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The darkness threatens to return, black seeping into the edges of my field of vision, as I stare back at Kenneth Shaw.
Older than in my memory, with a scraggly beard and wild eyes.
And a baseball bat or something like it in his hands. He swings it and smashes it into the window.
Fuck. I jerk away, but the belt is still locked, cutting into my chest, sending a jolt of pain through my ribs.
Cursing, I fumble with the lock, but it seems stuck.
Holy shit.
The bat swings again, and the window crumbles. “Miss me, boy?” he hisses, and I freeze.
He reaches for me, wrapping a hand around my arm, and all I see is dirty sheets, blood and darkness as the pain runs me through.
“Take it, boy. Shut up, and take it…”
A voice in the back of my mind is yelling at me to move, to fight back. I promised someone I’d fight back.
I promised Dakota.
Move, dammit.
It’s like trying to move inside a dream where your limbs are locked in place and you’re trying to scream but no sound emerges.
Get free. Get out.
A howl is building in the back of my throat as I force my hand to move, as I reach for a belt buckle. All I can see is the attic, the bloodied sheets, all I can smell is cigarette ash and burnt flesh and fear.
You can do this.
Space isn’t working right. I’m on my knees, but I’m also sitting in my truck. There’s a man behind me—Kenneth Shaw—but he’s also outside my truck, trying to kill me.
I bite my lip, hard, and the pain gives me something to work with. I focus on it. Feeling blindly at my side, I struggle with the disorientation that’s turning my stomach. I’m inside a ship made of glass, and the ocean is lashing on every side. There is no up or down. There is no way to tell.
Pain. I bite my lip harder, a sharp sting when I break through the skin, a counter point to the phantom pain in my back.
I’m here. This is now.
My fingers encounter the latch and I fumble with it, pressing desperately to release the belt, dimly wondering why I’m still alive.
The latch gives this time, and the belt falls away. The first deep breath I take draws a gasp from me. The pain in my ribcage is definitely sharper than my bitten-through lip, and it grounds me more.
The truck. Kenneth Shaw.
Call the police.
Wincing, I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket to call 9-1-1, and that’s when I realize Rafe isn’t in the truck with me anymore.
I jerk around, phone in hand, searching for him and for fucking Kenneth Shaw who’d been there, grabbing my arm, what feels like a second ago.
“Hello? Mr. Madden?” a male voice says in my ear, and that’s when I also realize I didn’t call 9-1-1 but Wesley Logan.
Shit, there’s Rafe. I locate him down the sidewalk, circling Kenneth Shaw who’s wielding that baseball bat like a sword.
“Mr. Madden?”
“You have to come here right the fuck now. Bring reinforcements to arrest Kenneth Shaw. Hurry up.”
