Page 32 of Forbidden Girl

Kill him.

I’ve always known I was fast, though not this fast. I hurl myself at him full speed and launch a high kick at his wrist. I hear the sharp snap. He shouts in pain and hunches, grasping at the small, now-broken bones that connect his digits with his arm. He loses his grip on his gun and it hits the ground with a thud. Leave it or pick it up? Fuck it, I’m gonna murder him with my bare hands. I yank him upright by his damaged wrist. He yelps like a little bitch. I plunge my knee into his balls, then let him collapse to his knees. Once he’s down I kick him again, this time connecting with the underside of his chin, right at the top of his throat. His head lolls backward and he goes down harder than a piano dropped from a fourth-floor window.

He’s lying semi-motionless on his back. I’m not sure he’s conscious enough to understand my words, but I say them anyway. “Yeah, you’re such a fucking big man, huh? Getting your dick handed to you by a girl.” I crouch on top of him, tug his short blonde hair, turn his head toward Jules. “Look at what you did to your cousin!” I scream, inches from his ear. I punch him again. And again. Blow after blow to his face, ribs, face again.

My knuckles are getting sore, and they’re coated in his reddish-purple blood. I know I should stop beating him, but I can’t stop. It’s definitely him or me, and probably him or Jules. I will not let it be her. There will be nothing recognizable left of his face when I’m done with it. I crack his nose at the bridge. His left eye socket concaves.

“Rowan, no!”

Jules is standing over me, pleading. “Your dad’s still your dad. Teague’s still my cousin.” I stop mid-punch to glance up at her. My rage evaporates at the sight of blood from her wound mixing with her tears.

I stand up, winded. Exhausted. My body is getting heavier as the adrenaline rush fades.

Teague is barely breathing. He’d be dead now if she hadn’t intervened. I splutter out, “He shouldn’t have touched you.” I have no explanation beyond that. And I can’t say I’m sorry for going savage on him, because I don’t think I am. I can’t find it in me to care a single iota. Maybe I’m a rabid animal and the best, safest thing for humanity would be for someone to put me to sleep.

“No.” She touches my shoulder. That single touch is all it takes to bring me back to myself. She’s the water to my fire. I’m a livewire and she is my grounding.

I glance at Teague, watch the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he struggles to take in air. “Shit. I really messed him up.” I wonder if I crushed his windpipe with that kick to his throat, cringing at the notion. “I don’t know where that came from. I like, snapped. Because… he did that.” I gesture at her gash.

She presses the butt of her thumb to it and winces. “Yeah.”

I rush to my bag, dig through it for a clean towel. “Hold this to it.” She’s going to need stitches. And there’s literal blood on my hands: A man panting for his life on the floor of this tent. Despicable as I know he’s capable of being, I don’t want to be him. I walk over to the mattress and snatch one of the pillows from it. Carefully, I raise his head and slip the pillow under it. The elevation helps alleviate his struggle for oxygen, but it’s not enough. This time around, I won’t make the same mistake. Jules’s phone is lying next to Teague. I palm it and dial 911.

A man’s voice on the other end of the line gives me the familiar cop-show spiel.

“I’m at Sand Dollar Beach on Hermit Island. There’s a man here who’s hurt badly. And a woman who’s hurt, too. I need an ambulance right away.”

FIFTEEN

JULES

There’s a small audience gathering outside our tent to ogle the spectacle—me receiving butterfly bandages to hold my gaping eyebrow closed, and Teague being loaded onto a stretcher. The EMT gathers he has a broken wrist and nose, and a fractured eye socket. One or two of the lower ribs on his left side are probably cracked as well. I hear my cousin groaning in pain. I stare at the tracks left behind in the sand as he’s wheeled away. I should be upset that he’s suffering, that Rowan hurt him, just like I should have been upset that she shot Gino. But I’m not. Gino was an unintended casualty of our family feud. I know how heartsick Rowan is over her actions, and how deeply she wishes she could get a do-over. Teague is a casualty of… being a sexist douche who solves everything with brutality, of thinking he could take a woman half his size without a problem.

I’m sitting in one of the recliners. Rowan is standing beside me with her arms folded, gnawing on her bottom lip, shifting between looking at her freshly cleaned but battered knuckles and following the gurney with guilt-ridden eyes. This life of violence is too much for her. It’s too much for me, also, but I haven’t lived through it first-hand until today. Thinking of how this is routine for her makes me sick to my stomach. Thinking of how Teague would have shot her, and maybe me, in hot blood, and felt zero remorse for it, makes me furious.

An EMT is leaning over me, checking my forehead for fractures. I shoo her away. “Please stop touching me, I’m fine.” She pulls her gloved hands back as if I’m holding a knife and demanding she give me all her money, then packs up her bag and heads for the ambulance. “Do you still have my phone?” I ask Rowan.

She grabs it from her rear pocket. The first thing I do is turn off location sharing. The second thing I do is open the FaceTime app.

“Calling your dad?”

“Not him. My mom. I have to tell someone about this insane shit.”

“I’ll give you some space.” She turns toward the tent, but I reach for her elbow to stop her.

“I want you to meet her. Through FaceTime, where your life isn’t in danger because of the psycho men in my family.”

“Are you sure?”

“She needs to understand you’re not the bad guy in this situation. And if she sees what Teague did to me, she will.”

“Alright.”

The line only rings once before my mom picks up; Dad must not be around. “Hi Jul—what in Christ’s name happened to your face?”

“Teague.”

“Excuse me?” Her voice drops half an octave.

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