37. Addie #3
“What?” Lewis yelled. “What did you say, bitch?”
Praying that my boys heard—that they’d understand—while simultaneously aware that I’d just have to manage if not, I kicked out at Lewis with legs that felt a little too like jelly.
I had less than three hundred seconds until I was dead. Less than sixty until I was no better than.
By the time I got my legs beneath me, Randall had leapt into the fray. He tackled me to the ground, giving me a clear view of a twitching Chase and frantic Spencer. He flipped me over onto my back, straddled my hips, and closed his meaty hands around my throat.
Now it was only a matter of which would kill me quicker—the poison or Randall.
As my vision dimmed and my lungs screamed for air, I flailed. I looked for anything I could use as a weapon. With increasingly useless hands, my fingers brushed against something cord-like and I yanked on it, figuring it was worth a shot.
A heavy brass table lamp crashed to the floor beside us, but Randall didn’t even take a second to glance at it.
His mistake.
My fingers closed around the cold metal just as Lewis yelled a warning—too late to save his stupid sidekick. I swung it with every ounce of strength left within me, cracking it against Randall’s temple with a sickening thunk.
Randall keeled over on the geometric rug. His eyes now finally looked at the crumpled metal lamp, discarded beside him, as Lewis screamed “No!” then took Randall’s place atop my body.
Instead of strangling me like his pal did, Lewis opted for flying fists and spattered spittle.
His knuckles cracked across my face—once—twice—disorienting me more each time.
My boys must not have got the message. Duck was an awful codeword, come to think of it.
I figured I had about twenty seconds left till full paralysis, and then I was done for. I had no poison left to administer, no blade to stab him with, not even a lamp within reach. So I grasped for the one thing I did have left.
A sacrifice I would have to make. I was sure Beck would understand.
My fingers wrapped around the smooth, black leather of an accessory long-since discarded in the struggle. And as his hand yanked me upwards by my hair, the sharp, six-inch heel of my stiletto sank into Lewis’ left eyeball. Right down to its shiny red base.
My mark jerked once then collapsed in a lifeless heap beside me, just as the poison delivered on its stupefying promise.
Unfortunately, my luck was utter horseshit, and Randall chose that moment to reanimate like a zombified corpse. He gurgled to life as my lungs stuttered in ironic contrast, clambering to his knees, covered in his own blood.
His one-track mind was so oblivious to everything else he missed Spencer leaping over Chase and Lewis’ bodies to drag me up by my hair.
But Randall wasn’t at all unhappy about this development—oh no.
He cracked a sharp-toothed grin, blood-filled and hungry, and closed his mouth around my neck again.
What is this, some kind of vampire novel?!
But instead of the sharp bite of fangs, the only thing I felt was a torrent of blood across my face as Randall’s head exploded right beside mine.
Spencer swivelled, dragging my prone form with him, and I could have wept at the sight of the barrel of a gun pointed right at us—because the man with his finger on the trigger was Deklan Pearce.
“We’ve got it from here, Deadly.” He grinned, glancing around at the mess. “Though by the looks of things, you had it from the get go.”
“Unhand my girl,” Beck thundered beside him.
“My girl?” Van ducked underneath Dek’s outstretched arm, his incredulous expression wildly amusing in any other scenario.
“Puhlease, you both know she’s my girl.” Dek shot me a wink.
I won’t be anyone’s girl if you keep arguing amongst yourselves.
“Let her go,” Beck snarled, ignoring them.
Spencer took him literally and dropped me face down onto the rug, raising both hands in surrender.
I made no move to catch myself—I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to—and that lack of self-preservation finally seemed to prompt an oh shit, something’s wrong response.
“Addie?” Van asked, rolling me over.
“Deadly? What’s wrong?” Dek asked, standing over me.
“Check her for wounds,” Van ordered.
Dek gulped loudly. “This blood isn’t hers, aside from the head lac and blood nose.”
Beck detoured on the way over, slashing through Spencer’s neck without an ounce of remorse before kneeling on the rug beside us. He leaned in, turning his head slightly to the side for a further three seconds, then yelled, “She’s not breathing, Van!”
“Fuck! The poison!” he yelled, the lightbulb finally going off. He reached into Beck’s back pocket and retrieved a small syringe, jamming it into my thigh.
All I could do was stare up at them—my three unlikely Romeos—waiting to find out if Van had solved the poison puzzle in time.
And the whole time, all I could think was that I’d finally found a sliver of life worth living for—not just surviving through—and now I’d have to give it all up.
I’d have to give them up… because the antidote had arrived too late.