Toni scoffs. "And what does that tell you, Doctor? If I'm willing to die?"
My filter breaks. "That you're sad.”
“No,” she snaps, too fast, too emotional. “It means I don’t give a shit. It means that my entire life’s purpose is to make Emery fucking Jones’s life a living hell. Quietly. Slowly. A unique kind of torture. She’ll be scared for the rest of her stupid goddamn existence.”
I can’t help the snort that escapes, a low, light chuckle following. “I’m sorry to break it to you, Toni, but Emery is not scared of you.”
Toni’s teeth clench together. “What?”
“She’s not scared of you,” I say with a shrug. “ButIam. Idobelieve you’re dangerous. Idobelieve that you’ll eventually harm the woman I love, but Emery? Emery finds your antics, for lack of a better word, quite amusing.”
Her expression is unreadable. “She is not…afraid of me?”
“She’s made a playlist with all the songs you haunt her with,” I divulge. “I find it rather inappropriate, but she evidently enjoys your musical preferences. That French one in particular. How does it go again…”
Toni scoffs in disbelief. “A playlist? She made a fucking playlist?!” She runs a hand through her hair, mumbling to herself in Italian. “Che pazza!”
“Again, I ask you, Toni,what do you want from her? From us?”
"I can’t believe her," she seethes, her voice growing louder and more frantic with each word. She rises to her feet, pacing back and forth as she unleashes a storm of anger and resentment. "A playlist? What a joke. She thinks I am a joke. She is mocking me. Laughing at me. With those lips of her, and her stupid fucking green eyes. She’s acting like she's so innocent, so?—”
As Toni continues her tirade against Emery, a familiar knot forms in my stomach. There's a rawness to her anger, a palpable sense of betrayal. I’ve seen it before. I’vefeltit before. Beneath the bitterness and resentment of her words, there’s something deeper, something profound. It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s the only thing that explains her irrational, rash, and impulsive behavior.
"You’re in love with her.”
Toni freezes mid-step, her eyes widening in shock as she whirls around to face me. "Excuse me?!" she splutters, her cheeks flushing crimson.
"Emery... You love her." My voice is steady but my insides twist at the revelation. Love is a dangerous emotion. I know this firsthand.
"Love?" she scoffs, her tone dripping with contempt. "You think I love that manipulative bitch? Did she tell you what she did to me? How she tricked me? How she?—"
"You love her," I insist, cutting through her protests with unwavering certainty.
Toni's cheeks flush an even deeper shade of red, her tiny frame vibrating. "That's ridiculous," she snaps. "I don't love her. Ihateher. I despise her. I want to hurt her. Bad. I want her to feel the same pain as I?—”
She freezes, realizing the truth of her own emotions. With a flat expression, she glares at me and whips out a taser from her back pocket. I have no time to react. No time to think.
Before I can even process what's happening, Toni lunges forward, the taser crackling. The sharp sting of electricity courses through my body, sending waves of agony shooting through every nerve. Fuck!
“Don’t worry, Doctor. You won’t die. Not yet at least.”
I convulse uncontrollably on the ground, my muscles contracting and spasming with each jolt. My vision blurs and dims, the world spinning wildly around me as I struggle to remain conscious.
And then everything goes black.
When I come to,I find myself slumped in the driver's seat of my car, the sun now setting on the horizon,painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. My head throbs with pain, my muscles aching and sore.
With a groan, I reach up to rub my temples, trying to clear the fog from my mind.
“Quin!” Red’s voice crackles in my ear. “Quin! Are you there?”
I hiss from the pain, fumbling with the Bluetooth bud in my ear. “Red?”
“Oh thank God, you’re alive.” She expels a breath of relief. “What happened? I was cut off and then?—”
“She tasered me,” I mumble, my gaze flitting to a note taped on the dashboard. I reach out to grab it, wincing as my muscles burn. “She left a note.”
“Tasered you?! Jesus Christ.”
