Page 148 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

The door being flung open.

“Hello?” will be called out.

One step inside.

And then strike!

Swift as a cougar leaping from a mountain ledge, I spring from the loft, weapons extended like claws.

My adversary looks up.

Too late!

With deadly aim, I gouge eyes, ripping flesh and ocular matter as I blind my jailor.

Then I go for the throat.

Slashing.

Blood spurting.

Gurgling air rasping through a severed trachea.

I feel sick at the thought.

Bile rises in my throat.

The whining engine is nearing. I climb the ladder, as I’ve done dozens of times, peek through the row of impossibly small windows near the ceiling. Headlights flash through the trees, illumination splaying on the frozen trunks.

“Give me strength,” I pray, then feel disgust at my weakness, my supplication to a deity who has abandoned me. I don’t need God’s help in crippling and killing my captor.

Nor do I need Satan’s.

I only need to remember who did this to me and why.

And then I’m ready.

I can do this.

But I’m thwarted.

This time, my captor doesn’t step inside, just shoves a bag of groceries through the partially open door before locking it again.

What?

NO!

I scream in frustration.

But it’s too late!

I hear the car leave and take my dreams of escape with it.

CHAPTER 39

Rowdy Crocker

had lied.

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