Page 50 of What Lies Within

A silent beat passes before Marco's lips twitch in and out of a smile—twice. He narrows his gaze on me, a huff of amusement smothered in his throat before he drops his hands and emits a barked laugh. The guy grins a smile so fucking dazzling it has me question my sexuality for a split second. “Fair enough.” He shifts his predatory gaze toward his son and gives a single nod. “Off you go then.” The fucker shoos us from the room. “Go save your princess from the tower, Deo.”

20

RAE

I'm so fed up with being the victim. So tired of feeling that if I disappeared into a black hole, it would do the world a favor. Tired of the same old shit every month. Tired of being born this way. Of there being no answers.

At least, none that I’ve found.

Gentle exercise. Take a walk daily. Keep your water intake up. Meditate, sleep, eat clean… the list goes on and on.

None of that shit helps when you’re bound beside your best friend, wondering if you should have just let your ex take you to his father and saved everyone the hassle. What’s the cure for that, huh? Wave some incense around? Acupuncture?Fucking bullshit.It’s all a bunch of well-meaning people selling what worked for them to make their own suffering profitable.

What works for me is different, and it's taken me most of my life to understand that.

Urgency.

Put me in a situation where I don’t have the luxury of overthinking, where I can’t wallow in my feelings for a day or two, and hey presto—look at me go.

“What’s the plan, then?” I ask as I assess the zip ties used to bind Maddie’s hands.

“I’ll tackle the bitch to the ground. You get your phone and then run like a motherfucker.” She smiles, peering over her shoulder at me. “Simple, but hopefully effective.”

Except the way her hands were restrained was different from mine. "We've got a problem."

She cranes her neck to try and see behind her, shoulder curling forward. “What?”

"Whoever put these on you used something different." I tug the locking enclosures between her hands. "They're zip cuffs—and thick ones at that."

“What does that mean?”

I gesture to my destroyed tie on the floor. “Sweetie used a thinner plastic on me. One band. It’s easy to break. But these…” I need something sharp. “Hold up. Let me check the kitchen.”

“Third drawer across,” Maddie supplies. “The first two are empty.”

I give her a nod and then dart around the cracked Formica-topped island. My breath seems loud in my ears, pulse throbbing in my hands and fingers as I jerk the slim metal handle and reveal a steel ruler wedged in the seam of the drawer's construction. No matter how I grip the end of the fucking thing, it won't budge. Likely thrown in here a while ago; the wood has swollen or warped to pinch the end of the ruler in place.

The fucking house refuses to let us go.

"Rae," Maddie whisper-yells. "Rae!"

“What?” I hiss in return, spurred on by the slightest shift of the ruler.

“She’s moving.”

Shit.Sure enough, when I stop scrabbling like a fucking rat on cheese in a trap, I catch the dull thuds of her footfalls on theporch. The front door opens, latch clicking as she disengages the lock.

She doesn’t shut it.

Instead, Sweetie appears in the doorway, looking down at the phone in her hand.Myphone.Fucking bitch.

"What's the passcode, Rae?" Her head lifts, eyes widening at our state of mid-escape. "Oh-ho-ho," she sing-songs. "What the fuck is this?"

Maddie gives me a firm glance and then barrels toward the woman, a warrior’s cry wailing past her lips. She drops a shoulder like a goddamn footballer and charges into the older woman’s gut. Yet Sweetie has time to figure out what’s happening. To pre-empt the move.

She steps aside, Maddie’s shoulder collecting her hip hard enough that it makes Sweetie grunt, yet the force of Maddie’s body slams into the doorframe. In a whirl of sun-streaked auburn hair, my best and only friend goes crashing to the floor, screaming out at the pain of the collision.

“You stupid fucking bitches,” Sweetie hollers, charging across the room toward me.

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