In the back room glass smashed, the woman shrieked and then something big slumped on the ground with a loud thud.
I lifted my head. “Freckles.”
Vil lost intertest in me and turned his blade to the door that led into the back room. “Cassie? You okay?”
“I don’t think Cassie’s okay.”
The back door kicked open and my husband arrived.
Dig Graves consumed the doorway. Fresh wet blood dripped from his leather jacket, a spray of red freckled over his face and across the rims of his heart-shaped sunglasses. He held a baseball bat, the tip bright pink like lipstick on a rave dancer. His boots crunched down on the glass and debris scattered over the hairdresser’s floor. He kicked a warped stool out of his pathway.
His lips pressed hard together and twitched with irritation as he found me lying on the table, bound by flimsy zip ties. He turned to see the blood on my leg, his cheek hitched, anger milked into the corners of his face, and he twisted his glower to Vil.
Vil shuddered at first and then seemingly remembered he was an ogre in comparison to Dig and beckoned his valour, plucking his knife from the table and aimed it at Dig.
The two fell into a fight.
I did not watch, I worked quickly.
Heaving myself up, I gritted my teeth and funnelled all my strength into my arms and swung my hands inwards, breaking the zip ties off my wrists and snatched the spare blade off the table, cutting the tie on my leg free.
Someone fell behind me.
The fight ceased.
Fingers teased into my hair and grabbed my ponytail, yanking me up to standing. I gasped, my legs tried to find balance. I gripped the knife. Holding on tight to my ponytail, he twisted me so that we could view each other. Ipointed the knife to his chest. He levelled the baseball bat now weeping red to my chin.
Unsmiling, his lips irked into a frown. “Princess.”
“Hello, my Man of Malice, good day to you, how are you going?”
“Pretty fucking not okay.” He tightened his hold on my hair, pulling my strands tighter. “I was in the middle of a damn good fight when I find out my girl isn’t at home having bubble baths anymore. She’s out here, trying to get herself tortured and killed.”
“Why did it take you so long to get here?” I snapped. “It’s been over an hour. Where were you? What were you doing?”
“Outside killing people, what else would I be doing? Did you miss me?”
“No.”
“The answer is ‘yes.’” He spoke ‘yes,’ in a feminine voice as if trying to mimic me.
“A little.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
He let my hair go, dropped the baseball bat and picked me up by my thighs, sitting me on the edge of the table. His fingers brushed across my inner thigh. “I think you might need help with something.”
“I do actually need help with something.”
He looked back to me, smiling with his silly heart-shaped sunglasses and tucked hair behind my ear. “I want to know, Princess, what do you need help with?”
I let out a laugh and grabbed the collar of his jacket, tugging his face close to mine. “I’ll tell you what I need help with.”
He stayed still, waiting to see what I would do.
I punched him in his dick.
