I gasped, my hands flying back to the necklace, feeling for the source of the light, the sound.
It was warm now, humming faintly against my skin.
I knew with a bone-deep certainty that I was fucked.
He turned the phone back to face him, blocking my mother's view of me. "The necklace around your daughter's delicate throat is now armed. One press of a button and it'll take her head clean off. You should be familiar with this technology, Senator. After all, it's your own military that perfected it."
The world tilted.
Bomb. He put a bomb around my neck.
"How?" my mother demanded, and I heard it in her voice—not fear for me, not maternal panic, but professional curiosity.
The man—Darius—just smiled the smile of a predator who'd sunk his teeth into his prey.
"Senator, you should know as well as everybody else, we have our ways. And we have people on our payroll. You can call the police if you wish, but how do you know the person you reach isn't taking orders from me? I pay much better than the US government. As you well know."
"You won't get away with this," she said, a strength in her words that should have been reassuring.
But it wasn't concern for me. She was angry that someone had gotten one up on her. Angry that she'd lost control of the situation. Angry at being outmaneuvered.
Not angry that I was going to die.
"I already have," he answered, his voice low, satisfied. "And you know it. I'm sure you need some time to think about this and to make the appropriate arrangements. I'll be in touch. And the next time I call, I expect you to be more respectful."
He disconnected the line and turned back toward me, slipping the phone into his pocket.
My mind raced, thoughts fragmenting, scattering like broken glass.
An explosive around my neck.
A bomb.
Military-grade technology designed to decapitate.
My life depended on my mother valuing my life more than money and power.
I'm dead. I'm already dead.
The thoughts spun faster and faster as my body trembled.
My hands clawed at the necklace, trying to rip it off, feeling for a seam, a weak point,anything. The metal bit into my palms as I pulled, but it didn't budge.
I sank against the wall, my legs no longer able to hold me, my knees hitting the floor hard enough to bruise.
Tears blurred my vision as I fought. Fought to breathe, fought to rip the bomb off my throat. And I was losing.
Darius took a step toward me.
His body blocked the only light as he stood over me, his shadow swallowing me whole.
I opened my mouth to tell him to take it off, to beg or to bribe him with anything—my soul, my body, whatever he wanted.
Terrified screams stole my words as I curled in on myself, realization setting in like ice water rushing into my veins.
I was going to die, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.
"Please," I finally managed, the word barely more than a whisper. "Please, she won't—she doesn't?—"
