Page 7 of Layne Closure Ahead

Lightning flashed outside her windows, followed by the crackle and boom of thunder shortly after. The increased pressure of the rain crashing against the windows indicated the strength of the storm was intensifying.

She sighed as she moved to her modestly sized laundry room, leaving a wet trail of footsteps behind her. Peering inside the top of the washer, she realized she had forgotten to move the laundry to the dryer yet again. Embracing a fuck it attitude, she figured she’d wash it all one more time with a few more articles of her clothing.

The first thing to get pitched in was her damp socks, followed by her shirt, tossing it straight into the partially full washing machine. Before she could remove anything else, the lights in her house flickered and the sound of the power cutting out caused her to curse.

Layne’s eyes fought to see through the darkness as her hands reached out in front of her to ensure she didn’t trip over something like a broom and die in a freak accident. She needed to find her flashlight which she thought was in one of the junk drawers in her kitchen, or maybe she had left one in the office. After a brief debate on where she had left it, she opted to check the kitchen first.

Before she reached the entrance to the kitchen, she stopped in the hallway when something caused her to freeze up. Her steps came to a halt when one of the floorboards at the other end of the hall creaked. Layne’s senses were all raised to high alert as she strained to sense any other movement or presence there in the darkness of her home.

The adrenaline prompted her heart to beat faster, delivering more oxygen to the rest of her body as she stood as still as a statue. The second she heard the rustle of clothing from someone else moving closer to her, she didn’t allow herself to think before she struck.

She lunged at the shadow, and when she made contact, she ended up shoving the large body harshly against a wall. The shadow’s hands grabbed for her arms, but she defensively evaded them.

Grabbing the tall shoulder of the shadow, she pulled down while simultaneously driving her knee upwards into its stomach. A set of hands grabbed the knee of that same leg and pulled her off balance, dropping her down onto her back on the floor. The impact of her back hitting the ground smacked the air right out of her lungs leaving her unable to even gasp for a brief moment.

The shadow’s considerable weight was soon down on top of her, attempting to pin her down, but she squirmed using the leverage of her feet against the floor to roll herself over on top of what was most certainly a male shadow.

Straddling her assailant, she threw an aggressive fist at the slight outline of his head as her eyes began to partially adjust to the darkness. Her knuckles made contact but it was a grazing strike while the size and strength of the shadow’s hands shielded himself.

He bucked her off him, which caused her to fall off to the side crashing into a small decorative table where she typically kept little odds and ends. As her body crashed into it, the table wobbled on its spindly legs and scratched across the wooden floor before it toppled over altogether.

Layne scrambled to her feet to create distance between her and the ominous shadow that hadn’t been invited into her home. A powerful hand grabbed her ankle which caused her to fall forward. Her hands broke her fall allowing her to continue the fight to escape the shadow’s hold on her.

It felt like an eternity that she had yanked and tugged to break the grasp on her ankle, but when she finally did, she broke out into a full sprint down the hall. The sound of heavy boots quickly followed behind.

Her hands outstretched in front of her ensured she didn’t run into a wall at full speed. The change of the floor underneath her bare feet from wood to an area rug as she rounded a corner indicated she had successfully made it into the living room.

The bad news? So did the shadow. Layne was jerked back by her waist against the steel body of the shadow that had been so persistent not to let her get away. She screamed out in a mixture of surprise and desperation.

The powerful arms fought with her as she made it challenging as hell to restrain her there. A hand finally clamped down over her mouth, muffling the screams tearing out of her throat. Unable to compete with strength alone, Layne got pulled across the living room and forced down into the softness of her sofa cushions.

A knee forcefully pressed into her back pinning her underneath the shadow’s weight as her hands were pulled behind her and a set of cold metal cuffs clicked shut around each of her wrists. With her hands now bound behind her, she was pulled upright to sit on the couch.

She tried to stand up, only to have the pair of hands give her enough of a shove that she lost her footing and plopped right back down onto her ass again.

Layne glared at the dark figure in front of her. She hoped that he could see the dirty look she was giving.

She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. Instead, she felt an odd sense of nothingness that if this was going to be her demise, then so be it. Everyone had their day.

“Just get it over with,” Layne impatiently spat the order out.

The figure crouched down in front of her, a hand came up under her chin and took hold of her jaw. Finally, the shadow spoke his first words to her.

“I need a favor.” Joey’s voice immediately became recognizable.

Some of the tension in her body released hearing the soothing sound of vocals she would recognize in any crowd. The relief was quickly replaced by anger as she attempted to lash out at him with her hands, only to have the cuffs working by design to prevent her from doing so.

“What in the actual fuck? Get the hell out of my house, I don’t care what you need!” She tried to get up off of the couch only to be easily knocked back down onto her ass yet again with a soft bounce against the seat cushion.

“You need to hear me out, Layney.” His voice reflected a sense of calm and was collected, something that Layne currently wasn’t having any of.

She shook her head in disbelief as he called her by her nickname which she used to be fond of hearing from him. “No! No, you do not get to call me that.” Layne pulled on her wrists, trying to squeeze them out of the steel restraints. “I told you that if I ever saw you again, I would put a bullet between your eyes.”

Joey had the nerve to let out a small chuckle. “That’s why you’ve got a pretty new set of bracelets on right now.”

The storm outside continued to progress with several flashes of light and booms of thunder. Briefly, she got a glimpse of Joey’s face there in front of her thanks to the lightning that caused a split second of illumination.

His hands settled on the tops of her knees. “I swear, I’m just here on business. If I had any other choice, believe me, I would have taken it. Just take a moment to stop being stubborn and listen.”

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