He doesn’t hold back, but it’s the shock of it more than the pain that freezes me.
“Stop fighting,” he snaps. “You’re only making this harder on yourself.”
“What do you want?” I whisper in a tiny, broken voice.
“Bastian made a mistake,” the man says, his breath hot and foul against my ear. “He thought he could play dead and we’d all just forget about him.” He chuckles to himself, as if anything he just said is the least bit funny. “But he was wrong. Now, you’re going to help me deliver a message.”
I want to fight. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to claw, to kick, to dosomething, goddammit!But my limbs won’t obey. I’m frozen from head to toe.
“Aleksei has been very patient,” he continues. “Very understanding, considering the circumstances. But patience has its limits, Ms. Hunter. Bastian needs to be reminded of what happens when family doesn’t stay loyal.”
I’m still holding a hand against my belly. I wonder if this is it, this is how it ends. If my child will ever get the chance to exist outside my body.
But even as those thoughts fly across my brain, something animal takes over. Pure, primal, mother-protecting-her-young desperation.
My knee comes up hard and fast and connects exactly where I was aiming: with the soft tissue between his legs. He emits a squeaky wheeze that dissolves into a strangled groan as hedoubles over in agony. His grip on me loosens just enough for me to wriggle free.
I don’t wait.
Irun.
I lunge off the exam table, my bare feet hitting the cold tile, and throw myself toward where I remember the door being. My shoulder clips something—the corner of a cabinet, maybe—but I barely register the pain. My hands find the wall, then the doorframe, then the lock mechanism.
My fingers are shaking so badly I can barely function. Behind me, I hear Marlboro recovering, cursing through gritted teeth, his shoes squeaking against the floor as he tries to straighten up.
Come on, come on, come on?—
The lock clicks. The handle turns. I yank the door open and half-fall into the hallway, my paper gown gaping open.
I open my mouth to scream for help?—
—but before a single syllable escapes my lips, a fist closes around the back of my paper gown.
The force of it yanks me backward so hard my feet leave the ground. The gown tears with a sound like a horrified gasp as Marlboro Red drags me back into the exam room. The door slams shut behind us.
He throws me down and I hit the floor hard. The ruined gown hangs in tatters from one shoulder, leaving me exposed and vulnerable in a way that goes way beyond physical nakedness.
I hear the metallic clink of a belt buckle. The whisper of leather sliding through loops.
“I told you, you little bitch,” he pants, his voice heavy with pain and anger. “You’re only making this harder on yourself.”
Then a new voice joins the fray.
Awintergreenvoice.
“That's the last mistake you'll ever make, motherfucker.”
34
BASTIAN
EARLIER THAT MORNING
à la minute /ä lä mi'nyo?ot/: adverb
1: prepared to order, at the last possible moment.
2: arriving just in time to destroy what was about to destroy her.
