Chapter 18 #3
Rachel’s door is four down from mine, and the key is where she said.
Her place is a mess. I move fast through it with her list open on my phone.
Clothes for the baby come out of the top drawer, Danny’s inhaler off the counter, the documents from under the mattress, the toddler’s rabbit off the bed.
I stuff everything into a duffel. The front door stays open behind me because my hands are full and my daughter is four doors down.
A floorboard creaks in the hall.
“Mia.” The folder stays in my hands. “I told you to stay put.”
When there’s no answer, the hair rises on the back of my neck. I set the folder down, cross to the doorway, and find two people in the doorway.
The man takes up most of the hallway. He’s enormous through the shoulders, red in the face, a fire department windbreaker stretched across his gut. Beside him stands a familiar woman, the same one whose nose I broke a few weeks ago.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands.
“Who are you?” I don’t move from the doorway.
The sister’s mouth falls open, then curls. “That’s her.” She points, arm locked straight. “The one helping your bitch of a wife, Jared.”
His nostrils flare, and his hands squeeze into fists. “Where’s my wife?” He starts down the hall at me. “Where are my kids?”
“I have no idea.” I plant my feet. “Rachel asked me to tidy her place while she’s away. That’s all I’m doing here.”
“She’s lying.” The sister’s voice climbs to a shriek. “Look at the bag in her hand. She’s packing for her. She knows where they are. This is the one who broke my nose over those brats.”
“I’m doing a favor for a friend.” I sneer. “You two can take your delusional little side quest somewhere else.”
Jared crosses the hall in two strides. He drives his forearm up under my collarbone and slams me into the wall hard enough to empty my lungs.
“Where are they?” His face is inches off mine, his breath sour with beer. “Tell me where my wife took my children.”
“I don’t know.” The words come out through my teeth. “Get your hands off me.”
“She won’t tell you so easily.” The sister moves in at his shoulder, her eyes glittering. “We’ve got plenty of ways to loosen her tongue, Jared. She’ll talk.”
He draws his fist back, so I hit him first. I catch him square under the chin, driving up off my back foot. He stumbles into the far wall.
“I’m not your wife,” I spit at him. “You put your hands on me and I’ll beat your ass.”
The sister’s palm cracks across my face.
That blow spins me into the door frame, her foot catches my thigh, and I go down onto one knee.
Her second kick lands in my stomach and folds me in half.
I’m still dragging air back when Jared’s fist closes in my hair.
He hauls my head back. I kick out blindly, catching the sister across the shin, and she goes down shrieking.
Then I drive my elbow into his groin with everything left in my arm, so his grip lets go.
He drops, and I scramble sideways along the wall. The sister’s already up, and she’s got Rachel’s table lamp raised in both fists.
“Get away from my mom!”
Two small bodies hit the woman below the ribs at a dead run and take her off her feet. The lamp bounces across the boards. Mia’s on top of her, screaming, and Bella has one arm pinned under both knees, the pair of them going at her with a fury I’ve never heard out of either girl.
“Mia, no!” I lunge for them. “Get out! Both of you, move!”
“You crazy little bitch.” Jared’s back on his feet.
He comes for me, his hands close in my jacket, and he swings me off the floor.
The table catches my hip before my head cracks against the edge.
The room goes white at the corners. Somewhere far off, the girls are screaming, Jared roars, and I push up onto my elbows.
Mia’s on his back, and Bella’s kicking at his leg.
He reaches around to take a fistful of my daughter, so I throw myself between them, up on my knees, and his fist catches me across the cheekbone. The floor comes up to meet me. Something hot spreads through the side of my face.
The sister grabs Bella by the collar, slams her onto the floor, then pins her with a knee. Jared stands over me. His fist comes down twice more, my ears ring, and I can’t get my hands high enough to stop the third.
“Mia, run!” The scream tears out of me. “Get out of the apartment!”
She doesn’t run.
My daughter is throwing herself at a two hundred plus pound man with everything in her, clawing at his arm.
Her hand comes away red. Four deep furrows are torn through his sleeve into the meat of his forearm.
Her nails—no, those are not nails, those are claws, black-edged dangerous claws extending from the edges of my daughter’s fingers.
She looks up at him, and her eyes burn gold.
The sound coming out of my little girl’s chest is one no human should possibly be able to make.
Jared reels back, staring at his own arm, then at her in shock. “What the hell are you?”
She leaps toward him, and I see him raise his fist. Without a second thought, I get to Mia first, pushing her under me with my back to him. My arms wrap around her protectively as I wait for the blow to come.
It never does.
Instead there’s a growl, low enough that I feel it through the boards under my knees, and Jared makes a choking sound.
I lift my head to see that Marcus is standing over us with his hand around Jared’s wrist.
He looks pissed.