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Horror blooms in my chest. I fight harder.
“Get off!” I kick him in the head, and he screams, grabbing at me. I wiggle, kicking violently with my legs to get free. “Asshole!”
“Cunt.” He catches my leg, dragging me in. And I twist, turn, and try to kick him again as the panic batters in my veins as he grabs my other leg. “Ungrateful, stupid fucking cunt. Don’t you know what a privilege it is to be chosen by me?”
I get my foot free and claw at the stairs. “I don’t want you, you sick fuck.”
“I made your career. I wanted you as my shining jewel in my collection. And the pretty before and after is sublime. Get back here.”
This time he digs his fingers into my calf, and he hauls me to him. I slam my head against his and shove my fingers into his eyes, not stopping until he screams and pulls me off, throwing me into the stairs.
But he doesn’t stop. He comes at me. “I can just cut off your head and fuck that.”
“What is wrong with you?” I scramble up, out of the way, and he staggers, holding a hand to an eye as he starts to squint.
“Get over here, stupid cunt.”
I hold my breath, the panic and adrenaline making me numb, making me shake, and I try to edge up the stairs. But he stomps a foot on mine and pulls the gun.
My heart hits the floor.
“Maybe I’ll shoot you and fuck you while you bleed out,” he snarls. “I can do that. I want to, cunt.”
“I’d rather die than have you touch me.” I try and get away from him, but he grabs me. “Shoot me. Go on. Do it.”
“I don’t want you to have what you want. I want what I want. Compromise, Dakota? Maybe I’ll call in one of the Collectors who’s a doctor. We have a billionaire plastic surgeon to the stars. She can patch you up and prolong it while I have you as much as I want. She might also want a taste, so that works.” He pulls me toward him.
“Brutus wants you, too. Then there’s the auction. After all that, when I get you here for your final time,” he says, “I’ll bring her back, and each time I make you bleed, she’ll patch you up. She’ll play with you. Maybe give you a free facelift without anesthetic. What do you say, cunt?”
I make horrible, wounded sounds from the horror of his words as I try and breathe, as my blood pounds hard in my ears. “You’re crazy.”
“Should we see how long you can last?”
“No.” I struggle.
“No?” he says. “I don’t care if you want it, you don’t get a say. My question was rhetorical. Down here, in my priceless collection, only the cream of the crop find their real fame, their place. Their masterpiece in death. That’s what you’ve got to look forward to. I chose you. Feel special.”
“I feel you’re a lunatic,” I say, twisting and flopping and scrambling for a hold. If I can’t get free, I’m going to make it hard for him. “So you can fuck off.”
“Language, stupid cunt. You’ll die here and like it.” And he clamps down his hold.
Not hard enough.
I manage to get a foot free and kick hard, hitting him in the face.
He shakes his head, sputtering, drool and blood on his face. Then he laughs, high-pitched and crazy, and starts to pull the trigger.
FORTY-ONE
orion
My bullet hits him in the hand and the fucker squeals and reels before dropping the gun before he can squeeze off a shot.
“He better be alive,” Jones says as I gather up Dakota.
My heart’s on some kind of wild tear, the beat so fast and painful it hurts.
“He is.” I hold her in my arms, breathe in her scent of jasmine, and she buries her face in my chest. “Don’t you dare kill him until I’m back.”
