Page 51 of What Lies Within

I duck farther into the L-shaped room, avoiding her swinging arm as she tries to grab me. A quick glance across the room confirms there's nothing else in here that'll help me—no weapons, makeshift or otherwise—only the gun holstered at her hip.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!" Maddie hollers, the scraping sounds telling me she gets to her feet, as awkward as it'll be with her hands behind her back.

“Come here, girl.” Sweetie blocks my escape, arms held at her sides as though cornering a wild dog.

I feel every part a panicked animal in the moment, gaze seeking, searching the scene before me for a way out.

For a hope to die in my old age, not before the age of thirty, in some madwoman's dilapidated kitchen.

Sweetie reaches to her side, elbow bent as she raises her hand to feel for the gun.It’s now or never, Rae.My best hope is to get her disorientated enough not to use the fucking thing, which is why I kick out at her, my boot connecting with the junction of her thighs.

I kick the bitch in the cunt as hard as I can and internally cheer when she folds like a fucking wet paper towel.

Maddie's halfway to her feet, shoulder jammed against the wall to keep herself upright, when I dart back into the first half of the kitchen. My short-lived bravado evaporates in a poof of shredded hopes and dreams as I realize I have no other plan.

Nothing other than running.

“Go!” I holler at Mads. “Get the fuck out!”

She opens her mouth to protest, yet a surprised gasp cuts off her words as I go crashing to the floor.

Hand wrapped around my ankle, Sweetie kneels, a manic grin on her face as she crawls over top of me, restraining me with her weight. I punch out with my free foot, yet the woman’s too close. I can’t get any decent power in the kick, and my foot ends up tangled in her arm.

“You ain’t goin’ anywhere, honey,” she drawls. “I’ve waited too long for an opportunity like this.”

“You can keep waiting.” Thumbs to her eyes, I anchor my fingers against the side of her head—pinky slipping into her right ear—and push.

She howls, bucking her head left and right to shake me off, but the damage is done. By the time the older woman breaks free, her left eye swells, blood pooling into the white. I can’t tell how much damage I’ve done to the right since she keeps it squinted shut. Not that it matters. She snags me around the kneeas I backpedal from beneath her, hauling me along the timber floor toward her with a feral growl.

I shove at her shoulders, keep her gnashing teeth at bay, and work my knee between us.Please, let me get out of this.All bets are off. Panic kicks in; the adrenalin a welcome surge through my veins. I rip at her hair, punch her face and neck, and thrash against the floor to upset her balance on top of me.

What probably last seconds feels like a lifetime as I manage to roll to my stomach and prepare to launch myself away from her.

Until the cool steel of the gun hits my temple. “You done yet?”

"Fuck you." If I die, I won't die a coward. "You can kill me, but that won't change a thing." I press on when she stays quiet, curious about what I have to say. "I'll be gone, but you'll still be angry. You'll still be mad at a dead girl for having the one thing you couldn't." I huff a bitter laugh. "Killing me won't change the fact that Tyke will never want you." I close my eyes.

Wait for it.

Pray for it to be quick. For there to be peace on the other side.

And choke when the warm spray hits the back of my neck.

21

DIGGER

I came in here expecting—fuck, I don't know what—when I got to the end of the long driveway. Saw the club truck parked up out front of Sweetie's old house and figured the girls would be in here talking shit.

I sure as hell didn’t expect to find them in the thick of it.

"Jesus Christ," Harvey breathes behind my left shoulder as he enters the boarded-off living room. "What the fuck happened?" He barges past, knocking me in the process, and heads for his sister, who stands frozen over one very dead Sweetie.

I can’t fucking take my eyes off the girl in the corner. The woman with blood soaking her T-shirt, in her hair, running down her face. Fuck—there’s a goddamn trail of it across the floor where Rae’s dragged herself from Sweetie’s prone form.

I don't know what to say. Do I tell her it'll all be okay now? Ask her if she's hurt. Ask her what the fuck happened.

For the first time in my life, I’m struck speechless as the tumult of emotions run riot through my veins, colliding with painful clarity when they intersect at my heart.

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