42
Liam
Flailing about, my heart felt as though it would burst out of my chest as I attempted with all my strength to pry the chain links loose.
I’d tried everything I could, but the lock had been so goddamn stubborn, and no variation, none of the usual tricks and tactics seemed to work on the difficult lock.
Then the moment Ty pulled the trigger, I lost control of my body as I tried to break the chains like Samson himself. I felt as crazed as Himeros as my body went through the motions in a desperate attempt to keep Ty from ending his life.
Theclickof the trigger had been unbearable…and was followed by anotherclickand the weightlessness on my wrist as my cuff fell away.
But it was too late.
Too fucking late.
Yet the sound of silence was…confounding.
Ty sat across from me, the barrel of the gun in his mouth as he gasped, searching around the room as though trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. His hand shook until he couldn’t manage to keep the gun in his grip anymore, and it crashed to the floor.
“That was…beautiful,” I heard Himeros say. I turned and saw him standing in the doorway, eyes fixed on Ty as he seemed enraptured by what he’d just witnessed.
Ty clawed at his own body with his free hand, as though trying to sort through his own mortality in that moment when he surely must’ve believed it was all over. He finally managed to scream out, shouting at the universe for the horror he’d endured moments earlier.
The gun hadn’t even fired blanks, so it must’ve been a false trigger. Or maybe not even a functional gun.
A trick. It had all been some sort of perverse trick.
The lying fuck!
Himeros was too absorbed in Ty’s reaction to notice I was free. As he hurried over to Ty, passing by me, I leaped to my feet, making my attack. I assumed it would be my only chance, so I aimed the safety pin for his carotid artery, but Himeros shifted just enough for me to miss. Still, the safety pin tore through his flesh, digging deep. I dragged it down, creating as much damage as I could.
Blood gushed from his neck as Himeros turned to me, eyes wide in shock.
With my bound wrist tense in the remaining cuff, I made do with my free hand. Pulling the safety pin from his flesh, I grabbed his hair and slammed his head down onto the table. Once…twice…before he sliced at me with his blade, which he must’ve grabbed from his pocket. He nicked my arm, but I grabbed his wrist and disarmed him with a quick twist, forcing him to drop the blade, which I caught. He used the opportunity as his chance to escape, stumbling forward before falling across the side of the table, toward Ty’s side. Reaching into his pocket, I assumed for the remote to trigger the gas.
I’d fucked up by not keeping my hold on him.
However, as soon as I started feeling the weight of defeat, Ty leaped into action, seizing Himeros by his hair and dragging him back. Ty’s wrist strained in the cuff still attached to his left wrist, as he tossed Himeros down and straddled the monster’s waist. He pounded into his face with his free hand, crying out, not even sounding like himself as he was apparently overpowered by his flight-or-fight response…in this case, choosing to fight, maybe even kill. Himeros’s arms made an effort for a short span of time before going limp at his sides, and he just lay there, absorbing Ty’s blows, the blood from his neck sliding across the floor.
Ty kill-mode.
I crawled to my knees and stretched out, reaching for Himeros’s pant pocket and retrieving the key for the cuffs. I used it to break free, then hurried to Ty’s aid.
My Ty.
My poor, wounded Ty.
He needed me, and I needed him—now more than ever.
“Come on, come on,” I said as I approached.
Ty was still exhausting himself on Himeros’s already blood-splattered face.
I freed Ty of his cuff, then urged him aside and offered a kick to Himeros’s face that had it slam against the leg of Ty’s chair.
Ty had done a good job beating the shit out of him.
I cuffed Himeros to Ty’s chair, assuring myself that, despite the adrenaline that raged through me, we were safe.
