Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter
Fifty-Six
“Hey, Bodie.” I tried my best to sound casual, but my voice came out a little higher and more breathless than normal. “I didn’t realize you knew about this place.”
He had his hands on my upper arms, as if to steady me after our collision, but instead of letting me go, he tightened his grip until I almost yelped.
“What was it that clued you in?” His blue eyes had gone hard.
The sight sent shards of ice into my blood.
I fought to keep the fear off my face. “About what?”
He smirked and hauled me out of the phone booth.
The hallway and lobby were both deserted.
“You know what?” He wrenched my phone from my hand and tossed it into the booth. “I don’t even care. I know you put things together, and that’s enough.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, even though it was likely pointless.
My gaze skipped to my phone, but Bodie kicked the booth’s door shut and dragged me toward the elevator.
“Bodie! Let me go!” I tried to stand my ground, but my high-heeled shoes had no traction on the marble floor. “Help!” I yelled, hoping that somebody somewhere in the building would hear me.
Bodie clamped a hand over my mouth and yanked me on board the elevator.
I flailed and struggled, desperate to get away before the doors closed.
He held me in place with ease and kept his hand over my mouth.
Until he flung me against the elevator’s side wall.
I gasped in pain when my hip smacked against the handrail and my head bounced off the faux wood paneling.
I lunged for the doors as they closed, but Bodie caught me and locked an arm around my neck. The doors shut.
It felt like they were sealing my fate.
Bodie hit the button for the top floor.
“I’m sorry to say we’re not going back to the party,” he said, as if I hadn’t already guessed that. “They’ll have to mix their own drinks.”
The elevator climbed up and up. I needed to get away, but Bodie was ridiculously strong—from way too many hours spent at Ultimate Beast—and panic had scattered my mind.
I fought through the haze of fear and remembered a self-defense move I’d learned back in high school. I raised up one foot and stomped down, grazing the inside of Bodie’s leg before smashing the heel of my shoe into his foot.
At least, that’s what I meant to do. He moved his foot out of the way just in the nick of time.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he said. “You’re no match for me. I saw you at the gym. You’re pathetic. Cute, but pathetic.”
A sparking-hot cloud of rage built inside of me, muffling some of my fear.
He was a murderer and a liar, and he was calling me pathetic?
He thought he was going to take me away from Livy?
At the thought of my beautiful, sweet niece, my rage morphed into something hard and solid.
Livy wasn’t losing another loved one.
Not if I had anything to do with it.
I wanted to talk to Bodie, to distract him while I came up with a plan to save myself, but he’d clamped his hand over my mouth again.
I tried to bite his fingers, but he managed to keep them curved enough that I couldn’t sink my teeth into his flesh.
When the doors opened to the fifth floor, he dragged me off the elevator.
I couldn’t move my head much, but I glanced up and down the hall, trying to will someone to appear. Someone who could help me.
The corridor remained empty.
Bodie half dragged and half carried me to a door that led to a narrow staircase.
I knew where we were going. And I knew why.
I struggled and flailed again.
Bodie shifted from cold calm to red-hot anger in a flash.
He slammed me against the wall of the stairwell and pressed a forearm against my throat so that I could hardly breathe.
“Bodie! Stop!” I wheezed in a faint voice that sounded nothing like me.
He brought his face right up to mine. “You want me to stop? You’re the one trying to ruin everything.
All I needed was some money. I’m drowning in debt, and my car’s about to get seized.
Those bottles of whiskey were my ticket to an easier life, but then people had to get in my way.
First Freddie, then that dude with the messenger bag, and now you.
I don’t want to hurt you, Emersyn, but you’ve brought this on yourself. ”
Tears pricked at my eyes as black splotches blotted out my vision. “What would your sister think?” I rasped. “If she could see you now?”
“My sister is alive and well and living her perfect life in Boston. I didn’t want to lie to you, Emersyn, but I needed you to trust me so you wouldn’t poke holes in my alibi.”
“Alibi…” I couldn’t get enough oxygen to say more.
“Yeah. Alex, the assistant manager at the bar? She has a thing for me and was more than happy to lie to the cops. I didn’t want you figuring that out.”
I tried to absorb his words, but my mind grew fuzzy as my vision darkened further.
Just as I was about to slip into oblivion, Bodie eased up the pressure on my throat and hauled me up the stairs.
I tried to scream while I had the chance, while he didn’t have my mouth covered or my airway blocked, but I was still trying to catch my breath and my throat felt so bruised.
When I tried to yell, I ended up coughing.
By the time I stopped sputtering, Bodie had dragged me out the door and onto the roof.
The wind whipped through my tangled hair and stung my tear-filled eyes. I grabbed at the corner of the rooftop enclosure. Bodie yanked me away.
I cried out as the stucco scraped the skin off my fingertips.
I kicked and flailed so fiercely that Bodie had to use both arms to restrain me, leaving my mouth uncovered.
“Help!” I screamed, over and over. The wind whipped my words away, up into the sky where no one would hear them.
Bodie dragged me to the edge of the roof. I scratched at his face with my fingernails, drawing a trickle of blood from his cheek. He reared back and smacked my face. My head rang from the impact, and little pinpricks of silver light flashed in my vision.
“I’m sorry, Emersyn.”
He sounded genuinely remorseful, but then he took advantage of my momentary shock to heave me up and over the four-foot barrier at the edge of the roof.
“No!” I screamed into the wind.
I thrashed about and pummeled my fists against any part of him that I could reach.
My legs dangled over the edge. One of my shoes slipped off and fell away.
I kicked up one leg and managed to hook it over the barrier.
Latching on to Bodie’s shoulder and wrenching him down toward me, I used him as leverage to swing myself up and over the wall.
He grabbed for my shoulder as I tumbled to the floor of the roof.
His fingers caught the strap of my dress.
With a ripping of stitches, the strap broke away, leaving him with nothing but fabric in his grasp.
I crawled away from him, losing my other shoe in the process.
I clambered to my feet and ran for the door.
Bodie tackled me to the floor, right by the bench where I’d sat with Mr. Nagy. Pain split through my knee and elbow. I screamed with the fierce power of combined fear and frustration.
He jammed his knee into my back, pinning me down. My cheek pressed against the gritty rooftop, tiny pebbles cutting into my skin.
I saw Livy’s smiling face so clearly in my mind.
A sob broke out of me.
“I can’t go to jail, Emersyn. I really am sorry.”
“Help!” I screamed again, but my voice had gone hoarse.
Bodie grabbed me by the shoulders.
Then the door to the stairway flew open.
Wyatt and Jemma burst through it, a gaggle of seniors behind them.
I felt more than saw Bodie’s hesitation.
I reached under the bench, and my hand closed around cool glass. I whipped out Mr. Nagy’s bottle of pálinka and twisted around, smashing the bottle against the back of Bodie’s head.
The glass shattered.
Bodie crumpled.
The pungent, fruity smell of pálinka burned my nose.
I scrambled up and away from Bodie, scared he might rise again at any second.
Tears blurred my vision. I blinked.
When I could see again, Wyatt had a barely conscious Bodie pinned to the floor.
Jemma threw her arms around me, almost knocking me off my feet. “Oh my God! Emersyn! Are you okay?”
My neighbors swarmed around me, everyone exclaiming and chattering all at once.
I was safe, I realized.
Alive and safe.
I sank into Jemma’s arms and let my tears fall.