Selena

 

I sit with my knees to my chest, looking over at Dante every so often and stewing with anger. He’s going to get himself killed for me. I keep thinking that, over and over; he’s going to willingly get himself killed to save my life. He can’t tell me there’s a connection between us, that we can be together, and then do something like that. Surely if there’s a connection between us that means that both of us should be trying to escape. Surely if there’s a connection between us that means that we should be acting together. He shouldn’t be keeping me in the dark.

 

“Selena,” he says, but I ignore him. He walks over to me, leaning heavily on his uninjured leg. He looks like he needs me. That’s the worst part. He looks as if what he needs most of all is for me to hold him, soothe him. And yet the idea of holding and soothing him makes me queasy when I think about what he’s doing to us. No fighting, just giving up.

 

“I’ll talk with you if you take it back,” I say. “Otherwise I have nothing to say.”

 

“How can I take it back?” he snaps. “Do you really think I can just walk up to the guards and kindly ask them to let us waltz out of here? What do you think’s happening here? Brose wants blood and if he don’t get mine he’ll just take both of ours. It’s me, or it’s you and me.”

 

I fold my arms. “Then it should be both of us.”

 

“You don’t mean that,” Dante says. “You can’t.” He kneels next to me, wincing with the effort. “What about your mother? Surely you want to get out of here so you can see her?”

 

“Are you really using my mom against me?” I turn to him, trying to keep hold of my rage. It’s difficult, though. He looks too vulnerable and handsome all at once. “Is that your grand plan—to emotionally manipulate me? I had enough of that with Clint.”

 

“I don’t intend to spend my last few hours on this earth arguing with the lady I’m trying to save.”

 

“Then maybe you should stop trying to save me. Whoever told you I was a damsel, anyway?”

 

He presses his forefingers into his temples, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. I can tell he’s struggling not to snap at me again. “This is about saving your life,” he says. “I’m not sure how many ways I can say that.”

 

“Well, I’m clearly just a ditzy stupid girl, aren’t I? I can’t even understand when the big strong man has explained it to me! How stupid I must be!”

 

“You’re twisting my words,” he says. “I didn’t say that.”

 

“Sometimes when a woman’s angry, she twists her man’s words! Get used to it!”

 

I stand up and pace up and down the room, clenching my fists and clicking my neck from side to side. I have to get ready. I prepare myself mentally. There will be violence soon, and before violence I always feel twitchy and ultra-aware. I always feel more like an animal than a person. With Clint it was a rat or a mouse or some other scurrying thing. But now I’ll be a tigress or a lioness or a cheetah queen. I’ll be a she-wolf and pounce on these men and tear them apart. I won’t let them take my man. My nails will pop their eyeballs before that happens. There will be blood, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

 

“What are you doing?” Dante asks, half laughing and half serious.

 

“Shadow boxing,” I tell him, jabbing the air.

 

“You’re doing it wrong. Those are some pretty girly slaps. I don’t see the harm in pointing that out.”

 

“We’ll see how girly they are,” I reply, throwing a right hook at nothing.

 

“If you try something …”

 

“You’re not the boss of me.”

 

He stands up—wincing and growling at his leg—and limps over to me. When he places his hands on mine, I want to slap him away but he looks sick with the effort of standing. “Listen to me,” he says. “I wanted a life with you. It’s the truth. I wanted a kid and a family and everything. I never thought I would but I did. But we can’t have it. I’m done. I reckon I’ve been done in many ways since Markus died.”

 

“But your brother didn’t just die. Brose killed him. And now you’re going to let him kill you, too!”

 

“There’s no other choice,” Dante groans.

 

“Is talking to me too much effort for you?”

 

“Yes, actually.” He grips his leg and limps to the wall, leaning against it. “Maybe I’ll bleed to death before they get a chance to kill me.”

 

“Don’t say that. Let me have a look.”

 

I go to him and sit him down, and then reapply the makeshift bandage as best I can. There isn’t much I can do except to tighten it and tear off more denim. Now I’m wearing jean shorts instead of full-length jeans.

 

He catches my hand as I tie the knot. “This is all for you,” he says. “You have to know that.”

 

“I understand.” I move my thumb over his knuckles, stroking. “But I can’t let it happen. No way. I’ll die first.”

 

“I won’t let that happen.”

 

I nod at his leg. “I don’t think you can stop me.”

 

He grins. “Do you really think a slug in the leg is gonna stop me?”

 

Footsteps sound in the hallway. They seem heavier than normal, and the men aren’t talking. A deathly atmosphere fills the room and suddenly I know that this is the moment. They’re here to take Dante away.

 

My first instinct is to become small as I became small with Clint. I’ll hunch against the wall and then later tell myself that there was nothing I could do, even if that’s a lie and there’s plenty I can do. I’ll tell myself it isn’t my fault and then curse myself for the rest of my life for letting it happen. I force down the mouse instinct and bring the lioness to the forefront. I’m done playing the mouse. I shunned victimhood the day I ran out on Clint. I’m not sinking back into it.

 

“Selena,” Dante warns.

 

I ignore him, standing up.

 

The door swings open and two men step through. They look tough and almost bored, as if they’ve done this many times before and just want to get it over with so they can go home. The biggest man is bald, with a goatee, and his leather so tight his fat arms almost break the seams. The man beside him is skinnier, with a mop of sandy hair and facial hair so thin it’s almost transparent.

 

“Get the girl,” Baldy says. “I’ll get the big boss.”

 

Sandy steps forward, taking his gun from his hip and aiming it lazily at me. He doesn’t see me as a threat. Dante is the only threat and Dante is leaning against the wall, panting, clutching his leg. He looks even worse than he did even a few minutes ago. He looks like he could collapse any second. Sandy steps right up to me with the gun, aiming it at my belly. “Come on, then,” he says. “We haven’t got all night.”

 

“Wait, are you Mitchel Reeder?” I ask, fluttering my eyelashes. I make myself look as pretty as possible: a dainty little thing, a hilarious case of mistaken identity.

 

“What? No.” Sandy tilts his head at me. “Why do you ask?”

 

“You look so much like him. He’s a male model.”

 

Sandy glances at Baldy, grinning. “You hear that—”

 

I jump forward and grab the barrel of the gun with both hands, and then yank it as hard as I can. I feel my muscles tear with the effort, but then I have the gun and Sandy is leaping at me, yelping in surprise. I just manage to see Dante leap forward and punch Baldy across the jaw and then Sandy kicks me in the shin, sending me to the floor. I hold onto the gun as Sandy leaps on me, trying to wrench it from my grip. He head-butts me, nose gushing down my front, and then punches me twice in the side of the head. I still have the gun. I pull the trigger.

 

The shot is louder than I would have imagined, so loud that my eardrums pop and a ringing echoes in my head. I fire again, the wall tiles chipping away. Another shot, and another … but this time not from me. Something heavy hits the floor. I have just enough time to see Baldy collapse in a pool of his own blood when Sandy grabs the gun from me, snapping my wrist at a harsh angle, and then drags me to my feet by my hair, pressing the warm metal against the back of my head.

 

“Stop,” he says, when Dante hefts Baldy’s gun, eyes wild, hair in disarray, face splattered with blood. Dante growls and takes a step forward. “I said stop.”

 

Dante stops, and then the man lets out a howling laugh. “Well, would you look at that?” he says. “Things got real real there for a second, didn’t they? But that’s over now. I want you to drop that gun, big man, and get on your knees. Your lady friend might have some fire in her belly, but that fire’ll turn to lead if you ain’t careful. That’s it now, drop the gun. Get on your knees.”

 

But Dante doesn’t. He just stares with cold eyes. “If I drop this gun, you kill us both,” he says. “You know if you kill her you’re a dead man.”

 

“Maybe so, but she’ll still be dead.”

 

Dante chews on that, and then shakes his head. “A rat like you values your own life over everything else. I know your type. You’d use your own mother’s skull as a shovel to dig your way out of shit.”

 

The metal presses harder into the back of my head. But I don’t cry out. I don’t beg. I won’t do any of that. What I do instead is lock eyes with Dante. He reads the message in my eyes. At least I hope he does. If he doesn’t, we’re both dead.