Page 14 of Wicked Me
I was pretty sure no one jumped that time but me. A drop of sweat slid down the side of my neck.
Slim’s hummingbird stare narrowed in on me and stayed there. “Right here.”
I gave a short nod, trying to think of all the ways I could worm myself out of this if things went sour. In other words, be more like Dad. My short-lived political science major never did teach me the art of spinning lies into semi-reasonable truths. I lifted a hand inside my jacket, which made the two guards jerk their fingers to their waistbands.
Pop. Crack.
The sound sucked the air from my lungs. It took several seconds before I realized neither of them had fired a gun. Several seconds I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, even though I wanted to rush outside and kill the fucker lighting fireworks.
“Slowly,” Slim warned.
One of the bodyguards lifted his shirt to reveal the butt of his gun and stroked it like a dick. I suddenly wanted to join the projectile vomit guy in the living room.
“Easy, Sam,” Tony muttered next to me.
I glanced at him and couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen him stand so still. I inched my other hand up and eased the plastic-wrapped package out of my jacket.
This had to be done.#sorrynotsorry
I flung the package at Slim with a shaky arm. One of the guards snagged it out of the air. His buddy handed him a knife, and he stabbed into it with the precision of a surgeon. With the tip of the blade, he lifted a small amount of the white powder to his nose, forehead lined in concentration. He sniffed but didn’t inhale. Once. Twice. The guy obviously knew his heroin.
“How pure is it?” Slim asked to no one in particular, his beady gaze rolling over the room.
I had no idea. Before I could answer, an uninterrupted series ofcracksspiked the tension in my body to the highest level. Sweat leaked down my sides in rivers. I glanced at the back door, wanting to make a move to shut out the sound, but didn’t. Not in front of the guy who wanted to whip his gun out so he could molest it.
And behind the cracks and bass beat, a siren wailed. Far away but coming closer. The police on the way to bust up the party two houses down? Or this one?
Slim and his two bodyguards didn’t seem to notice all the noise, or were so used to it, they could ignore it.
Not me. Every explosion, every second the siren grew louder twisted my tense muscles into a frayed noose close to snapping.
Tony hadn’t moved since this whole shit storm began. I could practically hear his brain turning over every second to analyze it.
The guy with the blade of heroin darted his tongue out to taste it. When he slipped it back into his mouth, his eyes bugged out of his head and he lunged for the kitchen sink. He yanked the tap water on and spit, gagged, scrubbed at his tongue until one word fell out: “Strychnine.”
“Rat poison,” Slim growled.
Oh, shit, no.
The gun molester jerked it from his waistband and pointed it at my head.
I lifted both hands and froze. Questions lodged at the back of my throat, ready to hurl out, but they were all meant for Hill. He’d set me up. The bastard set me up. I was so dead.
The approaching siren sped on by. While staring down the barrel of the gun, I felt my chances for survival sink along with my stomach. The cops coming here could’ve been the distraction I needed to get out of here alive. To jail, but alive. Now, though, I was so fucking screwed.
Movement out of the corner of my eye, thencrackcrackcrackcrackcrack. Fireworks exploded all over the middle of the kitchen floor. That time I welcomed the distraction, because for one second, Slim and his bodyguards’ eyes shifted away from me.
I didn’t think. Just moved.
I barreled into the guy with the gun and knocked it from his hand. Then, with a sharp turn into him, I smashed his nose with my elbow.
Slim, red-faced and breathing hard, rushed at the gun as fast as a three-hundred-pound man could.
Tony locked eyes with mine from inside the doorway and shouted something I couldn’t hear over the blasts. It probably had something to do with getting the fuck out of there.
I sprinted after him, the hairs on the back of my neck spiked with the threat of bullets coming after us.
