Page 8 of Worth

Lauren drags me around the side of the house and it’s clear she is on a mission to get somewhere. The steadycrunch crunch crunchsound of Jack’s steps behind us sends my pulse skittering, like I’m starring in a horror film and he’s the stalking killer. I scan the area around us, trying to figure out where they’re taking me. When I see the little guest house that sits behind the main house, the one Lauren is heading straight for, my knees lock up.

“Come on,” Lauren insists, snapping the leash hard enough to make me stumble a step forward.

There’s zero warning when Jacks latches a hand to the back of my neck, his fingers biting into my flesh. “Walk,” he orders.

Between the way Lauren is pulling me and Jack’s grip, my feet start to move.

“We won’t have long,” she says, glancing past me to Jack.

“I don’t need long,” Jack answers, his fingers flexing. “I want to test her out before I make an offer to Uncle Damien.”

Evil runs in the family, apparently.

“I don’t know why you’d want the little whore,” Lauren mutters, shoving open the door on the guest house. She turns and holds up the leash. “I’ll knock if anyone is coming.”

Panic claws at my chest. Even if I hate Damien, I know he only shares his toys on his terms. Even then, the few times he’s invited others to fuck me, I’m punished forallowingthem to screw me the next time I see him.

I can only imagine what sort of punishments I’ll face forallowingJack to rape me.

Before I can do anything to free myself and run, Jack shoves me into the guest house by the hold on my neck. I trip over the entry, ramming my cheek right into a barstool that’s sitting at the breakfast bar of the guest house’s kitchen, and land on the floor with a grunt.

My cheek throbs, tears welling in the eye on the same side, but I don’t stay down. I crawl to my feet just as the door slams shut. I tear off through the house, shooting down the hallway. Jack barks a wicked laugh, his footsteps not hurried in the slightest.

“Do you like to play games, little girl?” he calls.

I dart into a bedroom, frantically scanning the room for something I can use as a weapon. Jack’s steps stay steady, echoing on the wood floors as he draws closer. Seeing nothing I can use, I slip into the attached bathroom without a single sound.

That—that is where I find my salvation.

There, on the opposite wall, is a second entrance into the bathroom. I can see the kitchen in the space that it stands ajar and I lunge for it, just as the door behind me is kicked open. My bare feet slide on the floor as I crash into the kitchen.

“That’s enough,” Jack snarls, and it’s clear that he is no longer enjoying the chase I have him on.

I don’t think. As he charges at me, my movements are frenzied and scrambling to find anything to help as my hands sweep across the counter. I can feel the air shift around me as Jack enters my space, just as my fingertips graze over something cold and hard on the counter. I clutch at it and swing around, spearing it towards my attacker with every ounce of force in my body.

Jack bellows as I yank my arm back, ripping the fork prongs from the meat of his jaw. Blood instantly seeps down the side of his neck. I stare at it, mesmerized, as he grabs at his face, screaming at me.

My mouth salivates for the thrill I just found in seeing that blood. Unlike in the past, when I’ve forced myself to shove away my needs and wants for bloodshed, I let that part of me rise. My hand tightens on the handle of the fork and I step forward towards Jack.

He sees the movement and dismisses me. It’s a huge fucking mistake, considering I’m the one who just stabbed him. But that’s fine. If he wants to underestimate me, let him.

I leap, slamming into him. We fall, his head bouncing off the ground. I stay perched on top of him and he doesn’t even have a moment to try to force me off him before I sink the fork directly through his eye.

I pull out the fork and stab him through the other eye.

All the while, he screams, trying to shove me away while also trying to block my attack.

When I pull the fork out of the second eye, something in me snaps more than it already has. With vicious strokes, I stab him over and over, the tines landing in his face, neck and chest. Blood splatters on me with each rip of the fork from his body, and his cries turn to gurgles.

It takes me a few minutes to realize he’s gone quiet, my arms aching from plunging the fork into his flesh so many times. I pause as I note his stillness, furrowing my brows. When it finally settles in that the asshole is dead, I release the fork, still embedded in his chest.

My hands shake, but it’s not from fear—I’m high as fuck on adrenaline. The blood coating them makes it look like I dipped my hands in shiny, wet red paint. It’s even dripping from the leash dangling from my wrist. With every passing moment that I stare at them, the blood is drying, turning darker and brownish.

I flinch at a knock on the door and I wonder how long I’ve been sitting on top of Jack’s corpse, watching the blood on my hands dry.

“Jack, hurry up!” Lauren whines through the door.

I look down at her dead cousin again. Jack isn’t going to be hurrying anywhere but to hell.

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