“Stop this at once,” Jude said, sounding strong. “Nally doesn’t belong to anyone. You need help. You need?—”
Quentin closed the last of the gap between them and silenced Jude with a punch to his jaw. He didn’t have much leverage, so the blow didn’t do nearly as much damage as it could have, but it was enough to snap whatever hold Nally had on his panic.
“Stop it!” he shouted, throwing himself between Quentin and Jude, who was at least still on his feet. “I don’t even know who you are. Get out of here!”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Quentin growled, not a shred of mercy in his voice, even though he claimed to love Nally. “If I need to force you to see that you’re mine, then I’ll do it.”
“No!” Jude shouted. Instead of fighting Quentin, he grabbed Nally’s hand and dashed for the door.
Quentin was one step ahead of them. He dropped his black bag, which crashed to the floor like it had something heavy and metal in it, then raced ahead of Jude and Nally. Nally pulled Jude back, thinking to protect him, but that turned out to be the wrong idea.
Quentin reached the door and turned the lock, then twisted to lean his back against the door, arms spread wide. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, panting heavily. “You’re staying right here and getting what’s coming to you. Both of you.”
“Let us go, Quentin,” Nally said, holding his arms out and trying to sound as calm and sensible as possible when what he really wanted to do was sob and scream. “No one needs to get hurt here. We can talk about this like?—”
“My name is Andrew!” Quentin shouted. “Lovers call each other by their given names!”
Nally gulped for breath and shrunk back at the pure rage in Quentin’s voice. He wanted to appease the man, do something to make him go away, but he did not want to call him by his first name.
“I’m calling the police,” Jude said, pulling his phone out of his back pocket. “You can’t just come into someone’s workplace and?—”
Quentin lunged forward again, moving fast, and tackled Jude when he had his guard down with his phone. The phone went flying, and this time Jude fell hard with Quentin on top of him.
“He’s mine! Nally is mine, and I’ll show you!” Quentin shouted.
He raised his fist, and this time when he landed his blow it seemed to knock Jude senseless.
“No! Jude! Stop this!” Panic scrambled Nally’s thoughts. The single feeling that he had to protect the man he loved at all costs roared through him, drowning out everything else, including his own sense of danger. He threw himself at Quentin, fighting to wrestle the bigger man off Jude. Strength and fighting skills were not things Nally possessed, though. The best he could manage was to strain and grapple as Quentin took the roll of duct tape off his wrist.
“Let me take care of him!” Quentin growled at Nally, twisting slightly to push him off. “He’s standing between us. He’s in the way.”
He pushed, and Nally’s balance was bad enough that he fell to the side. Quentin then turned back to Jude, who he now straddled, pinning him to the floor, and yanked out a long bit of the duct tape.
“Stop it!” Nally shouted, scrambling on the linoleum to find enough purchase to lunge at Quentin again. “Leave him alone!”
Jude writhed on the floor, his nose bleeding down his cheek, disoriented. He regained his focus just as Quentin slammed the piece of duct tape he’d ripped off of the roll over his mouth. That startled Jude into fighting back.
“You bastard!” Nally shouted, charging at Quentin with his shoulder lowered and slamming into him.
The only things Nally knew about fighting were from films. Slamming someone with your shoulder was supposed to dislodge them and free whoever they had pinned. Instead, eventhough he moved Quentin most of the way off Jude, what really happened was that the blow caused his shoulder to scream in pain as it hit the bones of Quentin’s shoulder.
“I love him,” Nally shouted through the pain, grabbing at Jude and trying to help him out from under Quentin. “I love Jude, never you.”
For a half second, Quentin looked stricken. Then his face contorted into a mask of fury. “If I can’t have you, no one can!”
He rolled off of Jude. Nally dared to think they’d won, but when Quentin searched around then scrambled for his bag, he knew there was much worse to come.
Everything else in his head was still blank, though in the corner of his awareness he thought someone was banging at the studio door. That didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting to the bag before Quentin.
It was a desperate struggle. Quentin reached the bag first, but before he had a good hold on it, Nally was able to rip it out of his hand and throw it farther across the room, even though it was sickeningly heavy. A pair of pliers fell out of the half-unzipped top of the bag. It was a victory to get rid of it, but one that enraged Quentin.
With only wordless grunts of rage, Quentin turned on Nally. Before Nally could do anything, Quentin flipped him to his back and straddled him the way he had Jude. Instead of punching him or reaching for duct tape, he closed his hands around Nally’s neck and started to squeeze.
Fear short-circuited everything in Nally and the world started to go black. As desperately as he wanted to, he couldn’t suck air into his lungs. Worse still, everything turned swimmy and hot and his ears were filled with a thumping rush. Nally was going under until the sound of shattering glass distracted Quentin from his murderous intent. A second later, Quentin released Nally’s neck and twisted toward the door.
“Stop right there!” Ryan’s voice echoed through the studio.
Quentin reeled back and stood, though Nally was too stunned for the moment to do anything other than cough and sputter and gasp with a hand to his neck. Quentin stood and dashed to the other side of the room, but Nally was still in too much distress to track where he went.
