“Blair,” Reed cries, his grip on me so tight I hiss with pain.
“Now, Reed. Go!”
Thankfully, he listens. At least partially. His grip leaves my arm, but then he grabs my hand, and I stumble when he tugs me after him.
“Shit, Blair. She has a knife!”
The crazy blonde laughs, the sound following us as we race toward Reed’s bedroom.
“Just go, Reed, I’ll fight her off.”
“Like hell you will,” he snarls. “I’m not letting some crazy bitch hurt my sister.” Then he pulls me into his room, pushing me away from the door, and slams it shut. He barely pushes the lock in before there’s a thump on the other side, and the woman lets out a frustrated shriek.
“You think you can hide from me?” the woman shouts. “You think you can get away with it? I told you he’s mine.Mine!”
Reed jumps when she bangs on the door again, and it snaps me out of my stupor.
I have to protect my brother. That lock won’t hold her for long. It’s one of those cheap interior locks you can pick with a bobby pin. “Help me barricade the door.”
Reed stares when she bangs again.
“Reed! I know you’re scared, but I need you to focus. Help me move the bed and barricade the door. We need to keep her out until Logan and the guys get here.” Hopefully, the knife is all she has because it won’t do her any good if we’re in here and she’s out there. But if she has a gun… Well, these flimsy hollow-core doors won’t do much to shield us from that.
“Come on, Reedy.” Adrenaline floods my body as we drag his bed, mattress and all, in front of the door. “Help me stand themattress up against it.” If shedoeshave a gun, anything that helps slow a bullet is better than nothing.
Reed obeys, his movements jerky, panic in his gaze. My poor brother. Another thing to traumatize him.
I’m going to kick the shit out of this bitch.
“Why is she doing this?” he asks as we drag his desk over, wedging it against the bed as the strange woman continues to pound the door, ranting and raving about how Logan is hers. About how I did something to him. How she needs to save him from me.
“Pretty sure that’s our stalker,” I say through gasping breaths as we continue to barricade the door with whatever we can. Boxes that we hadn’t moved to the living room yet get piled on top of the bed frame, but there’s not much else to use.
It’ll have to be enough.
“How in the hell did she get in the building?”
This is exactly what Logan was worried about. There’s no security to get into the building. No doorman, no code to enter, and even if there was, would that stand up to theMinnesota nicepeople talk about all the time? One smile and anI can’t believe I forgot my keywould probably be enough to grant entry to anyone trying to get in.
“And what did she mean about Kai taking a nap?”
My chest twists. “Shit. Kai.” I go to dig my phone out of my back pocket but come up empty. “Reed, do you have your phone? I must have set mine down in my room.”
Reed’s face loses some of its color. “I put mine down next to yours on your dresser. It was digging into me every time I bent down.”
“Okay. That’s okay. We’ll figure this out.” We need to call for help. There’s a deranged woman with a knife in our apartment, and neither Reed nor I have a phone.
“Open up, bitch,” Becky shouts. The doorknob rattles. So does my heart.
“I’m scared,” Reed whispers.
I reach for him, wrapping my little brother—the one who’s almost taller than me—in a hug so tight I swear my bones creak. I’m scared, too, but I can’t tell him that. “Everything is going to be okay. The guys will get here soon. They’ll call the cops.”
“What if she stabs them?” he asks. His voice shakes. Those wide, warm brown eyes of his are wide as he looks to me for answers I don’t have.
What if she stabs them?
Oh my god.
