Everly

“Don’t say a fucking word or I’ll blow your brains out.” Giselle’s voice was like nails, hard and brittle.

My heart hammered. Oh God. What was happening? How did she know where Cam lived? Had I locked the door? What was she doing here?

Only, I knew the answer. She was here for her little girl.

She knew it was only a matter of time before she was taken away again.

“Are you dumb? Hands in the air.”

My whole body shook as I raised my arms above my head. Oh Christ. Oh Lord. Oh damn it, damn it all to hell.

Giselle’s red hair was wild around her head, as if Medusa’s snakes had twisted through it. She wore a white dress, only dirt marked the hem—it was like she’d been dragged through a pool of mud. Behind her, the lamp from the side table, giving her body a halo. She looked like an avenging angel.

“Stand over there, and face the wall.” She jerked the gun toward the corner of the room.

Fear raced through me. My body shook. Piper. I had to save Piper from this evil woman.

Each step felt slow. My pulse throbbed. Run. Run. Run. My mind spun. Mack would be back, with Cam. They were on their way together. Maybe he was just around the corner.

Even as I strained, I couldn’t hear any cars humming up the street.

The only sounds were the soft throb of the television and the hammering of my heart in my chest.

“Where is he?”

“Where’s … who?” I tried to stall.

“Don’t play fucking dumb.” Something cold and hard stabbed into my back, shoving me forward. The gun.

My skin prickled. My body shook. I don’t want to die.

I flattened myself into the wall, trying to put as much room between myself and the gun as possible. “He’s … I don’t know where he is,” I gasped as she shoved harder. “Ouch! Please, I don’t know. I just got here and Mack … he was babysitting … said he’d gone somewhere and he’d—”

My hair was yanked back. My chin jerked up. Pain needled my skull.

“Listen, bitch. Don’t fucking lie to me. He wouldn’t leave his kid in the house with a stranger while he went out.” She leaned closer. The pressure of the gun shifted, and I thanked the Lord for that. Her spittle wet my ear. “Where. Is. He?”

Fear consumed me—it ate at every part of my soul. I don’t want to die. I love him. I love being alive. I might be pregnant.

Still, one part of me latched onto one tiny word she’d said. One little word that meant so very much. I took a deep breath. “His kid?”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Giselle yanked my hair harder. Something sharp and hard hit the backs of my knees, and I tumbled to the floor. The click of the gun sounded oh-so loud, and as I tried to move, tried to get back on my feet, the barrel appeared an inch from my face.

Shit.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

“Giselle, I’m telling the truth.” My voice cracked on a sob. Please don’t kill me. “He’s gone, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

She didn’t move, didn’t flinch. I blinked, trying to clear my tears to focus on her eyes, to see if there were any signs of lucidity there. Were her pupils dilated?

“You don’t want to go back to jail, r-right?” I asked, my voice a sob.

She kicked at my ribs, hard, sharp, and fast. Pain shot through me. I folded over, hugging my knees to my chest for protection.

“You don’t know the first thing about me, bitch. You don’t know the first thing about what will happen to me or the lengths I’ll go to get my little girl.” Her foot shot out again. Breath left my lungs. Acid clawed at my throat. Christ, it hurt. It hurt so, so much.

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. If I was pregnant, I couldn’t lose the baby like this. Life wouldn’t be that cruel …

Bella died. Bella died because she wanted a coffee in the middle of the day.

Life could be that cruel.

Life could be a cold, heartless bitch.

All you could do was hope it wasn’t.

Giselle fished around in the bag slung over her shoulder, her eyes trained on me the whole time. She pulled out a roll of duct tape. It landed with a thud on the floor beside me. “Tape your hands together.”

I frowned. How could I even—

“Tape them!” she yelled, waving the gun.

“Okay!” I held up my hands. Please, don’t hurt me.

Don’t hurt us.

“Okay,” I mumbled. I scrambled on hands and knees, picking up the tape. My ribs ached. Every movement was pure agony, as if someone had lit a fire inside my chest and it flared with every movement, every subtle shift of my body.

I wrapped one length of tape around one wrist, then stared at my other arm. How on earth was I supposed to do this? I glanced at Giselle, hoping for an answer, for a way out, for something.

All I saw was the eye of the gun.

Threatening.

Menacing.

Deadly.

It was the darkest monster I had ever seen.

I swallowed down the bile, the blood that had entered my mouth. I don’t want to die.

“For fuck’s sake,” Giselle muttered. In one swift move, she rested the gun on the coffee table and grabbed at the tape. My chest ached as she jerked my body closer.

She wrapped the tape tighter and tighter around my wrists, then grabbed a Stanley knife from her pocket and sliced the plastic from the roll. She’d planned this.

How did she know I’d be here?

Her movements were mad, jerky. Perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps she’d planned to get past Cameron this way instead.

My skin burned; my bones ached where my wrists were pressed together. I couldn’t move them. Not an inch. She shoved them toward my ribs. Pain tore through me again. I pressed my eyes shut, blinking away tears. Why was this happening? Why?

Because you don’t deserve to play happy families. You deserve this.

“Sit.” Giselle jerked her head toward the dining room table, the gun back in her hand, the knife lined up with the barrel, the tape around her wrist like some kind of macabre bracelet.

Woodenly, I moved where she pointed. Every step was agony, even as I dragged it out to try and give Cam more time to get here. To give someone more time to arrive.

“Sit on one of those chairs.” She jerked the gun toward one, and I pulled it out.

As my legs bent and I let the chair take my weight, Giselle moved forward. The gun shoved up against my chest as Giselle ran the tape over my mouth. Pain, such intense pain, the likes of which I’d never known—it was everywhere, and my vision blurred as the pressure increased, the gun pressed harder against the wounds she’d so casually inflicted. Losing conscious. I was going to pass out.

Images flashed through my mind, a highlights reel of the last few months of my life: long car trips up to Magenta, Cam’s face a stony mask as I cracked the walls of his heart, working my way in. Hot, sweaty nights in his garage, punching and kicking and hurting, getting all that pain out of our bodies and leaving nothing but room for us to heal. The feel of his lips against mine, his stubble scratching my skin as we met in a kiss so full of energy, of lust, of love—love like I’d never known before. Love that was everything.

I wasn’t given that only to have it taken away.

I had to fight.

I had to fight for Piper.

I had to fight for my family.

I had to fight for me.

Giselle shoved the gun into my chest. Blood entered my mouth, and I coughed. She snickered as she moved to the ground.

“You so much as move an inch, and I’ll murder you, then I’ll murder your boyfriend when he comes home.” She licked her lower lip, as if the idea tasted good. “You behave, and everything’ll be fine. I got no bone to pick with you. I’m only here for my little girl.”

She dropped the gun and grabbed the tape, pulling off a strand and wrapping it around one ankle.

I have to fight for me.

I kicked at her chest.

I knew the angle was wrong—I was sitting on a chair, and had no power to put behind it, nothing to give me momentum. My training with Cam had been more about upper-body strength.

But Giselle clearly didn’t expect me to do anything but play along with her silly little game.

Giselle didn’t expect me to care enough about Piper.

Giselle didn’t expect me.

Her shoulders jerked forward. I stood, bringing my knee to her face. Crack. Bone connected with bone, and she fell backward, grabbing at her nose.

“You bitch!” she shrieked, but I didn’t stop.

I raced down the hall to the back of the house. With each step, I pulled against my restraints, desperate to break free. They barely moved as I fled to Piper’s door.

Behind me, Giselle’s feet were thunder. I grabbed at the door handle, twisting it as best I could.

“You fucking bitch,” she yelled. “Don’t move!”

The door opened. I darted inside. Piper cried, her sorrow competing with the hammering of my heart, and I wondered how long she’d been like this, how I could save her.

I slammed the door shut, scanned the room. Bookshelf. Cot. Bed. The dresser.

I grabbed the edge, pulling it toward me. I needed it to act as a barricade against the door.

It didn’t budge.

I grabbed it again, pulling with all my might to move the damn thing but with both hands bound, getting purchase was hard, like holding on to a strip of water.

The door handle twisted.

It’s too late.

I raced to the cot just as the door flew open. I shielded Piper with my body. She couldn’t take her away. Couldn’t take Cameron’s little girl.

“Move.” Giselle pointed the gun at my chest. Blood trickled from her nose over her lip, making her look even more deadly than she had before.

I shook my head. No. If she wanted this baby, she had to go through me.

“I said, move.” Spit flew from her lips. She slowly stepped into the room, every movement slow, menacing.

I watched, taking it all in. She’d have to put the gun down to reach for Piper, and when she did, I’d loop my arms over her head. Suffocate her. Strangle her.

Could I do that? Could I take a person’s life?

I silenced the questions in my mind. I couldn’t doubt that right now. I had to protect Piper, because if Giselle got her hands on her daughter, I had little doubt—we’d never see her again. No one would.

I tensed, ignoring the pain that tugged at my ribs. Each second was important. Each breath. Each step.

The barrel of the gun pressed into my chest. Fire radiated from the point of impact, scorching through my body. Any second now, she’ll put it down. Then, you move. Take this hurt body and move faster than you’ve ever moved before.

Save Piper.

Save Piper.

Giselle’s lips curled. She flashed her teeth in a gummy smile. “You’re trying to protect my baby? From her own mother?”

She laughed, cruel and loud and long.

I tensed. Ready to strike.

Ready to end this.

“Fucking moron.”

It happened so fast.

One moment, the gun was pointed at my chest.

The next, she raised it up and slammed it into my head.

Everything went black.