Page 16 of Blood Ties
Kai wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me up, holding me against him. It would almost seem protective if he wasn’t dragging me to my death. Maybe he isn’t, I think, for a moment. He told me to run earlier. Maybe he’ll help me escape—
“She’s here,” he shouts, and that hope shrivels and dies in my chest. “Don’t shoot, I got her.”
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Chapter Six
Kai
Idrag a sobbing, strugglingRiley toward the house. Knox soon emerges from the scrapyard, blood-soaked with a knife in hand. I’m breathing hard, my heart beating a frantic drum against the inside of my ribs. I ran fucking hard to make sure I was the one to catch her. If I had been just a couple of seconds later, Knox would’ve seen her first, and she’d already be dead.
“Well, well,” Knox says, grinning as he lowers the knife. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Kai.” He flips the blade, holds it out to me in offering. “You wanna do the honors this time?”
My stomach lurches as Riley goes rigid in my arms. She feels so small, so fragile. I remember how soft her lips were, the way she smiled at me on the porch.
It would be a kindness to kill her now. But Knox is right. I don’t have it in me.
A smirk breaks across Knox’s face, and his eyes go sly. “Oh,” he says. “You want to keep her.”
I feel the way Riley’s breath hitches at his words. She tries again to pull away from me — but then shrinks back against my chest as Knox steps closer, trapping her between us.
My brother grins at me over the top of her head. “Y’know, you don’t have to chain her up to fuck her. Just go for it. She’s easy like that.” He reaches down between us, cupping her between the legs without breaking eye contact with me. Anger floods me in a hot rush, and I imagine snatching the knife from his hand. Slitting Knox’s throat and running with Riley.
“What are you two idiots fuckin’ around for?”
At the sound of Dad’s voice, my anger sputters out as quickly as it ignited, replaced by icy fear. Knox steps away, and we both turn to face our father as he strides toward us with his shotgun in hand.
“Haven’t you caused me enough trouble?” he asks. “Get out of the way.”
“We want to keep this one,” Knox says.
“I said get out of the fucking way, Knox!”
Dad slams the barrel of the gun into the side of Knox’s head. My brother stumbles, barely keeping his feet. Dad hits him again, and he goes down with a grunt of pain.
I hold tighter to Riley, shifting so I’m between her and the gun.
