Strict (Part Eight) Read online

  Brandon shakes his head and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you, Chloe? You’ve always thought you were smarter than everyone else.”

  “What? No, I don’t,” I say, not sure where he got that idea, since he’s never met me. “Did Cassidy tell you that?”

  “She didn’t have to. It was the way she talked about you. I could tell that you thought you were better than everyone. A stuck-up little bitch, convinced her shit don’t stink.”

  “It’s not true.” I turn to Grace for help. “Tell him that’s not true.”

  “It’s not true.” But her voice is weak, her eyes still glassy. She also looks a little scared of Brandon now, which is in direct contradiction to how she was before.

  “I just want to help you,” I say to him, still trying to keep my voice calm.

  “Help me?” he spits. “You want to help me? You never even wrote me back when I sent you letters.”

  “I wanted to,” I say. “I wanted to, I swear.” I glance again toward the door, and this time he’s so distracted he doesn’t notice. But now he’s moved closer to me, and I know there’s no way that I could ever make it to the door before him. Even if I could, I couldn’t outrun him. And now that I know he has a gun, it doesn’t matter. If he can just shoot me, it wouldn’t matter how much of a head start I had.

  My head pounds with indecision as I try to figure out what to do. Everything I’ve ever read tells me that you’re supposed to fight and refuse to do what your attacker says, that even if they have a gun, you aren’t supposed to go anywhere with them, that it’s better to take your chances with them shooting you then taking you somewhere where you won’t ever be found.

  But I’m already with him somewhere I won’t be found, so I’m not sure that’s applicable in this situation.

  “You’re a fucking liar,” Brandon says. “If you wanted to write me back, you would have.”

  “No.” I shake my head and try to keep him talking, try not to let my voice tremble at the sight of the gun in his hand. “I did. I swear, I did. I was just afraid.”

  “Shut up!” he screams, and now he’s crossing the room and grabbing me with his free hand, the one that’s not holding the gun. He grabs me under my shoulder and hauls me into a standing position. He does it effortlessly, and his strength is surprising – he doesn’t look like he should be that strong, but he is, which would make sense if he really is on some kind of drug.

  He shoves me hard against the wall, and my cheek scrapes against the rough concrete.

  I whimper without meaning to, and the sound seems to make him happy.

  The barrel of the gun jabs into my ribs, and I feel my knees buckle as a moan escapes from between my lips. But he yanks me up and pushes his body into mine, pinning me hard against the concrete. He smells like sweat and something else, something rank and damp.

  “You want to know why I killed your sister?” he says.

  My stomach twists again, folding in on itself, and bile hits the back of my throat, sour and strong. I swallow it down and will myself not to throw up.

  “Do you?” he demands, and shakes me so hard that I feel my teeth rattle. “You want to know why I killed her?”

  “Why?” I say, because I know it’s what he wants.

  “Because of you.”

  “What?” I whisper so softly I’m not sure he can hear me.

  “She was supposed to be my sub, was supposed to do anything I said. But when I told her to bring you to me, she refused.”

  I slam my eyes shut tight, trying to block out the images that are flashing through my mind, the images from the security cameras that I’ve watched a million times, the images of Brandon and Cassidy fighting before they turn the corner outside of the club and disappear from view.

  Is it true what he’s saying? That they were fighting about me?

  “No,” I say. “No, that’s not true.”

  “It is.” He’s talking louder now, and he’s so close I can feel his breath against the back of my neck, can smell the rankness of it, like bologna and old coffee. “I always wanted to be with twins, to fuck them at the same time.” Now I feel something else behind me, the hardness in his pants pushing into my back as he imagines having me and my sister. “But that little bitch wouldn’t do it. She was supposed to love me, but she wouldn’t do it. ‘Chloe is off-limits’ she said.” He’s doing an impression of my sister’s voice, high-pitched and awful, and it doesn’t sound anything like Cassidy.

  I close my eyes.

  Cassidy died because she was protecting me. Of all the different scenarios and reasons I imagined for and about her death, this wasn’t one of them.

  I elbow Brandon in the side of his abdomen, but it’s ineffective.

  “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man in the world,” I say.

  “Really?” he says, and now his hands are playing with the waistband of my shorts. “Maybe we should see if that’s true.” His tone is taunting, and then, before I can stop him, he elbows me in the back of the head, hard, and everything goes black…

  THE END OF PART EIGHT

  Look For Part Nine, Coming Soon!

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