Page 55 of Bottoms
He was answered with another round of banging and shouting against the glass.
“You had her for three months, and you couldn’t even keep her safe from your own family,” Fynn said, glaring over my shoulder.
I assumed it was directed at Tanner.
“I’ve had her for three months, and just look at her,” he growled out with pride. “LOOK AT HER,” Fynn shouted, making me jump, but his grip around my throat held me firmly in place.
Fynn was breathing hard, as his eyes slid back to mine.
“Look at her,” he whispered.
“I trust you,” I breathed out. His palm swallowed my voice.
It looked like I had broken him for a moment, but under the harsh light of the spotlight, it was hard to tell for certain. His features smoothed out to wicked delight before I could say for sure.
I took a steady deep breath, filling my lungs with air and clearing my mind. I needed all the help I could get to help me keep my shit together with what I was about to do. But it was the only way to get the reaction out of Fynn that I needed to get control over this situation.
Fynn’s grip on my throat tightened for a moment. Somehow sensing my thoughts as he prepared for me to act. I brought my knee up sharply, hitting him directly in the nuts. His grip on my throat tightened until I couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t dropped me to the floor like most men. He just got pissed.
A chorus of banging and shouting started back up. A moment later, my feet were ripped from beneath me as I was tossed to the floor. I landed on my back, and white-hot pain shot through me. Sitting up, I glared at Fynn. It hadn’t been anything worse than what I went through in training. Confidence shot through me. Even when he was pissed, he took it easy on me. I could trust him. Now he just needed to trust my methods.
I pushed off the ground and charged at him, but I dipped low and to the right at the last minute. Ripping the knife from his grasp. Continuing toward the shadowed corner of the room, my toes touched the spotlight’s boundary before I was snatched backward into a hard chest. His hands were on my wrists, struggling to take the knife from me.
I hissed out as the razor-sharp curved blade dug into the skin on my stomach, carving out a line that immediately beaded in red. Fynn released me immediately, leaving the knife in my hand, as he took a step back.
The pounding on the glass stopped, and even the shouting stopped. My entire body started to feel warm, and I looked down and noticed the blood streaming from me. My hand came to cover the wound, trying to hold some of the precious red liquid inside me while I wondered where the pain was.
My feet stumbled as I turned around. The last thing I saw was Fynn’s horrified face, before the floor rushed toward me. The abyss called me home once more.
17
Dark Arsenal
Lightsandvoicesdriftedto me before the dark abyss pulled me back under. Time didn’t make sense, and I felt like a blob floating in a vast land of nothingness rather than a person.
If this was the afterlife, there would be a lot of disappointment.
“You’re not in charge anymore.” I heard Colten’s voice. Searching around in the black pocket of existence, I seemed stuck inside, unable to find my way back to them.
I didn’t know how long it was before another voice joined me. It could have been minutes, or it could have been days. But it almost felt like I had a heart to beat faster when I heard Nik’s voice.
“I need you to come back to us, Vanessa. We’re trying not to kill each other. But it would help if we could look into your eyes to remind us to behave. I just need to see you, beautiful.”
It almost felt like something touched my cheek, but when I searched, I couldn’t seem to find my cheek. The abyss swallowed me back up, reducing me into nothing more than a tiny, shimmering dot of existence.
The next time I heard a voice, it was Tanner’s. The magnetic pull between us seemed to work even in the abyss. Filling my ears with the sound of his voice. He sounded so close, as if he was standing right beside me in the dark.
“I’m staying at your place tonight,” Tanner laughed, but there was something wrong with how he said it.
He almost sounded drunk.
“Want to know what your psychotic boyfriend did tonight? He stabbed me,” Tanner huffed.
I felt confused, wondering who he was talking to. And more importantly, whose place was he staying at? He better not be staying with some girl. My eyes opened, and the room was mostly dark. I was in the middle of a large, comfortable bed. Turning my head, I saw a dark shadow sitting beside me, and I gasped.
“Nessa?” Tanner said.
The dark form transformed into Tanner as light filled the room. I groaned, closing my eyes as my arm came up to cover my face and block the rest.
