Page 189 of Brutal Prince

“I can really see myself in her,” Marcus goes on.

Another loop. There’s finally enough give for me to wriggle my hands out of the ropes. I let out a soft sigh, massaging my wrists as discretely as possible behind my back so Marcus won’t notice. My fingertips tingle furiously as blood rushes back into them, and I’m rewarded with a flush of bravery that makes me sit up straight in my seat.

“Just like I can see her in you.” The angle of his voice changes, and I freeze, willing my heart to slow its furious pounding.

Now he thinks we’re related? I can’t even.

But I shrug, and drop my chin to my chest in some approximation of meekness, hoping he’ll buy it and carry on pacing.

“Who?” I manage, twisting my hands and getting ready to launch myself at him with clawed fingers.

“Chantelle,” he says through a laugh.

My body turns to ice. I force a swallow before I can urge myself to speak. “Wh-what?”

“The woman who lived here with you. Your mother?”

I wrench my blindfold off and stand in a rush. Marcus is a few feet away, his head tilted to one side, hands behind his back. The epitome of a patient teacher.

My head turns on its own as I force myself to focus on my environment.

The char in the air had me confused. My hard seat. But there’s no mistaking it now.

I’m standing in the middle of my gutted house, surrounded by blackened walls and tattered ribbons of yellow police tape.

It wasn’t a pew I was sitting on. It was a wooden chest my mother’d kept in her studio. I think she kept spare canvasses in it, but fuck knows.

Marcus steps closer, holds out a hand, and bends a little at the waist. “Shall we dance, while we wait?”

Instead of taking his hands, I press my palms against my belly, trying to still my suddenly twisting stomach. “While we wait for what?” I breathe.

“Briar, of course.” Marcus tilts his head again, and steps forward to snatch my hand away from my belly.

He drags me closer. With my ankles still bound, I stumble against him. I don’t know if he takes the gesture as me wanting to be close, but his smile certainly makes me believe that he does. When I struggle, he slides an arm around my back and holds me so close I can feel his erection jutting into my tummy.

“I feel bad about what I did last time,” Marcus whispers down to me, for all the world like we’re conspiring lovers. “I think, this time, he should get to watch.”

* * *

Briar

I don’t careabout traffic cameras. I fly right through stoplights.

They’ll have to catch me first. They’ll have to have to T-bone me with a truck before I’ll slow down or stop.

Fifteen minutes. That’s what my GPS tells me. Fuck knows if it adjusts based on my speed. For all I know, Google’s already alerted the authorities to a speeding Mustang traveling at breakneck speed down Lakeview’s only freeway.

Couldn’t. Give. A. Fuck.

Everything up to this point’s been a fucking blur. My tank’s almost empty, but I care as much about that as I do whether I die or not before I reach Indi’s house.

I don’t think for a minute Marcus would have kept her alive just to torture her in front of me. If it’s one thing I’ve recently come to realize about him — he’s seriously unbalanced. It took him all of what, one minute, to decide on raping Jessica.

True, he was strung out on drugs, but judging from what he did to Indi’s mother, he’s only grown bolder since then.

How long did he toy with Indi before ending her?

With Jessica, it took him almost a day to gather the courage to throw her over the bridge at Angel Falls. Indi’s mother? A couple of hours.

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