Gun Shy(62)

“I can take him,” Leo says, his gaze hard as he stares up at my house.

“Can you take a bullet?” I challenge him. “Can you take being arrested? Can you take going back to prison?”

Leo’s shoulders sag.

“Go home, don’t go home,” I snap. “Whatever. But for the love of God, don’t fucking follow me across this road or it will be the last time we ever see each other. You get me?”

He gives a short nod, walking back a couple of steps. I check the road for any cars and run across the road, along my driveway, up the front steps, and onto my porch.

I left the door unlocked on purpose this morning, part of my plan. I don’t even have a key to my own goddamn house, Damon’s control over my every move is so precise. I can’t come and go as I please if I don’t have access to the place, a deliberate move on his part.

The door handle turns in my palm, I crack open the door, and I’m safe. The house is pitch-black and silent, thankyouthankyouthankyou. I step across the threshold and close the door behind me, sagging against it as the adrenalin in my veins continues to throb.

I made it.

A lamp snaps on in the living room, the noise is deafening in the silence, the light impossibly bright. I jump so violently I drop my bag, and its contents scatter across the floorboards like little traitors exposing me.

“Well,” Ray smirks, a shotgun resting across his knees as he sits at one end of the sofa. “Would you look what the fuckin’ cat dragged in.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX





CASSIE





Ray sizes me up like I’m a piece of steak he’s about to cut into. His eyes drift from my face, down my torso, all the way to my feet and back again, and when he’s done I feel like he’s painted an oil slick from my head to my toes.

“Ray,” I say listlessly.

“Ca-ssan-dra,” he mocks, the grin on his face a mile wide. He stands, the shotgun casually slung over one shoulder as he approaches me. I put my hand on the doorknob and twist, pulling it open an inch, but Ray is faster. He’s in front of me, using his free hand to slam the door shut again, leaving it there so I’m caged in by his thick arm.

I swallow thickly. Fuck.

Ray wrinkles his nose up, the grin still cemented to his face. “You. Stink. Like. Sex.”

My stomach drops. I want to throw up. The room spins around me as I look past the man who buried Jennifer’s body, the man who held a gun to my head after I’d rolled her into the ground, the man who I’ve feared since the moment he shook my sixteen-year-old hand in his clammy palm and squeezed it a beat too long.

I’m so terrified, I can’t even speak.

Smirking, Ray takes his hand away and pulls a cell phone from his jeans. He dials and holds it to his ear, pulling a face as he studies mine. He’s entertained by my fear. He’s… what’s the word? He’s triumphant. He thinks he’s won, but I don’t even know what game we’re playing. I hear a voice on the other end of the phone, and really, who else would it be?

“Brother, you’d best get home,” Ray says to Damon. “I found your girl. I think she’s got some things she’d like to tell you about who’s been sticking their dick inside her.”

Damon says something that distracts Ray. I see it in the way his eyes glaze over, the way he turns away from me ever so slightly. I’m trapped against the door, but if I can just get past him, I’ll be able to run for the kitchen.

Ray ends the call. Damn.

There are sharp things in the kitchen. Knives.

Fuck. Whichever way this ends, there’s going to be blood.

I bring my knee up as hard as I can, hitting Ray in the groin. He’s got an erection. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. All that excitement from trapping me in my own home without Damon to call him off. Ray doubles over, groaning. “You fucking cunt!” he roars, dropping the phone. He reaches out to grab me, but I twist out of his grip, elbowing him in the side as hard as I can.

I run to the kitchen, my arm throbbing, my brain screaming. Knife! Knife?

Knife. I find the sharpest blade in the block, the one I accidentally cut myself with when Chris visited, and brandish it in front of me. Ray charges at me, the shotgun still in his hand, aimed at the floor.

If I can just get the gun away from him.

If I can just get the gun.

If I can just.

Fuck.

“Give me that,” Ray says, holding out his hand like I’m a petulant child who grabbed a second helping of chocolate ice cream after dinner. I feign surrender, letting my wrist go limp as I hand the knife to Ray. He chuckles, his wide palm in striking distance.

I don’t hand him the knife. I slash the knife as hard as I can across his palm. Fuck you, you psycho. As if I’d hand you the only weapon I have.

Ray growls, his face beet red. “Ffffuuuuck!” he rages, spittle landing on my cheek. I step back, but not fast enough. Ray is biggerstrongerfaster than me, and his bloodied hand closes around my knife-wielding wrist so hard, I feel like the bone might snap. I gasp in a breath, fighting his vise-like grip as my wrist screams in agony. The pain is sharp, it’s warm, it’s coated in the blood that pours from Ray’s deep laceration all down my arm.

“You fucking cut me?!” he rages.