Page 38 of Panic-Button
“Then why doesn’t your sister have any?” He shot back. “Identical twins means identical genetics.”
That was a hard point to argue. It took a few seconds for me to come up with a plausible excuse. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was injured as a kid.”
“Now that I believe.” Preston lifted his hand and pointed the tip of the knife at me. “But it wasn’t your eyes that were injured. Was it, Little Bird?”
That made me roll my eyes. His mind games wouldn’t work on me.
At least, that was what I thought until he folded over me and whispered, “My sister has that same look in her eyes.”
My heart stopped. Everyone in Ashen Springs knew what had happened to Ava. While I felt sorry for her, it didn’t excuse Ava’s behavior. Besides…
“I’m not your sister.”
“No, you’re not.” Preston pushed himself up and trailed the knife slowly down my side. “But someone did break you.”
‘That’s a pretty dress, Marnie. Did you wear it for me?’
I pushed the distant voice into the back of my mind and rolled my eyes away. Nash Hunter had no dominion over me. Those memories were dead. I killed them years ago. Preston Whitley sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to bring them forward.
“Did I touch a nerve?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I snarled back.
“You shouldn’t lie, Little Bird,” Preston tsked. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk about that later.”
Like hell, we would.
“Right now, I’m curious about something else.” The way his fingers swept over my stomach sent a shiver up my spine. “Do you moisturize?”
What kind of question was that? One second he was trying to pull on old wounds, and the next, he was asking about moisturizer. Preston must be trying to throw me off my game. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I refused to answer his meaningless questions.
“Dry skin takes longer to heal.”
I didn’t think it was possible to feel a heart stop, yet mine did. The quick pattering thrumming through my veins died away when he pulled the blade over my ribs and up my chest. Nerves tingled across my skin, making my stomach flip. I didn’t like this feeling, and I wasn’t weak or pathetic. If my childhood prepared me for anything, it was survival.
Okay, Marnie, think. You’ve researched things like this.
Every problem had a solution, meaning there had to be a way out of this. Escape was the obvious answer. I tried wriggling my hands to see if I could slip out of my binds. That didn’t work. Preston not only wound the rope around my wrists, but he looped it between them as well. And since I couldn’t see the knot when I peeked up, untying myself was out of the question.
My motion was too restricted to search around the fabric. I could barely stretch my finger down enough to feel the edge of the rope.
I was stuck on the bed with my hands in a praying pose, the irony of which wasn’t lost on me.
My father’s voice practically screamed in my mind, telling me to pray for salvation. The only salvation I’d get was one I claimed for myself.
Taking the knife from Preston wasn’t an option, nor was overpowering or attacking him. There wasn’t much I could do. Maybe if he wasn’t sitting on my hips, I could kick out, not that it would’ve done me a lot of good.
There was only one choice left.
Reason with the devil.
Most survivors had one thing in common. They made their attacker see them as a person instead of a thing. There was only one issue with that. Preston Whitley didn’t have a soul to tug at.
“I see the wheels turning in your head, Little Bird.” He swept the blade down my stomach and lazily dragged it up my torso. “You won’t be able to think your way out of this one.”
I shivered against the coolness scraping across my skin and whispered the only thing I could think of, “Think about your sister, Preston.”
There were only two people I’d seen him show any sort of compassion. Parker and Ava. Ava had her problems—like being completely crazy—but she was his twin. And twins had a different bond than other siblings.
