Page 59 of Her Three Rangers

He laughed. A cold, harsh sound that made me take a step back toward the door. He was moving toward me now, slowly but steadily, like a wolf stalking its prey.

“They won’t be here in time to save your clinic, though,” he said, sneering at me as I reached behind me for the door handle without taking my eyes off him. “And your biker pimps won’t be able to save their little whore, either.”

His words turned my stomach, but they also made my blood boil. “Go to hell,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

I knew I needed to run, needed to actually call the police, needed to at least get back to Rambo and my truck.

First, I had to make it back inside the building.

My hand connected with the door handle just as he tossed the gas can aside, the loud clang as it hit the pavement making me flinch as I fumbled to open the door wide enough to slip inside.

It only delayed me by a second at the most, but it was enough time for him to close the distance between us, grabbing my arm and twisting just as I stumbled backward into the open doorway.

“You’re not nearly as clever as you think you are, bitch,” he growled, making my eyes water as he held my arm up and twisted it some more. God, he was going to break it. He was really going to break my arm. “And neither are those dumb bikers you let fuck you. I gave you a chance to do the right thing, but you were too damn stubborn, weren’t you? And then they thought they could come after me?” He laughed and shook his head. “Too bad they didn’t realize I was already on my way over here to pay you a little visit. Too bad they won’t be here in time to keep this place from burning down around you.”

My eyes went wide and I swallowed hard. If I didn’t do something, I had no doubt he would make good on his threat. I’d seen the gas can with my own two eyes, after all. One lit match would send the whole place up in flames.

He reached for my other hand, but I was faster, pulling it back and then punching him as hard as I could, square in the nose. Pain exploded in my hand as blood sprayed out over me like a fountain. He dropped my other arm, and I winced as it fell to my side, limp and likely out of socket.

“You fucking bitch,” he roared, lunging at me.

This time, I wasn’t quick enough. I couldn’t move out of the way before his body connected with mine, sending both of us hurtling across the room and knocking the breath out of me as he slammed me up against the concrete wall.

A million white lights went off behind my eyes, and I felt something warm trickle down the back of my neck as I slid down the wall and landed in a heap.

He picked himself up and took a step back, waiting until I looked up at him before he spoke again. “I should have known you’d never learn. This could have ended differently for you, you know.” He shook his head, then shrugged, as if it was of no real consequence. “Oh, well.”

He kicked me in the ribs, hard, then laughed as a strangled cry escaped my lips. My whole body felt broken as I doubled over in pain.

The last thing I saw as my vision dimmed was his feet as he walked back toward the open door.

Then everything went dark.

The stench of smoke burned my nostrils, and I could hear yelling nearby, but I couldn’t make my eyes open. My head felt like it had been squeezed in a vice, and as soon as I tried to move, the sharp pain in my ribs made me whimper and go still again.

I need to open my eyes. I had to.

I concentrated on the voices, the shouting. I could hear Jaeger and Cody, then Garrick.

Where was Ty?

“Grace?” Ty’s voice cut through the fog in my head, as if he’d been conjured from my thoughts. “Grace? Are you in there? Can you hear me?”

I could tell he was close by the sound of his voice, but he wasn’t close enough.

“Over here,” I tried to say, but the words would only come out as a hoarse whisper. “Over here, Ty.”

There was no way he’d heard me.

Why couldn’t I just open my eyes? I needed to move. I needed to get Ty’s attention.

“Grace?” His voice was more distant now. He had gone past without seeing me slumped in the corner. “Grace, babe? Where are you?”

It hurt to breathe, hurt to even think, but I had to do something. I wiggled my fingers, the only parts of my body that still felt normal. I moved my hand around on the floor, slowly but insistently, trying to ignore the pain that kept me from standing, from even opening my eyes.

All I felt at first was cold tile, but I kept reaching, kept moving my hand until my fingers found something. Something plastic. A cylinder. A bottle of pills.

It rattled as I closed my hand around it.

---