Page 132 of Hate Me

“Go! Get that motherfucker,” he called to me.

I leapt over their tangled limbs and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The guy up there ran at me.

I sidestepped him, then kicked him away. As he stumbled near the stairs, I spun into a spinning kick that sent him crashing down them… right toward Caleb. The bastard was absolutely done for.

I pulled my tactical knife from my holster, then ran at the door, shoving my boot into it.

It gave way under the brutal assault, ripping open and smacking against the interior wall.

As I cautiously stepped inside, I rapidly took in the bachelor apartment.

The place was run-down, one ratty brown couch positioned in front of a small flat screen hanging on the wall, then a double bed with rumpled cream sheets in the far left corner. There was a bathroom straight ahead, the door open. And that was the extent of it.

I’d barely taken another step inside when a rush of movement caught my attention.

In the next second, I was body checked into the wall beside the door, the door itself kicked shut. As I jarred painfully against the wall, my wrist was snagged against it, trapping my knife-wielding hand at the side of my head.

A blur of motion caught my eye and looked to see a syringe coming toward me.

I snagged the offending wrist.

“Nice block,” a hauntingly familiar voice came.

And then he was there pushing his weight into me.

Jett.

His creepy eyes burned into mine, excitement brimming.

His platinum-blond hair was spiked as usual but looking even more wild and crazy. Thick stubble covered his jaw, and he was clad only in a pair of red shorts, his bulky ripped chest on full display.

“I knew you’d find me here. Knew you couldn’t resist.” He pushed against my hand holding off the syringe, making me grit my teeth with the effort to keep it from penetrating my throat. “Come on, be a good girl for me and take a little nap. We can’t get reacquainted here, it’s not secure enough.”

“I’m here to end your miserable life, you psycho!”

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself as you’ve killed your way through my recruits in a desperate bid to get to me?” He scoffed. “Come on, sugar, let some of that delusion go, yeah? It’s been two years, we’re beyond that now, aren’t we?”

“You took my mom from me! You took my life!”

“And it worked. You embraced that fucked-up side of you that I love so fucking much, exactly what needed to happen for us to be together for the long-haul.”

Son of a bitch. He was just… beyond.

I ground my teeth, reminding myself that I needed to keep control and refuse to allow his provocations to determine my actions, to throw me off track again.

I’d worked too hard to allow it.

The boys had worked too hard for me.

I wouldn’t lose myself again, least of all because of this motherfucking piece of shit.

I slammed my knee between his legs, the idiot having left himself open as he’d spewed his so-far-removed-from-reality bullshit. He grunted and lurched, and it was all the opening I needed to wrench the syringe from his grip, then toss it into the wall, crushing it to pieces, the threat of him sedating me along with it.

With that hand now free, I delivered a brutal uppercut to the underside of his jaw that had him wavering. I hooked the back of his knee and wrenched his leg out from under him.

It broke his grip on my knife-wielding hand as he had to throw his hand out on the carpet to break his fall.

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