Page 126 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
Blackness. A crushing weight on top of me. A high-pitched buzzing in my ears. The stench of smoke and gasoline stinging my nose.
I opened my eyes and saw light in flickering flashes, like a strobe light in a disco, pulsing and disorienting. Everything looked wrong. Smashed and upside down. Moving my head sent pain shooting through my neck. I moaned and tasted blood in my mouth.
We were in an accident. The car’s upside down. Someone hit us. Someone . . . someone is saying my name.
I turned my head toward the voice. I was dreaming, surely. That hand could not really belong to that arm, to that body, to that face. I was mixing it all up. Everything was jumbled in my head.
The hand fastened on my wrist and pulled. It hurt. The weight on top of me didn’t budge. I tried to focus on the weight and realized it was Barney, unconscious and bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his body slanted across mine. Another hand wrapped around the back of my neck. The hands dragged me from beneath the motionless body of Barney, through the smashed window, onto the asphalt of the street. I saw flashes of blue sky and green trees, a high-rise glinting in the afternoon sun. My body screamed in pain, but I was too weak to give voice to it.
Then Michael lifted me onto his shoulder, the pain crescendoed, and the world fell black once more.
The first thing I became conscious of was the fresh, bracing scent of salt air.
I held perfectly still, aware in every cell of my body that I was in danger. I remembered what had happened. More important, I remembered who had taken me. I could only guess as to why.
After a moment, I stopped trying to guess because everything I envisioned ended with me lying facedown in a pool of my own blood.
When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find myself in a grand, unfamiliar room. It had vaulted ceilings and acres of white carpeting, and, through a glistening wall of glass, a sweeping view of the sea and distant mountains. Some time must have elapsed, because the sun had begun to sink below the horizon. The sofa beneath me was plush and comfortable, the feather pillow under my head was thick and soft.
Where the hell was I?
“It’s Amy’s house,” said a quiet voice to my right. I turned my head to find Michael standing a few feet behind the sofa where I lay. Hands in the front pockets of his jeans, he stared pensively into the darkening sky beyond the wall of windows. “She bought it for us. I spent the happiest days of my life here.” His gaze flicked to mine. “Before.”
My head throbbed. I felt sick to my stomach. I was almost certain I’d broken something in my right ribcage area because every breath was stinging, searing misery. Trying not to breathe too deeply, I asked, “Are you going to kill me?”
His brows flew up. My bluntness had surprised him. “Are you so ready to die?”
“Just thought I’d cut to the chase. I hate drawn-out suspense; it’s so nerve-racking.”
“Sorry,” he said unremorsefully. “Prepare to be racked.”
When I tried to sit up, a spasm of pain speared my side, making me gasp. Michael watched me struggle into an upright position with a detached, faintly hungry expression, as if I were the lobster he’d chosen to be boiled for his dinner from the deli case. I noticed the only mark on him was a red rash on one side of his face, possibly the result of an airbag deploying.
He said, “Careful. I don’t want you any more bruised than you already are.”
That was even more chilling than his expression. What did he have planned for me?
Without warning, his hand shot out. He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I cried out, trying to twist away, my hands curled around his wrist, but I didn’t have the strength to escape. Every part of my body throbbed with pain.
“Stop!” he spat, and gave my head a firm shake.
I stilled. Breathing hard, my hands wrapped around his wrist, I looked up at him looming over me. He planted his other hand next to my head and leaned down to speak into my ear.
“At first I didn’t get it. Had I read him wrong? Had I misjudged the situation?” His pupils were dilated unnaturally large, leaving only a thin ring of blue surrounding a pool of black. Our faces were so close I saw the tiny red veins shot through the whites. His hand in my hair shook so hard my teeth rattled.
I’d seen people on drugs. If I was afraid before, now fear turned my blood to ice water.
“But then I realized I hadn’t read him wrong at all. It wasn’t him I’d misjudged.” His voice turned to a hiss. “It was you.”
He yanked me to my feet with brutal strength, using only that hand fisted in my hair. I screamed, clawing at his arm. He dragged me backward over the couch. I fell to the floor with a bone-crunching thud, the wind knocked out of me. I lay there gasping for air, curled into a ball, until Michael began to drag me across the floor by my hair. The pain was like being mauled by a tiger, from the inside. He dragged me down a long, tiled hallway and into a master bedroom, where he dumped me unceremoniously at the foot of the bed.
As my head hit the floor, something in my neck popped. Black dots danced in the edges of my vision.
Michael prowled to the opposite wall of the room, where a camera on a tripod stood, along with one of those large black umbrella halogen lights used in photo shoots. He flipped a switch, illuminating the wall in a wash of brilliant white, then turned to me.
“You told him, didn’t you Kat? You broke our deal. You lied to me, and you told him. I have to admit, I’m really disappointed.”
My fake cool from before vanished under the sudden crush of near-death adrenaline. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I didn’t tell him anything!”
