Page 57 of The Kiss of Deception

“Stop asking questions and do as I say before I lose my patience.” The hand with the gun finally moves, gesticulating towards the door as she moves aside, giving me passage. “Get your phone. Now.”

Without breaking eye contact with her, and her favorite toy, I walk backwards, a sheen of sweat trickling down my neck to pool on the dip of my throat. One foot behind the other, a prayer to a god I don’t believe in, I manage to take a few steps before I trip and stumble and fall, ass colliding with a thud on the floor. My hands, still up in surrender, fail to break the fall, and sharp pain explodes from my coccyx up my spine until all the tips of all my fingers and toes are immobilized. I can’t tell if I scream or shout, because my nerve receptors are focused on the tsunami waves of pain ravaging my body.

I almost forget about the silver promise of death for a moment.

“Shouldn’t have lied to me.” I look up through blurry eyes to see my phone dangling between her thumb and forefinger. She must have spotted it on the sofa next to me, so close and so far from my reach.

“Insert your code to unlock it. Don’t try anything funny again.”

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

This was my one chance at defending myself.

What will I do now?

“You’re not really a florist, are you? He didn’t send me the flowers,” I conclude, attempting a distraction.

I need more time. I need to get up from the floor and do something. I can’t die here, with a throbbing ass and a thundering heart and so many things to figure out and to live.

“You’re about to have a bullet in your forehead and you’re asking if the flowers are from Miles, like you hoped?” She thrusts the phone in my face, gun firmly in the other hand.

Well, when she puts it like that… I almost want to snort. Stressful situations do a number to a girl’s sanity.

I type my password, the sweaty pads of my thumbs not registering on the screen. I have to tap twice, then multiple times on the 9 and the final 8, before it unlocks, the screen foggy like the car window when I blow a breath and draw on it. Except it’s not a heart; it’s my goodbye letter.

8-8-9-3-8.

“Tell me again how much you don’t like him,” she says as she types with one hand, one eye on the screen, the other on me.

My phone beeps in her hand. She looks down at it, the cold luminosity washing her face in white, evidencing how much she doesn’t like what she sees.

It’s Miles. It has to be. Whatever he says, it’s not what she wanted—a sentiment I’m familiar with.

Lucy looks around my home, the wheels on her murderous brain turning with plans. At some point, her gaze settles roughly in the direction of… nothing? She nods brusquely, ordering me in the same direction, unwavering gun in hand.

“Go stand there. Now.”

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t want to go, but I also don’t want a bullet in my head.

I don’t know what to do.

I raise myself up to my knees. Smaller waves of pain wash me at the slightest movement, warning me to walk straight forward this time. I don’t get up from my knees, though.

The tip of my toes dip into the rough serging of my ugly Persian rug. My heart hammers violently in my ears, but the blood doesn’t seem to reach my limbs, and a cold bead of sweat drips, vertebra to vertebra until it reaches the end of my spine.

The end.

This is the end, whatever that means.

I set a palm on the floor, put some strength in my legs.

Then, an abrupt thwack thuds against my skull.

I think acute pain erupts from it, but it hurts too much. I can’t really feel it.

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