” I lunged for it, hoping to wrestle it from her hands, but she fired. Twin prongs hit me, one in the chest, another in the shoulder. I guessed I should have been relieved I hadn’t been shot in the face, but for the moment I was unable to string a thought together.
I dropped to the bottom of the shower stall, those horrifying clicks—click-click-click-click—filling my ears. Water from my earlier shower dampened my skin and dress, soaking through to my skin. Not that I cared. My teeth clamped together, my body pressed hard against the tiled wall as every muscle went rigid and tried to find space to push outward.
The clicking stopped, and the end of the Taser wires fell onto my shaking body as Loretta climbed down from the toilet and pulled open the shower door. Feeling was barely coming back to my limbs, but I stared up at her in horror as she pulled out the discharged cartridge, and then reloaded it with a fresh cartridge which slid down from the bottom of the handle.
I found my voice. “What are you going to do to me?”
“For the moment, I’m just enjoying seeing you suffer.” And she pointed the reloaded Taser and fired.
The prongs hit me in the back and hip this time, and I went rigid, my teeth clipping my tongue, so I tasted blood. The pain was excruciating, wrapping me in hot iron bands that I couldn’t escape, and all I wanted was to make it stop. Perhaps death would be better than going through this over and over again. My heart would give out at some point, I was sure. The body couldn’t take this much trauma and continue to function.
It felt like I’d been lying in the bottom of the shower stall forever, but finally the clicking stopped and the agony ebbed away. I lay there, panting, while Loretta stood over me, a kind of wild delight in her dark eyes. I hated her in that moment. Hated her with every fiber of my being. I didn’t care what she’d been through, what she had suffered. She deserved every single bit of heartbreak.
But I knew one thing for certain. If I continued to lie here, she would kill me.
The feeling was coming back to my limbs, but I wasn’t going to give her any sign that the shock was wearing off.
With a roar of fury, I threw myself out of the shower stall, aiming for her legs. My bodyweight and the surprise took her off balance, and I swept her feet out from under her, sending her flying backward. The Taser skittered out of her grasp, and she flipped herself onto her stomach, reaching for it.
I wasn’t going to let her get hold of the weapon. I couldn’t stand to go through that again.
Barely thinking, my vision a red haze of pain and fury, I hooked the chain linking my handcuffs together under her throat. I screamed in anger and yanked up, bringing the chain tight around her neck. Loretta let out a strangled cry and stopped going for the Taser, instead clawing at the metal chain. I was straddling her upper back, and she squirmed and wiggled beneath me, but I wasn’t going anywhere. A strange, strangled choking came from her throat, but in my anger, I only took pleasure in the sound.
