“Did you want to have the same fate? Or you would’ve preferred to fake it and make you feel good, like I did? That is why I asked you so late to marry me, because I am so close to getting what I wanted from the beginning. You can’t even imagine how close. One more lost soul for a step forward. One more year, that is all that I needed, but you just had to ruin everything!”
All that he said made me move even further back, and Lucas put me behind him.
“Now that you found out, what will I do with you?” Marshall asks, grinning and tilting his head to one side.
“You don’t know who you’re playing with,” Lucas says in a dark tone.
“I think I know very well. Cathal’s puppy. Oh, sorry, the lost boy who wanted to run and failed. You go back to your daddy, be on your way, and leave Anmara to me.”
“Never!” Lucas says, and I feel like he can’t resist any longer.
He shifts to the psychopath and tries to punch him in the face, but Marshall subtracts himself by a hair and punches Lucas in his chest, making him run out of breath.
I walk closer to them when Marshall is prepared to strike again. Lucas barely manages to breathe properly. I turn my gaze to face Marshall, who stopped with his fist mid-air.
“I’m not coming with you, not even if you kill me,” I say, but then I realise what a bad choice of words I had, because of the stupid smirk that appeared on his face.
“That was my intention until I found out you were no longer a virgin, sweetie. Now I’ll just torture you.”
He wants to come and take me, but I manage to kick him in the face with my foot.
I have always liked my flexibility for other things, but it turns out I can use it for better reasons.
Marshall takes a few steps back due to the impact, putting both his hands over his nose. When I see it bleeding and twisted, I feel so proud of my abilities. They gave me an energy that made me want more, so I quickly remember more moves.
I get closer, and he doesn’t even realise that I went by him and jumped on his back to choke him with my hands. He tries to loosen my strength, but when he sees he can’t, he takes a few steps back until my back hits a wall and lets me out of breath.
“You stupid bitch!”
Marshall takes my hands and pulls them to throw me over his head. By a miracle, I end up on my feet, but they hurt like hell. I try to move the pain away and think quickly, but he’s faster. He moves his hands to grab my neck, but he doesn’t get there as Lucas grabs them. I hear them break and also see his thumbs twisted.
Marshall doesn’t even get to turn angry because I see Lucas punching him hard in the chest, knocking him out, and making him unconsciously lie on the ground.
Chapter 20
Doom
“I thought you said you negotiate with your mind, not with your fists,” I say for the first time when we close the door on Marshall’s apartment.
I feel my heart pumping inside my veins with an unseen surge of adrenaline. I really had a plan to kill him or at least put him to sleep, but I figured out just when I jumped on his back that I didn’t finish that defence class. The main reason, in fact, was Marshall. And however much strength I gained from my training, I didn’t even think about the consequences of that move.
We took Marshall to his apartment and tied him to the bed with a rope I found in his closet. The same way as in my dream. I was surprised he didn’t wake up from how hard we tightened that string.
I have so much hate inside for that man. Unfortunately, we need him alive if I want to stay in this universe and not go to the next one.
“Anything you planned to do earlier, don’t do it again until you feel ready,” Lucas says when we enter our apartment. “After all this craziness calms down, I will train you to be able to defend yourself the right way. You have technique, but it’s not complete. A couple of weeks, and you could even put me down.”
He mechanically closes the door when I enter, then locks it.
He is right, though. I know how to protect myself, but being half-prepared is not enough. Especially if I’ll end up in situations where Lucas is not next to me. However, I hope it won’t be the case.
He goes to the safe room and opens the small hatch in the door frame where the camera was. He pulls it out and crushes it under his footwear. He also goes to all the microphones in the room and does the same thing, and I’m surprised he managed to remember the exact location of each one.
He then pulls a phone from his pocket and starts writing a message at a fascinating speed.
“If you’re asking yourself where I have it from, Cathal gave it to me to keep him posted," he says, like taking the words right out of my mind.
He stops typing and looks up at me.
