River
I’d never had the chance to fight Bobbi one-on-one again, and as I clash with her, it reminds me of how she beat me the last time.
Sure, I’d been tired from the previous few fights, but she’s also that good.
She gets a solid punch into my solar plexus, making me wheeze, but I don’t falter.
Keeping her from grabbing the gun is the first priority, but that’s not going to be enough.
I need to hurt her.
I need to make her suffer.
She hurt Pandora—Pandora, who means everything to me, to all three of us, to her entire family.
I dodge a blow she aims at my side, and she’s reaching for her gun again when Asch joins us.
With two of us to keep her busy, Blaze will be able to get Pandora and Samantha out of here.
I don’t know who the actual target was, Pandora or her roommate, but it doesn’t matter now. No harm will come to either of them.
Bobbi gets a quick jab in, catching me in my jaw. I grunt, but the pain is nothing compared to my anger.
“Is she worth it?” Bobbi asks as she gets into a defensive posture. “She cost you your finger, right? Her family mutilated you. That’s what the Pavones do.”
I grit my teeth. She’s not wrong. They aren’t good people by any stretch of the imagination. They’d taken so much from me.
But Pandora has given me so much, too.
She’s ripping her beating heart out of her chest to care for us, putting it into the palms of our hands without knowing whether it’s safe or not.
She trusts us.
Bobbi could’ve taken her from us. If we’d been any later, there’s no telling what would’ve happened.
My mind flashes back to the blood spilling down Pandora’s face. I won’t stop until Bobbi is battered and bleeding, too.
“What about the Bouchards?” I snarl. “Do you really think they’re any better?”
“None of your fucking business!” Bobbi shouts back. “But at least I’m not simping for an unhinged bitch.”
My vision goes red around the edges.
Pandora isn’t an unhinged bitch.
I swing at her, but my anger makes me sloppy, and I miss.
Asch rushes Bobbi from the other side but Bobbi narrowly avoids the kick. She raises her arms to block the follow up punch, and I take advantage of the brief distraction to sweep her legs out from under her.
Once I get her on the ground, she’s finished.
There’s no way she can fight against two grown men who have her on her back.
“You keep your fucking mouth shut about Pandora!” I snap. “You don’t know the first thing about her.”
I straddle her legs and punch her again in the jaw.
It’s the least she deserves for making Pandora bleed.
“River!” Asch yells. “River, don’t kill her! We need her alive.”
Fuck that.
We don’t need her alive. She deserves to die for hurting Pandora, for wanting to kill Pandora.
For calling her an unhinged bitch alone, she deserves to hurt.
Bobbi grunts in pain—but she grabs my arms, too, and manages to roll us onto our sides. She kicks my stomach and scrambles away from me.
I get on my feet, and I eye Bobbi warily as she wipes the blood from her lip.
“I did like you,” Bobbi says, keeping her distance from both me and Asch. “I wouldn’t have turned you down.” She gives a glance toward Asch. “Not you. I’m not interested in closet cases.”
“The Bouchards are going to turn on you,” Asch says steadily. He’s not breathing as hard as I am, but she’s been more focused on pressing me. “They’re not going to keep their word to you, either.”
“What word? I get paid. That’s it.” Bobbi’s chest heaves with her heavy breathing.
She might have taken Pandora by surprise, but Pandora did tire Bobbi out first.
Good.
I’m going to make sure she never takes another breath ever again.
“Mary isn’t safe. She’ll never be safe with the Bouchards in charge. They’re only going to keep using her against you,” Asch says. He’s stepped into a defensive position of his own, his eyes trained on her.
Bobbi’s eyes widen. “How do you— No, shut up.” She rushes at Asch.
That leaves her back wide open to me.
I’m on her in a second, grabbing both of her arms and wrestling them behind her back. “Who fucking cares about her!” I snap. “Don’t bother, Asch. She hurt Pandora!”
Asch takes a step back. “You want to murder someone in the middle of campus?” he retorts. “No. We take her to Pandora and let Pandora decide what happens to her.”
That breaks through my haze of anger.
Bobbi laughs. “Fuck. You really are pussy-whipped, huh?”
Asch punches her in the face. “You’re lucky we are,” he says, his knuckles coming away with blood. “Otherwise, this would be a different conversation.”
Bobbi struggles against me, and it takes both me and Asch to get her hands zip-tied behind her back.
“That’s going to be your entire life,” Bobbi says. She sounds almost desperate. “Begging for scraps from her. What does she need three men for?”
To make her feel warm and comforted, to take care of her in decidedly different ways.
But Bobbi couldn’t ever understand that. She’s only trying to play on jealousy, and while I can’t say I’ve never been jealous, it’s not something that drives me.
“Just shut up,” Asch says. He picks up his scarf—discarded during the fight—and uses it to gag Bobbi.
She doesn’t make it easy for us to drag her to the car. It takes both of us to haul her into the trunk of my car. Good thing I always keep rope in there, because we’re able to secure Bobbi in place before I shut the trunk door on her.
“We could still drive her to the woods,” I suggest. “There’s no reason for her to survive.”
Asch purses his lips, and I can see him considering it. He shakes his head, though. “Pandora gets to decide,” he says firmly. “With what we know, it might change things.” He sighs. “For everyone.”
I shake my head. It doesn’t change anything for me. I still want her dead for hurting Pandora.
I start the car, carefully navigating onto the street.
Traffic is light, which makes the drive back to the house quick. Asch sends a few texts as I drive, but we don’t talk.
I don’t know what I would say, except yell at him for denying me the chance to obliterate Bobbi.
“Should we leave her in the trunk or bring her inside?” I ask dubiously.
“Too cold to leave her out here,” Asch says, pragmatic as ever. “If she’s going to die, it shouldn’t be an accident. Blaze says to bring her into the basement, anyway.”
I grunt, but we get out of the car. I glance around as we open the trunk, but it’s as deserted here as it had been on campus. Nobody wants to be out in the cold.
Between the two of us, we get Bobbi out of the trunk and into the house. She’s as difficult to maneuver here as she had been on campus, and it takes both of us to drag her down to the basement.
Blaze and Pandora are already down there, sitting on the ratty couch near the laundry room in the corner.
Pandora’s lip is swollen and she’s holding a tissue to her nose. Blaze has his arm around her.
Protecting her, even here.
This is one of the reasons Pandora needs all three of us, so that one of us can always be at her side when she needs someone the most.
Bobbi struggles harder when she sees Pandora.
“Oh, hey,” Pandora says. “You fucked me up bad.”
I grit my teeth as I look between them. “Asch thinks you should decide what happens to her,” I say, willing to throw the blame on him. “I think we should take her out to the woods and be done with it.”
We can bury her right next to Zayden’s head.
“Did Blaze show you the files, Pandora?” Asch asks, ignoring me.
“Yep.” Blaze nods at Bobbi. “Let’s have a chat. I think we can help each other.”
Despite his calm words, I can hear the edge of violence just underneath them. I wish he’d let go and let us destroy Bobbi.
I don’t want us to help each other.
I stare at Pandora’s face, and I want to fuck Bobbi up even worse.
Asch had gotten a good punch in to her face, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
Asch removes the makeshift gag, but he keeps his hand on Bobbi’s hair and a foot on her bent leg.
“Fuck you, Blaze,” Bobbi says. “This wouldn’t be happening if you’d listened to your father.”
Blaze scoffs loudly. “Or it wouldn’t be happening if my dad were less of an asshole. Tomayto, tomahto.”
“It wouldn’t be happening at all if they hadn’t taken Rachel,” Pandora adds. She glances at me, and I see the determination in her gaze. “That’s what this is about. Revenge.”
“Then we should get revenge on Bobbi for trying to kill you and Samantha!” I say. I hold her gaze for a moment, then look down at Bobbi. “Lynx. Whatever her fucking name is.”
She’d lied to me about so much.
I’d thought we were friends, or at least on the way to becoming friends. Maybe we hadn’t been close enough to talk about our dreams and ambitions—or even for me to tell her about Pandora—but she’d been one of the first people I’d tried to befriend after Franklin’s death.
That had meant something to me, even if it hadn’t meant anything to her.
“The files we have on you are interesting,” Blaze says. “Roberta Foley. Supposedly, you disappeared five years ago. But you weren’t alone. You had a sister.”
Bobbi’s entire body freezes.
“Don’t you fucking talk about her,” Bobbi hisses. “Not you, of all people.”
Not Blaze? Because he’s a Bouchard, or because of something else?
“Pandora?” Asch asks. “What do you want to do? Talk sense into her, or kill her?”
“Kill her, of course,” I burst out, gesturing to Pandora’s face. “Look at Pandora! This bitch was ready to murder Pandora!”
Pandora lifts her hand to her face again. “Huh. Is this worse than what you three did?”
I freeze.
Is it worse?
It doesn’t feel worse.
We didn’t try to kill her.
“Is it?” Asch asks, his voice quiet.
Bobbi bursts out laughing. “Trouble in paradise? Let me go and I’ll kill all of you to spare you the headache.”
Pandora leans forward, one hand on Blaze’s thigh. Despite the ratty couch and Pandora’s busted up face, they look powerful together.
Like they belong together, ruling over everybody beneath them.
“What’s your beef with me?” Pandora asks. “If you’re getting paid, you gotta admit it’s not worth the trouble anymore.”