“We don’t get to choose our lot in life,” Cheyenne was telling her sister as they continued to be opposing forces in conversation. “What are we supposed to do, Cas? We were practically born to help the family take out our enemies.”
“Just because it’s what we’re supposed to do, Cheyenne, doesn’t mean that it makes it right.” Casper retorted, flexing her hands up in the air in desperate defeat. “I don’t even hate Orbs! That’s Dad’s deal. My deal is feeling like I have agency over my own fucking life. Don’t you want that too?”
While Cheyenne contemplated her twin’s words, I knew that my chance to interject and distract them further was dwindling. I needed at least one of them over to me so I could try and incapacitate one of them. And ideally, I needed it to be Cheyenne. I didn’t think Casper really wanted to hurt me, judging by the amount of verbal acrobatics she was doing to get out of having to kill me. Cheyenne on the other hand looked about as bloodthirsty as a rabid animal. So it was now or never.
“I don’t know,” I said, chortling at the notion presented by Casper in regards to her sister. I was still ushering in a little bit of my brother’s bravado even though they know believed that I wasn’t Troian. “Cheyenne doesn’t strike me as the independent type. She needs someone to tell her what to do.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Cheyenne warned, whipping her head away from Casper and delivering knifed glares in my direction. “You don’t know me. Especially if you really aren’t Troian.”
“I’m not Troian.” I solidified. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know a coward when I see one.”
And that was all it took. Cheyenne was a spitfire, but she had a short fuse just daring to be lit. My words were lighter fluid to her already prepared fire and I was about to take full advantage of it. She stormed over to me and decked me in the face, rockingme in the chair. It took everything I had in me to pretend like my hands were still constricted behind my back and allow the hit to happen. I needed her to think she had full control over the situation before I turned the tables.
As I righted myself to stare back at her, her finger was waved in front of my face.
“I told you to shut the fuck up! Do you really think you’re in a position to get me riled up right now?”
“Actually, I do.”
Without warning, I swung my arms forward, pushing her back lightly as I revealed that I had full use of my arms again, the tape that they’d wrapped them in still hanging around my wrists. Cheyenne’s eyes were the size of serving platters, consternation evident in them. But I wasn’t about to give her a second to breathe or reassess the situation. I bent down slightly and used my foot to sweep Cheyenne off her feet, a yelp barreling out of her as she lost her balance and fell to the floor. I looked up to see Casper, who hadn’t moved but was watching the situation with earnest. My eyes then locked on the office at the end of the massive room and before Casper decided she needed to make up for her sister’s lack of blood spilt now that she was on her ass. Dashing for the office, I didn’t miss a single step or waste time looking behind me to see what their next move was going to be.
“Don’t worry about me, get him!” I heard Cheyenne bark with gusto. Casper must have reacted exactly as I thought and had run to help her sister up instead of trying to inflict pain upon me.
It was too late for them though. I made it to the manager’s office and was delighted when the door pried open with ease. Not wasting a second, I threw the door closed behind me. Looking around the door, I was greeted with a lock and made sure to throw it locked just as I heard the twins beating on thedoor and turning the locked doorknob that refused to give in to them.
I huffed out a slightly eased breath. I was safe inside these four walls. Well, safer than being out there anyway. I knew the door probably wasn’t the Fort Knox of doors and would give way to their battering ram barrage. Right now, I needed to find my phone. Any phone.
Looking around the room, the only window was the one that faced the open warehouse. The blinds were closed though, so I didn’t have to see the twins’ attempt at entry. If they were smart enough to find something to plunge against the window, it was all over. I needed to find my shit. I stormed over to the manager’s desk, opening every drawer and being met with zero evidence of my phone. They probably were at least smart enough to destroy it in the alley.
On top of the desk was no visible phone. I swept piles of papers and folders off the desk in hopes that a phone was underneath. Even if there was, I didn’t have hope that the phone bill was still being paid, considering that there weren’t any lights or anything on in the warehouse section or even here in the office.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? My chances of escaping the Rhodes twins was dwindling. I needed to figure out what to do next. I was running out of time and I had absolutely zero options laid out before me.
My head whipped to the warehouse as I heard a scuffle outside the office. I stood in the office, immobile and frozen as it sounded like a fight was happening outside. Was someone else in the warehouse other than the sisters? Were my saviors just outside the door and I was being saved? I shook my head. No one knew where I was. I didn’t think there was any way of tracking me, especially if my phone was really laying broken in the alley where I’d been abducted.
Were the twins fighting? That was the only logical explanationI had left in my head. Silence sounded from outside, and I wondered what was going to happen next. Next thing I knew, a massive force pummeled against the office door and it gave way. I shielded my eyes and stepped backwards as Cheyenne forced her way into the room. When I looked back at her, she had a bloody nose and there were obvious signs that she’d just been in some sort of altercation away from my view.
“Enough bullshit,” Her voice wobbled with emotion, eyes bubbling as they watered.
Cheyenne produced a gun from the back of her tight leather pants, something I hadn’t taken notice of earlier. She wiggled the gun against her palm and pointed the gun right at my face.
“We’re done here.”
Chapter 21
Holding up my hands,I stared down the barrel of Cheyenne’s gun, knowing that my time really was running out. She had every upper hand and there was no telling when she was going to pull the trigger.
The only thing I had going for me was Casper’s absence. My only chance at survival was to see if I could make the last remaining Rhodes twin unravel because her sister had abandoned her. That’s what I had to assume happened, considering that Casper wasn’t running into the office with her sister and Cheyenne was bloodied and bruised.
I hated the fact that I needed to toy with her mind to get out of this situation, and I knew that she held the power and could end my verbal torments by easily putting a bullet between my eyes. But I needed to get the hell out of here and her mental demise was my only viable path to walking out alive.
“Where’s Casper?”
“Don’t fucking worry about where she is. Worry about this.” She shook the gun in her hands, but I noticed a tear slide down her cheek. Cheyenne used her free hand to wipe it away,wanting to seem more in control than she was feeling. That was my in.
I flexed my hands, silently reiterating that I was trying to diffuse. “She left, didn’t she? She couldn’t handle doing stuff like this and left, even though it meant leaving you behind.”
The next tear dropped down Cheyenne’s face, the gun wobbling in her grip even more than it had been before. I could tell that if she spoke, her words would come out garbled.
