Page 42 of Freaks
I saw my opportunity and I took it.
Sadie was ranting, lost in her rage. Her words struck fear into me, paralyzing me, but I couldn’t afford to give in. If I quailed now, I’d be dead. Fix and Amy would be in danger. That simply wasn’t an option. Reaching out, I grabbed hold of Sadie’s wrist and twisted as hard as I could.
Her shriek of pain echoed around the bedroom. I yanked her entire arm around, gritting my teeth together as I pulled, forcing her arm up behind her back. She wailed, fury cutting through her pain; I was seconds away from ripping her arm out of the socket, but still she didn’t drop the knife.
“Give it to me, Sadie!” I roared. “It’s fucking over. Just drop it!”
“So you can stabmewith it? I don’t think so.” With inhuman strength, she lurched forward, tearing herself from my grip. She spun, ducking low, dropping into a fighting stance—a whirlwind of malevolence, dressed in Lululemon yoga gear. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I might have fucking laughed at the madness of it all. The knife cut through the air as she slashed it toward my stomach. “Move, Sera. Out into the hallway. Go!”
I began walking backwards; there was no way I was turning around. I was going to see the crazy bitch coming if she decided to attack. “You’re not going to do it,” I told her. “Youaren’tstrong enough. If you were, you would have killed me years ago, when we first met.” Goading her was definitely not a smart move, but it was the only option available to me. If I riled her up enough, she might slip up. React before thinking, leaving herself wide open for my own assault.
“Shut up. Just shut your lying, manipulative little mouth, Sera. Go on. Into the bathroom.”
Bad,badidea. The bathroom was the smallest space in the apartment. At such close quarters, I’d almost certainly wind up dead.Fuck. What was in there? What could I use to defend myself. The sharpest thing I could think of was a razor, and against the huge knife in Sadie’s hand a razor would be fucking useless.
“I’m not fucking around. Move it!” Sadie charged, jabbing the knife out in front of her. I twisted to one side, trying to avoid the sharpened steel, but I wasn’t quick enough. The bite of pain seared across my flesh, digging its teeth in deep. She’d slashed my side open. Quickly, the fabric of my white t-shirt turned bright red as my blood began to soak through it.
Oh…fuck.
My head swam as I clasped my hands to my side, trying to stem the bleeding. I had no idea how deep the cut was, but it felt bad. It felt like she’d almost gutted me.
Sadie’s entire face was lit up with excitement as she prowled toward me, backing me into the bathroom. “You’re wrong. I’mamstrong enough. I’m not weak anymore,” she said. “I’m going to enjoy inflicting pain on you. I won’t stop until every last inch of your skin is in ruins.”
With that, she snatched up a ceramic candle holder from the shelf above the toilet and hurled it at the shower screen with all her might. I watched, my body slowly turning numb, as the glass screen shattered into a thousand pieces.
She grinned with menacing delight as she stooped, picking up the largest, sharpest piece of the glass, and took a step forward.
SIXTEEN
FIX
“Thirty-eight fifty, please.”
The male cashier smiled at me as I handed over two twenties; people were a hell of a lot friendlier here than they were in New York, that was for damned sure. I took my change and the bag of groceries from him and made my way outside, not caring about the fact that it looked like it was about to rain. I’d walked past four different stores before I’d stopped at this one, wanting to give Sera plenty of time to catch up with her friend. She undoubtedly had a lot to talk about with the woman after the long weeks spent apart, and the night air seemed fresher here. Crisper. Less muggy and humid than the sweltering, sticky streets of Brooklyn after the sun had gone down. The walk had actually been great after being cooped up on the plane for so long.
Didn’t matter what Sera said. Driving here would have been better. We could have broken up the trip. Stayed in nice hotels. Enjoyed ourselves a little. Fucked each other’s brains out at every rest stop along the way. Being stuck in that cramped tin can for six hours, unable to get up and move around, unable to take a breath of clean air, had been fucking torture. Next time I was going to put my foot down. No more planes for me.
My dick was still hard from earlier. We’d been seconds away from doing very dirty, degrading things to each other in the shower when Sadie had turned up unannounced. Seriously fucking inconvenient. Would have been better if she’d shown up tomorrow afternoon. Or even better, tomorrow evening. By then, my need for Sera might have been slaked a little, and we’d have been fit for polite company. As it stood, I was going to be itching to get the woman out of the door the moment I walked back into the apartment.
I needed Sera’s perfect mouth on me. I needed her hands on my skin. I had some pretty elaborate plans that involved my tongue and her pussy, but they were going to have to wait until we’d made it out of the shower and into the bedroom.
I slowed my gait, grumbling to myself under my breath. If I came back sporting a raging hard on, snapping like an enraged bear at a woman I’d already nearly scared half to death, Sera would probably die of embarrassment. She’d wanted me really badly before her friend had shown up. I knew she had. But that didn’t mean she’d want me acting like a fucking caveman, tearing her clothes from her body and demanding she get on all fours in front of Sadie.
So, I dragged my feet.
This was why I didn’t have friends. They only complicated things and showed up without being invited. Sadie hadn’t even known we were going to be there and she’d still let herself into the apartment. The girls must have been really damn close if Sadie was used to showing up without permission and taking advantage of Sera’s place when she wasn’t there. Sure, she’d spun some story about swinging by to drop off that bottle of wine for Sera to enjoy when she got back from her trip, but I could smell the lie on her. She’d come there to drink that bottle of wine herself. Lord knows why, when she could easily have stayed at home and drunk it there, but whatever.
When she’d turned around in the hallway and seen me, it had been the weirdest thing: she hadn’t even flinched. Instead of surprise, her eyes had been filled with another emotion—something that had looked an awful lot like irritation.
The words she’d spoken had been a little off, too. At the time, I hadn’t had the opportunity to pick them apart, what with Sera screaming toward me, yelling at me not to hurt her friend, but now my mind kept pulling me back toward that moment, as if trying to show me something I hadn’t noticed yet.
What the fuck are you doing here?
What the fuck are you doing here?
What the fuck areyoudoing here?
Not, “Who the fuck areyou?”
