Page 84 of Beautiful Prey

Had it been my father before he’d let him go? Or my uncle as some awful punishment?

He glared at me. Exposing his face hardly affected him. I felt his hips move a little almost uncertainly, as if unsure this was really happening or if he was in one of his dreams and he needed confirmation. Him moving with me made the breath still in my lungs, and I didn’t dare let the moan escape my lips even for a second. With trembling fingers, I went to touch his face, to bring him back. Maybe I really could bring him back…

My fingers grazed his cheek, and he jolted back so quickly and so violently that I yelped as he lifted himself off me, sliding the table back as he pushed himself away. The spell was broken. April screamed from the closet at his sudden movement and bolted out of the kitchen. Emery didn’t even look her way. He yanked his mask down, then wrenched the knife out of the tableand out of my hair, tearing one small lock away. He took my wrists again and pulled me off the table, dragging me from the kitchen and out the side door.

“No! No!” I cried, trying to get out of his grip as he locked an arm around my waist and hauled me to the backyard. As we came around the corner, he halted, crushing me into him. The knife went to my throat and I hissed. I looked around, wide-eyed, and whimpered as I saw Liam there by the gate, gun pointed right at Emery, his eyes looking down the barrel.

“Let her go,” he ordered.

Emery didn’t loosen his grip. He dragged me along as he creeped around the side of one fence, like a big cat, stalking. Liam moved too, keeping his gun aimed at Emery’s head.

Even if Liam pumped him full of lead, Emery would keep going. He’d kill Liam right in front of me, maybe even with me still under his arm while he stabbed Liam in the throat. The terror of witnessing that made me call out.

“Liam, just get back,” I said in a shaky voice. “Please, he’ll kill you.”

He didn’t move, his finger itching on the trigger.

Emery’s face was close to mine as he lifted me up on my toes, blade pressed to my neck. He continued to move along, forcing Liam to move away from the gate and into the center of the yard.

“You're not taking her, motherfucker,” he said. “You're done. I have a whole patrol coming. You're done, so just let her down.”

Emery didn’t let me go.

Liam’s jaw clenched as Emery’s knife inched along my throat in warning. I hissed, tensing. I shut my eyes, waiting to feel my throat be cut open, to feel warm blood spilling.

I felt Emery begin to back away. I opened my eyes and saw him back out of the gate, ready to slip into the night.

Liam took a step, and I cried out. “Don’t.” I trembled against Emery. Maybe it would be better to die like this but I still wasn’tready. And some small part of me still had hope that this didn’t have to be the end. Emery wanted it his way, he wanted me to disappear with him. And wherever that was, someone might still be able to find me.

The way he had reacted to me in the kitchen awakened that little hope, that drive. I could still fight. But not if Liam didn’t put his gun down and…

“Let me go,” I whispered, and Emery shifted, his hold tightening as if he thought I was talking to him, as if he was a child being asked to give up his favorite toy. But I looked straight at Liam and said it again, “Let me go.”

Liam watched me for a moment, his gaze turning toward the knife against me, ready to slice me wide open. Slowly, he lowered his gun. “I’ll find you, I promise.”

The sirens were getting closer, but not fast enough. I stopped struggling, and Emery knew the fight was done. He backed out through the gate until Liam was out of sight.

Swiftly, he lifted me, throwing me over his shoulder, holding my legs firmly as the rest of me dangled behind him. Without a word, he moved on down the narrow back road, disappearing into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Screaming would be futile. Emery stomped through the woods, making his way diagonally across a park. He walked with determination onto a path, his boots crunching underneath him. I clung to his back, though I wanted to hit it instead. To kick and punch. But I knew that would only serve to make him more pissed off than he already was. And if a bullet wasn’t going to stop him, what the hell could I do? The blood on my hands was starting to dry, and I winced in pain as I realized there were still tiny pieces of glass embedded in my skin. My whole body felt like it had been hit by a brick wall. Or, in this case, a concrete slab.

It felt like we walked for hours, but it may have only been minutes when he finally broke out from the other side of the park and into a small lot connected to a closed down art gallery. Parked to one side was a truck, its back end covered.

Rusty, it was black or maybe dark blue in color, chipped and scratched on the sides. I didn’t need to wonder where he got it. Stalking around the countryside you’d find enough cars sitting out, sometimes with a for sale sign on the front, sometimes just rusting out by someone’s garage. What was more surprising was that he knew how to hotwire a car at all, but there were a lot ofthings that shocked me about Emery, and this didn’t make the top ten.

He opened the back door, then slid me onto the seat. I played the silent game as he dropped the knife in the truck bed then searched around for something underneath the backseat.

He yanked out rope.

My heart dropped, and the reality of my situation really sunk in. He grabbed hold of my ankles and wrapped them, making sure they were tight enough I couldn’t loosen them and get free. Then he took my hands. He paused for a moment to look at the blood and the little shards of glass, then he tied my wrists together too. I didn’t expect him to play doctor, but I worried about the cuts getting infected. He took the extra length of rope left and hog-tied my hands and feet together, then he tied some ripped cloth over my mouth, to stifle any screaming.

He slid me back in the seat, and I clenched my hands together, curling into myself as he shut the door and got into the driver side.

The truck hummed underneath me, jostling me. From the window above me, street lights flew by, basking the backseat in orange light.

I tried to take deep breaths. I felt dizzy, but maybe that was just from the car moving around. My stomach lurched, but I swallowed and took another deep breath. In and out, in and out…

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