28. Tess
TESS
What I could make out between the pulsing in my ears was minimal. A bang that made the ride shake. Lithe footsteps across the platform. A mallet dragging roughly over the surface.
Fuck.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I caught a blurry glimpse of Nash’s painted mask as her broad frame stalked closer across the ride.
Shit.
Terror coursed through me like glass through a wound. I was so close — so fucking close. I’d laid on my side at the base of the teacup, doing my best to dissociate from the torture.
I’d been fighting back nausea for hours, and I was so close to being done.
Even through clenched eyelids, I could see the sky was lightening. I was probably less than an hour from victory.
But all of it was for nothing. Fucking Nash.
I kicked myself internally for picking such a stupid hiding spot. There wasn’t much time for self pity, though.
Nash was halfway across the platform, dodging the spinning cups with all the grace of a panther. And I was about to learn what it felt like to be trapped between her teeth.
No. I came too far to give up now.
There were still a good fifteen feet separating me from my stalker. If I could just get my legs underneath me, if I could make a run for it.
I wouldn’t even have to last that long.
Spitting out the last of the bile, I gripped the edge of the cup and hauled myself up. My wobbly steps were immediately met by a laugh from behind the painted mask.
“I admire the persistence, Sweet Lamb. But there’s a difference between a good fight and a lost cause. I think we both know which this is.” She crept closer, her light footsteps a stark contrast to the dull drag of her mallet.
I searched desperately for an exit. But the world was spinning, and my knees were jelly. Any sense of equilibrium I’d gained while I was laying down was gone the moment I stood.
Fuck it.
Gripping the edge of the cup, I hurdled myself over its lip, taking a spill out onto the main platform.
Suddenly, all the mirth was gone from Nash’s voice. “Tess, stop. You’re going to get hurt.”
“I’m not… quitting.” I gasped, fighting down a fresh wave of nausea. I was still spinning, but the motion outside of the cup wasn’t nearly as bad as inside of it.
As Nash picked up speed, I scrambled to my feet, breaking out in a blind sprint across the Lazy Susan. But a series of rotating circles built into the main platform constantly shifted my direction, making it impossible to keep track of my own feet.
Still, I ran, narrowly dodging a cup moving at the speed of a car.
“Tess.” She snarled, hooking an arm into the metal gate of one of the cups and using the momentum to fling herself forward to the next one. “You lost. Give it up.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” I growled. There’d be a gap coming any second, and when it did—
“Tess.” She was only three feet away. Seconds from grabbing me.
And I didn’t see the teacup hurtling my way until my feet had already left the ground, making a mad leap for the edge of the ride.
A direct collision at the re-engineered speed would be enough to kill me. I was about to die.
But before I could faceplant to my death, a strong hand gripped the base of my neck. Nash hauled me back against her broad chest, hot breath creeping past the edges of her mask.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Let go of me!” I screamed, throwing back an elbow. But it glanced right off of the wall of muscle behind me, only hurting myself.
“Let go?” Nash scoffed. “You could say thank you for saving you. Again.”
“I’m not thanking you until I see what you’ve got planned,” I snarled.
If the fucking I’d gotten from Blade was anything to go off of, I’d be leaving this exchange bruised and more than a little sore.
Nash loosened her grip on my neck, wrapping her strong arms around my torso instead. “This is a lot of attitude for a girl who can barely hold herself upright.”
“I can hold myself—” But in the single second that Nash released me, my knees were already buckling beneath me. “Fuck you.”
“I’d like that,” Nash purred. The mask couldn’t hide the gloating in her silky voice. “But we’re a bit limited on time for what I had planned…”
I followed her gaze up to the shifting colors in the sky. The pinks and oranges would give way to the bright gold of morning within the hour.
Minutes. I’d been minutes from freedom.
But now, I was hers to do with as she pleased.
“Come on,” she murmured, hoisting me into a bridal carry and hopping off the ride.
“Where are we—?” my grip tightened around her neck as I tried to figure out where she was taking me.
She was in no mood to explain, apparently. But the excitement in her voice told me that I should be terrified.
“We’ll just have to get creative, Sweet Lamb.”