The thoughts slow enough that I recognize he said this is about Travis losing a race.
Travis.
He’d called me just before his race. I wonder if he heard what happened. He must be terrified from whatever he managed to hear on his end.
I pray that he can alert the authorities.
My heart sinks when I recall that Travis is in a different country right now.
And this bastard stomped out my phone, so tracking my location is not going to happen.
The ache in my heart to see Travis grows, causing a physical pain that I have to fight off to force myself to focus on the here and now.
“Do you know Skyland Grant?” I ask the man. “Travis’ teammate?”
His eyes grow so wide they look ready to pop out.
“Skyland is none of your fucking business!” he barks as he approaches, making me cower deeper into my chair.
All I see is the gun sitting on the armoire. “O-Okay, okay,” I shriek.
He backs off and begins pacing again. I silently watch as he mumbles something to himself.
“This was supposed to be easy,” he says, talking to no one. “All he had to do was lose a couple races. Sky could win some podiums, and I could pay off my debts.”
The growing tightening in my lower belly makes it difficult, but I breathe through it and listen to his ramblings.
This guy, from what I can make out, took me to keep Travis from winning. All at the behest of Skyland. Travis’ teammate.
As soon as I make that connection, I cry out in pain from what feels like a zap of lightning across my lower belly.
“What? What was that?” he demands, standing over me.
“I-I d-don’t know,” I pant, cupping my stomach.
“You’re lying!”
“I-I’m—” I can’t get the word ‘not’ out because a sudden gush of water floods my chair until a stream of fluid starts leaking down my leg. “Oh no,” I groan.
“Stop that,” this guy insists. He grabs my arm and begins shaking me.
“Please,” I beg.
“You’re faking,” he yells, growing angrier with every beat of my heart. “Don’t do this,” he threatens. “I will kill you.”
He starts toward the armoire.
I don’t think about what to do next. I have every intention of believing this guy when he says he’ll kill me, or at least hurt me.
With his back to me, I pull the toothbrush out of my pocket, and kick at the back of his knee, making him stumble. When he turns around, I aim the end of the toothbrush toward his eye.
He cries out in pain as a sickening feeling overcomes me and I know I’ve hit my target.
I pull away, backing up, hoping that the toothbrush now sticking out of his eye will be deterrent enough for him to back off.
I’m mistaken.
“Bitch!” he yells out before belting out a slew of curses while blood pours out of his eye.
