Chapter 31
Goddess Rage
Maliyah
"Come on." His hand closed around my upper arm. "Let's get you back on the couch where you belong."
He pulled me up and pain exploded through my ribs. White-hot, blinding. I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming, tasting copper. My vision went gray at the edges.
Don’t drop it. Don’t let the weight get the better of you.
Somehow I tucked the bronze statue against my body as he yanked me to my feet. The weight of it pulled at my muscles, its edges digging into my palm. I clutched my side with it, the pain in my ribs providing the perfect cover for what I was really holding.
He positioned me on the couch, standing over me. His hand held the side of my face with a tenderness that made my skin crawl.
"There," he said. "Isn't that better?"
I couldn't answer, but nodded my head as if I were cooperating. I couldn’t talk, and my whole body was screaming. I felt a sob rip through me as I thought about whether I would be permanently damaged by what he’d done to me. I needed help.
Bryce settled back into his chair. Crossed his arms. Watched me with that expression I remembered too well—possessive, satisfied, like I was a belonging he'd misplaced and finally recovered.
"You know," he said conversationally, "I've thought about you every day for all these years—fifteen years, Maliyah. Every single day. Did you think about me?"
I closed my eye. Tried to find somewhere else to be. Somewhere that wasn't here, wasn't this.
"I asked you a question, Maliyah."
When I didn't respond, he leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Diane's pretty, isn't she? Sweet. Obedient." His voice dropped. "But she wasn’t you. She would never have been you."
My stomach turned.
"I tried," he continued, as if we were having a normal conversation.
As if he hadn't just beaten me nearly to death and dragged me to a beach house to—what?
Keep me? Kill me? "I really did try to forget you.
Move on. But then I saw you at that farmer's market with your kids—" His eyes darkened.
"—and I knew. It was like no time had gone by. You were always meant to be mine."
Just wait, I told myself. Just wait for the right moment. Don’t move too fast. Don’t react.
"I brought you here because this is where we should have been all along," he said, gesturing around the beach house. "You, me, the ocean. Remember when we used to talk about living at the beach someday? Having a place like this?"
I didn't remember that. Or I'd buried it with all the other poisoned memories.
"We can start over," he said, and the delusion in his voice was complete. Absolute. "I'll make you understand. You'll see—this is where you belong. With me. The way it was always supposed to be."
He actually believed this could work. Believed I would just... what? Accept this? Stay with him willingly? Be his new wife? Broken and complacent? Fuck him.
His delusion made him more dangerous than ever.
I tried to assess my situation through the haze of pain. My body’s brokenness was at the forefront of my mind, but my spirit’s strength was greater, and both would feed my rage.
"You're quiet," Bryce observed. "That's okay. You don't have to talk yet. We have time." He leaned back in his chair. "All the time in the world now."
A sound.
A thud from somewhere outside the room. Faint but unmistakable.
Wood splintered as the door burst open. Even before I saw him, I knew—Reed had come for me. The certainty of it hummed through my battered body like electricity through a wire.
Bryce’s head snapped toward the hallway. "What the—"
My heart stuttered as Bryce reacted. Hope and terror mixing until I couldn't tell them apart.
Bryce stood abruptly, moving toward the doorway. Listening.
Another sound. Closer now. Whispers of footsteps.
"Stay quiet," he hissed at me. "Not a fucking sound."
He crossed back to the couch in three strides. His hands closed around my neck from behind, fingers digging into bruised flesh as he dragged me up by my hair. Standing me in front of him like a shield as he positioned himself with his back to the wall.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. The pressure on my windpipe was immediate and crushing as his hand wrapped around to the front of my neck, tucked under my chin.
The sharp edges of my way out stung against my ribs—ready to act on my behalf. But his hands were choking me and I couldn't—
Flashlight beams swept across the hallway visible through the open door.
"Police!"
Reed.
Reed's voice.
It really was him. I wasn’t imagining it. I’d been right. He came. He actually came.
Relief crashed through me so hard it felt like drowning and I was barely holding it together. But Bryce's hands tightened and the relief turned to panic. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't get air. My vision was tunneling, darkness creeping in from the edges.
"Not a sound," Bryce whispered in my ear. "Or I snap your neck right now."
The flashlights were getting closer. Footsteps in the hallway. Multiple sets.
The door opened.
Reed stood in the doorway, weapon drawn, flashlight mounted. A silhouette behind him that, by the shape I knew was his partner and best friend, John. Other officers flanked them, but the flashlights were blinding me.
I could see however, that there were several guns pointed at us.
At Bryce.
But I was in the way.
Someone hit the lights and Reed's eyes met mine. I saw everything in that instant—shock at my injuries, rage at Bryce, desperation because he couldn't shoot without hitting me.
I tried to hold it together, but the look on Reed’s face brought tears out. A hot trail burned down my right cheek while my face throbbed, the salt stinging where skin had split beneath the swelling and along my cheek.
Reed's voice cracked, "Bryce." His voice faltered.
He swallowed hard, then squared his shoulders.
"Bryce Callahan." Reed's body was a coiled spring.
The muscle beneath his stubbled jaw twitched once, twice, as he kept his gaze locked on Bryce.
"Let her go," he commanded, each word precise and controlled.
Not once did his eyes flicker toward mine, as if looking at my broken face might snap what little control he maintained.
Bryce's hands tightened, cutting off my thoughts. I made a sound I didn't recognize—choked, desperate.
"Put the guns down!" Bryce's voice was shrill. Panicked. "Put them down or I'll snap her neck right here!"
"You don't want to do that," Reed said. His voice was calm. Too calm. The way you talked to someone on a ledge. "Bryce, listen to me. You're surrounded. There's no way out of this except—"
"Shut up! Just shut up!" Bryce's breath was hot against my ear. His fingers dug deeper into my throat. "She's mine! She's always been mine and you can't—"
His grip shifted slightly as he yelled at Reed—spittle landing on my face.
His hand shifted just a fraction.
My lungs screamed for air. Black spots danced across my vision. If I didn't move now, I was going to pass out.
Or die.
Reed's voice from that day in the gym echoed through my oxygen-starved brain: Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin. S.I.N.G., Maliyah. You can do this.
I could do this.
I had to fucking do this.
Now.
Solar plexus.
Could I even do it? Every breath sent shards of glass through my ribs, my shoulder screamed with each tiny movement, and my wrist throbbed in time with my racing pulse. Every movement was agony.
But Reed's voice was clear in my head: Fight, Maliyah. Don’t give up. So I did it. I drove my elbow back into his solar plexus—using the arm that didn’t feel like it was being ripped from my body.
Pain exploded through my torso, sending lightning through my entire body—I felt the impact. Felt his body curl slightly. Felt the air whoosh from his lungs in a surprised grunt. He thought I was too broken to fight. Surprise.
His grip on my throat loosened. Just a fraction—just enough.
Instep.
I stomped down on his instep with my heel. Found the top of his foot and brought all my weight down. Hard.
Bones crunched under my heel.
He stumbled, crying out. And his balance shifted—his grip on my throat grew lax.
I sucked in a desperate breath of air. My vision cleared slightly.
Nose.
I snapped my head back into his face. Felt the impact reverberate through my skull—adding to the concussion, making the room spin and spots appeared in my vision—but I felt something crunch. I wasn’t sure if it was his nose, but I didn’t care. I broke something and I’d take what I could get.
His hands released my throat completely.
I could breathe.
Groin.
I turned—agony ripping through my body as I pivoted—and saw his face. Contorted in pain and rage and shock.
This man. This man who had tried to take my strength. Tried to take my freedom. Tried to take my life. This man who terrorized me. He would kill me if I didn’t end this right now.
So, I drove my knee up into his groin with every ounce of strength I had left.
For Lucas. For Zoe. For every woman he'd ever hurt. For Diane. For all of it. For me!
The impact connected and he doubled over with a sound that didn't seem human. A high-pitched wheeze of pure agony. His hands went to his groin, face twisted in pain.
And the goddess was still in my hands. Heavy, sharp edges, solid in weight. She was ready to defend. Ready to stand up. Ready to end this. And I was ready with it.
Bryce’s body faltered and, while the back of his neck exposed, I felt his hands reach forward. He moved to grab me around my legs and I realized I had one chance.
It was him or me.
This ended now—it ended with him.
As I felt his grip on me take hold, I brought it down with everything I had left.
The blunt bronze base struck the back of his head with a sickening thud. The impact reverberated up my arms—bone meeting metal, the shock of it traveling through my broken body—and for a split second everything stopped.
Then he howled—a sound of shock and rage. He pulled me in, grappling, clawing, trying to bring me down. Footsteps pounded toward us, but there wasn't enough time.
He was grappling for me, clawing at me. My responding cry was guttural—ripped from the depths of my being. In my hands I still held onto my final chance. This time, the spears of the statue’s hair—long tendrils of metal, curved and firm—pointed outward.
I raised it again, and with every ounce of my strength, I brought it down on him—bringing it down onto the evil that had been haunting me.
Haunting my dreams. And this time, the statue embedded itself in his neck and spraying me with the warm mist of his blood.
The impact reverberated in my arms, and with it I felt his last breath exhale.
And once it was done, he collapsed on top of me, crushing me under his dead-weight. We fell to the ground together, and, upon impact, I lost all sense of being. The surrounding voices became distant fragments of a life I thought I’d earned. That I deserved.
I saw my children’s faces, heard their voices, and felt their arms embrace me. I heard the words of a life I thought I’d almost lived—Reed’s voice call out "Maliyah!"
Everything was going gray at the edges, and finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the darkness closed in—taking my pain. Taking me.