Page 115 of Bound to a Killer
“Ahh,” he roars, twisting violently and flinging me off with a brutal jerk of his shoulder. “You little bitch.”
I barely hit the floor before he’s on top of me, dropping his weight over my body as his hands clamp around my neck. His eyes are bloodshot from where I’ve sprayed the perfume, veins bulging, his pupils wild and red-rimmed.
“I always knew you’d grow into a filthy whore,” he snarls, breath hot against my face. “Just like your useless twat of a mother.”
My mouth falls open in a silent scream as my lungs convulse, burning in a painful inferno that claws through mychest. My vision begins to blur, the edges darkening as his grip tightens, choking out every last breath.
A wave of déjà vu crashes over me as my legs flail beneath him, limp and twitching, barely moving. I’m losing vision.
The pain erupts in my neck, so intense it radiates up my skull, pressure building until it feels like my eyes are going to burst from their sockets. Like my body might detonate right here on the floor.
It’s too much.
And then?—
A shriek rips through the air. Or maybe it’s the ringing in my ears, that telltale sign I’m slipping away, losing control. Fading.
I feel my body shutting down. I can sense with certainty the slow, agonizing pull of my soul, trying to break loose, desperate to escape the pain.
Then, just for a moment, the weight lifts off my chest.
Maybe this is what death really feels like. After you’ve passed through the worst of it. After your body’s suffered all the torture it can take. The pain ebbs. The world dims. Everything begins to drift. Light as a feather. Farther and farther away.
The last thing I hear before I go out is Ledger’s voice, low and distant, too far to reach. My heart aches as I realize it’s the last time I’ll ever hear it. The truth of that shatters me while I’m on my dying breath. It feels cruel, empty, and not at all comforting.
This can’t be it. I want to reach out for it one last time—for him—but my arms won’t move. They’ve already gone slack at my sides.
The devastation of losing everything I ever wanted crashes over me just before complete darkness takes hold, robbing me of the chance to say goodbye.
34
LEDGER
The steady beeps of the monitor fill the rest of the otherwise silent hospital room, each one pulsing a shot down my spine, slowly dissolving the panic I’ve been trapped in since I got here.
I almost lost her.
Exhaling a slow, measured breath, I sink deeper into one of the two upholstered chairs. My gaze drifts from her resting body to the blank ceiling overhead, the sharp antiseptic air biting my nostrils.
It’s sometime in the evening now, a little past seven. The fluorescent lights above sting my eyes, tension coiling behind my temples from hours I’ve spent planted here. I shift upright, my back already stiff and sore from barely moving.
My fingers claw at my kneecaps, jaw tight as the moment replays, her body limp as paramedics carried her out of the house, crimson streaks smeared through her hair and across the gurney. The fear that gripped me in that moment was absolute, the worst I’ve felt in a long time. I was sure she was already gone, almost on the verge of collapsing on my knees, until I caught a whiff of the police report as they loaded her into anambulance, her mother sobbing incoherent details while being ushered into the back of a squad car.
It wasn’t her blood.
They found a pulse on her. She’ll be okay.
Bruised and roughed up, butalive. That single truth knocked the breath from my lungs. A silent prayer formed in my chest, something I never imagined doing before, grateful for whatever force out there that spared her life, letting me keep her.
The door creaks open, revealing Frankie’s shoulder as she nudges through, balancing two Styrofoam cups. Her eyes drift toward the bed beside me, scanning Aria’s still form. “Still not up?”
The door shuts behind her a little heavier than intended, the creak jarring in the quiet of the room. “She stirred a bit when they placed the IV, but she’s still out,” I say, clearing my throat.
The painkillers pulled her under fast. Her body needed the rest, deep and uninterrupted, before it could even begin to recover. The nurse warned she might sleep through the night.
Then there was that pregnancy test they ran after drawing her blood. Negative. Of course it would be, but the word still fired adrenaline through my system, blood rushing fast into my head, drowning out my thoughts for a full minute.
It’s too early for anything like that to show up positive. I know that. But hearing it said aloud still shook me. The potential consequences of that moment keep looping through my brain. If she isn’t on anything, I’ll need to get her a Plan B as soon as she wakes up. Fuck. We were so reckless.
