CHAPTER 60 #2
Even in his weakened state, he was bigger. Stronger.
Abandoning the fight, I let go and scrambled toward my bed for the knife. The door flew open, and Angelo crashed through on a curse.
I held out the knife between us with a trembling hand. “Leave me the fuck alone,” I said on a shaky voice.
“Lily Cat … you always were a little fighter, weren’t you?” Licking his lips, he stepped closer, and from his back, presumably his waistband, he pulled a gun. “Bring a knife to a gunfight … well, it’s just stupid.”
“What are you doing here, Angelo? You’re gonna hurt me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna hurt you. I’m gonna fuck you. Hard. And I’m gonna take that knife and slit your throat, ‘cause … you know, poetic justice, and shit. Then I’m gonna cut you up in pieces so I can carry your ass out of here without anyone gettin’ wise.”
“How’re you gonna do all that with Conner here?”
“Conner isn’t here. He’s been fucking that Callahan bitch every night.
Got her knocked-up, did you know that? Congrats.
You’re gonna be … something.” He snorted a laugh and scratched the back of his grown-out hair.
“Guess it’s Bee who’s gonna be a big sis.
But no matter. You were never really a part of things, anyway, right? ”
“Why? What have I ever done to make you so hostile, Angelo?”
“It’s not about what you’ve done to me. Seems somebody at that school has it in for you.”
Faces flashed through my mind. Gilchrist. Lippincott. Even Mel.
“Someone from my school put you up to this?”
“Yep. Not gonna say who, though. It’s a secret,” he whispered, pressing a finger to his lips and grinning.
When he lurched again, I jerked the knife.
Sighing, he narrowed his eyes on me. “I’m bored of this shit. I got a long night ahead, so what do you say we get started?”
“Angelo, don’t. I know people. People who can pay you.”
“You don’t know the right people. See, power is where it’s at, Lily Cat, and you ain’t got that kind of pull in your corner.
Taking you out means protection for me. Means I don’t have to sit rotting in a fucking room waiting for death.
” Meaning he struck some deal with someone to kill me.
The question was who? He edged toward me. “Take your clothes off.”
“No.” My hand still trembled as I held out the knife.
“Take. Your fucking. Clothes. Off. Or I’ll blow out your kneecaps.” He raised the gun, pointing the barrel of it toward my legs.
A suffocating fear filled my lungs as I stared back at him. “Don’t do this,” I whispered.
“You know what a bullet feels like? It burns. And when it shatters a bone? There’s nothing like that pain.
So, I’ll give you to the count of ten, and then I’m just going to empty this fucking gun into that body.
If I gotta fuck you dead, so be it. Wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done.
” Beady eyes sharpened on me, his lips peeled back for a snarl. “ One. Two .”
Still holding the knife, I unfastened my pants and one-handedly pushed them to the floor.
“Shirt,” he said.
I shook my head.
“ Three. Four. Five .”
Uneven breaths shook out of me, as I hooked the hem of my shirt and quickly yanked it over my head so I wouldn’t get trapped in it. I crossed my arm over the lace bra I still wore.
Eyes alight with a sickening fascination, he licked his lips, staring me up and down. “Panties, too.”
A sob broke in my chest as I stood paralyzed, trying to wrap my head around what was happening right then.
On a whim of adrenaline, I spun around and scrambled across my bed for my window. I only just managed to open it a crack before his palm slammed into my throat, knocking the air out of me as he took me to the floor.
A scream tore from my chest, cut short by his hand pressing hard against my mouth.
“Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!”
I swiped out at him, the blade connecting with his cheek. On a shocked jerk, he touched the wound I’d made there, wiping some of the blood, and eyes wide, he stared down at it, as if in disbelief.
With my hand raised for another strike, I swung toward his throat this time.
He caught my arm before the fatal blow could land.
A growl roared out of him, and he crushed my hand against the floor, the small shocks of pain zipping over my knuckles breaking my grip of the knife.
Over and over, he hammered my hand, crushing my bones.
A flash in my periphery was the only warning before knuckles plowed into my cheek, vibrating my teeth.
The jarring hit blurred my vision and sent a shooting ache up into my ear.
The same hand that hit me clamped back over my mouth, his fingers digging into the ache he’d planted there.
I screamed behind his palm, tears distorting his form.
“I wanted you to be a little more lucid for this, but I guess it doesn’t fucking matter, does it?” From somewhere below, he pulled out a small baggie with pills inside.
I thrashed my arms and legs, screaming until my voice turned hoarse, and he pressed the full weight of his body over me, pinning me down.
His hand slid from my mouth, and I clamped my lips shut.
Fingers dug into my jaw, prying at my chin so hard, I felt like he was trying to crack my bones.
The gurgled sound in my throat snapped short when he deposited the pills into my mouth.
He forced my lips shut and pressed both hands over my mouth and nose.
The air waned. Dizziness wobbled my view.
Lungs punching at my ribs for a sip of air.
“Swallow it, bitch!”
A sob cracked inside my chest, and the pills slipped down my throat. I choked and gagged behind his hand, and only then did he remove the palm blocking my nose. I gasped for air and coughed again, the godawful scent of metal clogging my sinuses.
“That’s it. You’re about to get nice and fucking pliant in a minute. Just lay still.” A slimy tongue dragged across my cheek. “Relax,” he whispered.
Something inside of me snapped like a fragile twig.
Relax.
The word echoed in my ear.
In the haze of chaos inside my head, a vision appeared.
Blood. The tub. I look up to see a dark form standing over me.
Lilia! Lilia!
The sound of my mother’s voice reverberated off my skull, and I flinched.
The dark figure steps over me toward the tub, where my mother’s slender legs dangle over the edge.
Her leg kicks.
She’s alive. Alive! I thought she was dead, but she’s alive!
“My … my mother. She was alive,” I whisper, narrating the vision as it played in my head.
Angelo paused somewhere in my periphery.
More memories filtered in.
“Stay away from me!” she screams.
Pain throbs in my skull on jagged flashes of light across my eyes. The air is too thick to move. “Mama,” I rasp.
The shadowy figure grunts, with his arms outstretched. Drowning her. He’s drowning her! My mother’s leg stiffens, toes curled.
I scream.
Blackness.
The loud gurgling of water draining rouses me, and I blink awake.
I’m clawing at wet tiles, trying to get to her, but my muscles won’t move.
“Relax,” the shadow says to me, the smell of dirt and metal sticky in my sinuses.
My throat tightens as realization stabs my chest. “You were there that night.”
Even more echoes of memory filter in.
Knock knock knock.
I glance back toward the front door of the apartment.
“I’m a friend of Conner’s.”
“It was you at the door. Then … I saw you drown her. You drowned her!” The smirk on his face blurred behind more memories.
The figure runs a blade over my mother’s wrists. Thick drops of red blood plink across the stark, white tiles.
“You killed her. She was alive, but you killed her!”
“I was sent to finish the bitch off. Imagine my surprise when you beat me to it.”
I stilled. An icy mist of panic expanded inside my lungs, as I fought to absorb his words. A flash of memory slipped behind my eyes.
Hands reaching out for me. Screams. Horrible screams .
Eyes screwed shut, I shook my head.
No. No. Don’t look at it. It’s not real. Not real.
“You don’t remember much about that night, do you?” A wicked chuckle in my ear stirred demons from their slumber. Teeth and claws snapping at my conscience.
My stomach stirred with a horrible dread that scratched at my guts.
“Mama! Stop!”
A distant scream rattled through my skull, and I let out a whimper as it picked at my brain like nails on a scab.
“You’re lucky,” Angelo kept on. “I’d have loved to forget those fucking disgusting things wriggling around the tub, feeding on her blood before I sent them down the drain.”
Blood on the tub. My mother’s fingernails digging into my skin. Worms coming out of her like black smoke curling and shifting through the water.
The blackness in my gut crawled into my chest, squeezing its poisoned-dipped fingers over my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
“Mama! Please!”
“I can’t breathe!”
I screamed and thrashed beneath him, the monster inside of me desperate for escape. Please!
“Yes. You held her underwater.”
“She was still alive,” I growled back at him.
“Barely.”
Liar. A fucking liar! “No. You slit her wrists. The coroner’s report …” My voice trailed off, watching his lips stretch to a grin. “Oh, God. You made it look …”
Angelo’s laughter only goaded the panic rising into my throat, pulsing like a living thing.
A dark and wicked beast that gnawed at my ribs.
“That coroner was pissing his pants, making sure her death looked like a suicide. That’s power, Lilia.
” He let the tip of the blade scratch my cheek.
“You passed out. Hit your head on the tub. Good thing, too. Made the whole scenario more believable.” The stench of dirt and metal clogged my throat as he leaned in closer to me.
“I saved your ass, Lily Cat. Between that and lying about your existence to Lippincott,” he said, inadvertently spilling the name.
“I saved your ass so many times, you owe me that ass. And I’m sure as hell gonna take it. ”
Lippincott. It was Lippincott.