Page 41 of What Lies Within

The fucking thing doesn’t move. Snagged somehow.

My shoulders protest, arms pushed out as far from my back as I possibly can to reach the damn implement in the back of the drawer. My boot slips, weight shifting backward, and I curse the fucking ass my mother gifted me when my fucking glutes push the drawer closed on my wrist.

“Motherfucker!”

It takes more time than I care to admit to getting my hand free, tugging fists against the front side of the shitty old drawer to get it open again. Thin steel handles, rounded at the corners, and drawers that move on timber tracks, different from the modern plastic slides most houses have these days. Wherever I am, it's in dire need of renovation.

The crack in the timber floor told me that when I rolled to my knees and pushed to my feet earlier.

My leg still smarts where the roughened wood gouged a line.

I fuck around with the drawer again, getting it open and my fingers on the hope of freeing myself, when the distinct crunch of gravel and purr of an engine stalls my progress.

“Shit.”

I want more time. I’d hoped I had more time.

The timber squeaks as I close the drawer and turn to my right. Using the rough measurements I'd figured out in my first sweep of the room, I pace toward the end of the island and then twirl what I hope is ninety degrees to march my ass back to where Fox and Ronan left me.

My knees hit the hardwood as the front door opens, frustration a hot tide beneath my skin at getting so close. So damn close. Probably would have figured out a way out of this shit if I hadn't dissolved into tears when I found the external doors locked, only two rooms available to me to roam, and the windows boarded up, nixing my plan at smashing my way out of this makeshift prison.

Would have been down the fucking driveway and on my way back to the club if I hadn’t fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion afterward.

No use bitching about spilled milk now, you dumbass.Can’t change the past. Can only focus on the future.

That future being the two… women?…who walk through the door.What the fuck?Not the assholes I'd expected it to be, but an older-sounding female talking a hundred miles an hour as she heads in my direction.Is that?No… It couldn’t be.

“…left it how it is since then. I’d love to fix the place up, but I never have the time, what with everything I do at the club and all.”

Fucking hell.“Sweetie? Is that you?”

The chatter stops instantly.

My heart thuds painfully large in my chest, ears aching with the pressure I have them under to figure out what goes downon the other side of the door. A resounding crash reverberates against the wall, the sharp, surprised cry of a woman—another woman—coming at the same time. Feet scuff the floorboards, somebody calls someone else a bitch, and then there’s the unmistakable bang of the door as it ricochets off the wall.

“Get the fuck in there.”

My lungs seize at Sweetie’s command.

“What the fuck is going on?” I ask, internally cursing the shake to my words. “Why are you here?”

“Love to know the same thing, bestie.”

Oh my God.No. “Rae?”

“On your knees. Just like she is,” Sweetie barks.

The even paces across the room matched to each one Rae takes paint the scene clear as day in my mind. "Bitch, don't you tell me you've got a fucking gun to her head."

“Fucking perceptive, ain’t you?” Sweetie mocks.

"Not my first rodeo." I tilt my head to the left as Rae kneels, air rushing from her lungs. "You hurt?" All I can make out is the dark denim of her jeans across her calves and boots, dusty from the yard.

“Not any worse than she is.” Pride tinges my friend’s words.

“Take this fucking thing off my eyes, would you.” I jerk my head back and forth. “Want to see what the fuck I’m dealing with.”

“Do that,” Sweetie snarls, “and you both lose a fucking eye. Move away from her,” she barks at Rae. “Don’t want you two close enough to cuddle, for fuck’s sake.”

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