Page 15 of Touch Her and Die
“Watch your step, I can’t imagine they repaired the roof,” my guy whispered as he came up next to me. I just nodded. I leaned down over the skylight that was several panes wide. Most were cracked. One had a board over it.
I pointed at a broken spot, one that I could at least hear what was happening through.
Halle’s words floated up to me.
“You know how I got your number?” she said.
The guy’s voice was gruff and gravely liked he’d smoked a pack a day for the last twenty years, and maybe he had.
“Sweetheart, I’m not fucking stupid. Doesn’t matter. Get on the bed and maybe you live through this.”
The hair on my neck bristled.
I got down on my hands and knees and tried to find her in the murky dark of this godforsaken shit hole. The smell wafting up from that small, broken bit of glass wasn’t great. Mold and, well, we knew what he was into, so the rest wasn’t necessary to identify. There was no need to dwell. I drew the line, and he was on the wrong side. Halle had made a shit choice. I worried he was more than she could handle. But I would make sure he wasn’t walking away, no matter what.
“I don’t think I will get on the bed. But I do think I will live just fine. You?” she said.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know she’d pissed him off. He wasn’t a small guy, not the biggest I’d ever had to deal with, but he was twice the size of my princess.
I reached for the gun in my belt and brought it toward the hole that I currently was using to spy. Lucky for me, the whole warehouse was maybe a few thousand square feet and better yet, my eyes adjusted to the dark where I could see a small corner furnished with a light or two. There was something else. My stomach churned. It was a fucking camera. No, wait, two cameras. And the bed?
“Bitch, lay on the bed. No one knows who I am and lives.” He took a step forward and she took a step to the side.
“Aw, what, you don’t want to play now?” he asked.
She looked him up and down and even though I couldn’t see the crazy, I knew she wasn’t all there right now. She was in work mode.
“I always want to play, big guy,” she said.
This time she took a step closer, and he wasn’t ready for her. She raised her hands, and I saw the glint of a knife as she plunged it down. Too bad he flinched, and she ended up hitting him between the neck and the shoulder. That wasn’t going to kill him, not fast anyway.
“Fuck, what the hell?” He swung his hand and hit her in the head. The blow made her stumble, and that was that.
“Hey, asshole. Touch her again,” I screamed down.
He looked around and was too dumb to figure it out. Instead, he turned away and after grabbing the knife from his neck he threw it at Halle. Rage burned inside me the second he decided to attack my princess, my Halle.
I shot him in the head.
I heard a growl and couldn’t figure out if she was hurt or not.
“Parks, you’re such an asshole. I was just starting to feel better and then you go and do that?”
I chuckled. Well, if she hated me, at least she was alive.
“I’m coming down. Open up the door for me princess.”
I didn’t bother waiting for her to answer, but her screams of anger told me that I wasn’t getting a thank you.
SEVEN
halle
I sighed.
The early morning sunshine heated my skin, and it was just enough to remind me that I’d lived another night and that Parks had ruined one more thing in my life. What should I do with him? He broke my heart and yet, he also somehow tamed my demons. With the demons though, came the lack of feeling. He made me feel, and I hated it. What kind of double standard was love?
“He dies. He doesn’t die.”
