Page 71 of Shattered

“Stay here,” Rocco says to Rooney. Before he opens the door and storms out, I hear the cock of a gun.

I crack my eyes open to see Rooney in the doorway, his back to me. He glances back at me once, but I snap my eyes shut in time, and he doesn’t move. When I peek a moment later, he’s not watching me.

He thinks I’m dead or dying. And I remember something Macy said about waiting for just the right moment.

This is the moment.

There’s only a couple of feet between me and Rooney, and I don’t have much strength left to work with, so I do the first thing I can think of. I pull myself up on my knees as tall as I can manage, and I throw my mangled body at Rooney’s back, folding his knees and knocking him over like a bowling pin. I put every bit of force I can muster into it and manage to launch him into the hall on his face while he shouts. Then I grab the bathroom door and slam it shut. With everything left in me, I pull myself up on the doorknob to click the lock only a moment before Rooney yanks on the handle.

It doesn’t budge.

For a moment, I feel safe as he beats on the door. It’s old, so I know it won’t hold for long.

“Open the fucking door bitch!”

I only have seconds, maybe a couple minutes to work with, and though I can hear some crashing and banging around on the lower level, I block it out, needing every bit of my focus.

I need to get the toothpicks out of my nails, and I do so quickly, ripping several out at once and letting out a mangled scream to channel the pain. It takes only a few seconds to remove all twenty. Once they’re out, I pull myself up by the bathroom counter, unsteady.

I look around desperately for something I can use as a weapon. There’s nothing. Thinking on my feet, I decide to grab the shower curtain rod. It’s straight across and secured to the wall on both sides. When I wrap both hands around it and drop my weight, it comes looselike nothing, and it slams into my head as I fall to the ground in a heap. I gather myself quickly, thinking fast as Rooney bangs on the door.

I grab one end of the rod, finding it’s weak, hollow metal. It takes all my effort to fold one side in on itself, causing the opposite side of the circle opening to gather almost a point. I try to jab it in my finger and find that, with enough pressure, it’ll break skin.

Perfect.

The door’s getting looser, so I quickly stand up and hold the rod out in front of me. And just in time, the door crashes open.

Rooney charges into the room, and I rush at him, jabbing the rod into his stomach. He lets out an immediate howl of pain as he recoils, which only gives me more leverage to push it in deeper. I force him into the hall, and he lands on his back. Thinking quickly, I yank the rod out where it was embedded in his stomach and bring it up straight before slamming it down into his neck as he knocks my knees out, and I fall.

His struggles are replaced with gurgling as he lays on his back, his eyes going blank. I yank the rod out before he can grab it and throw it into the air to bring it down between his legs, which makes him screech. His body convulses, and I know he’s done. With relief, I toss the rod aside and move up to his head, staring into his cold, soulless eyes as he holds his neck with both hands, trying to hold his blood in, but it’s pouring out too fast. I must’ve hit his jugular.

“I hope you get what you deserve in hell, bastard!” I hiss.

Those are the last words he hears before I jab my pained thumbs into his eyes, pushing until they pop like cherry tomatoes, and his body goes limp.

Chapter 27

Asher

Raven is surprisingly cooperative in directing us to the cabin. Though she protested our decision, she still led us straight to it without any hesitation.

I spend the remainder of the drive with panic firing through my entire body. I can’t help the sick feeling in my gut that we’re too late. I try so hard not to think about it, to pray that she’s still alive.

But the truth is, no matter how badly I need her to be alive, I’m not confident she will be.

It’s a sickening feeling.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I find her dead. Lila has somehow transformed from my enemy to someone I can’t see myself without, and I never saw it coming. Hell, I didn’t see it happen. Somewhere along the way, my fascination with destroying her turned into afascination with watching her survive me. Little did I know, I really would destroy her. Just not directly.

I’ve seen my fair share of horror movies, and Lila is living one. If she survives this, what kind of life will she have? How will I get her through this?

“How many doors to the cabin?” Turner asks once we get close.

Bane peels the tape from her mouth to let her speak. “Two, one in the front, one in the back.”

“And do you have a key?”

“Of course not. I’ve only been there with them.”

---