Page 41 of Break for Me

“I’m sorry, Jersey.”

“You will be.”

Shit.

Fuck.

Fuck and shit.

I opened the door quickly then. His silence was better. I never should’ve opened my mouth. I turned back for just a second to show him the little key to his handcuffs before I stuffed it in my pocket. Just to further fuel the hatred, because I apparently possessed no sense of self-preservation.

“You better run fast, Fancy Face. I’ll be right behind you.”

I spotted Persephone in the parking lot on my way out.

thirty-one

JERSEY

She was as good as dead when that door closed behind her.

I had no idea how long I stood there fucking handcuffed to that bed before my brain started to legitimately function again. I threw one last giant fit where I tried to rip the headboard off the frame, or my arm off my body. I would’ve been fine with whichever happened first. Then it dawned on me that she never would’ve taken my phone. She was a motherfucking swamp witch, temptation and certain doom trapped not-so-neatly into a bundle of snark and sarcasm; but she wasn’t stupid. She would know I’d be able to track the phone. I called out to the voice recognition of its AI system and waited for it to ask how it could help me. The maniacal laugh that escaped me didn’t sound like any noise that had ever come out of my body before.

“Call Memphis!” I screamed at it. “Speakerphone.”

“Jersey! Fucking finally. Are you okay?” Memphis screeched through the phone a second later.

“Memphis,” I said and forced myself to breathe in as much air as my lungs could hold at once. “I’m going to tell you what happened and I need you to focus on finding a solution to this problem first. You can scream at me about it once we’re back on track. Got it?”

“She got away again?”

“Memphis.”

I could hear her breathe in deeply too.

“Tell me what happened.”

“She’s gone. I am currently alone in this hotel room. Handcuffed to the goddamned, motherfucking, immovable headboard that was apparently crafted from the steel of the gods,” I said, throwing another tantrum while I nearly ripped my arm out of its socket to see if something would give.

“You’re —. She handcuffed —.”

She wanted to say so many things, but she paused to think.

“How long has she been gone?”

“Too long. She took at least one of the keys to the cuffs with her. Call somebody.”

“Call somebody? Who the fuck do you think I’m going to call, Jersey? If I call one of the other Judges for a favor, who do you think they’ll send? Do you want another team to know that you lost her? Do you want another Executioner to see you like this right now?”

“I’m not telling you to call anyone in our own fucking organization, Memphis. Call the hotel. Call in an order for a fucking pizza here for all I care. Get someone up here who can get through that door and bring me the fucking duffel bag from across the room.”

“And if they call the cops about a guy handcuffed to a bed?”

“I had a one night stand that went wrong,” I said quickly.

“The fucking understatement of the century.”

“Memphis.”

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