When Rory pockets the brass, I yank the knife on my thigh from its sheath. I have the element of surprise on my side, so I don’t expect much from him. But he surprises me too.
Because he’s quick. Quicker than most. When I lunge at him, Rory goes on the defensive and raises his arm, which is precisely where my knife ends up. Lodged into his bicep.
“Jesus fecking Christ, woman.”
When I try to dart around him, he grabs me by the hair and slams me chest first against the wall, closing me in with his body.
My lungs are collapsing in on themselves. Heartbeat thrashing in my ears. The rewind function is alive and well in my head, and I’ve seen this movie before. I’m struggling against him. Fighting with everything I’ve got. I stomp on his foot with my stiletto and rear my head back to hit his nose.
But he’s big and I’m small so it just bounces off his chest. He uses his full weight to sandwich me against the wall until I can’t move and the inevitable happens.
My well of adrenaline has run dry.
There’s no use, but my mind can’t accept it yet.
“Shhhh, sweetheart.”
He pulls my hair back to whisper in my ear, and his voice is gentle and soothing. Misleading.
“I’m not going to hurt ye,” he tells me. “But you need to calm down. And breathe.”
My body goes slack against the wall and all I’m left with are my words.
“I just need five more minutes with this guy. And then I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Don’t believe her,” Teddy yells. “The bitch is fucking crazy. You gotta let me go, man.”
Rory ignores him, and his eyes are all over my face, studying me, trying to read me, and I haven’t been this close to a man since… I don’t know. And things are awkward and tense and now I want to leave.
He’s too tall and too strong. His face isn’t threatening, but he is a threat. He’s serious. And too clean cut, with his ashy blonde hair and shaven face.
“Ye’re coming with me,” he says again.
“I think that’s called kidnapping,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “Why trifle with labels?”
He’s closer now because he knows I’m going to bolt again. Or stab him again, even though my knife is gone, but he doesn’t know if I have another. All I can feel is his body closing in on me. Suffocating me.
I can’t breathe.
“There is nothing good or bad,” I whisper to myself. “Only thinking makes it so.”
I keep repeating the words, over and over.
Ten times.
Rory has moved away now, turning me slowly. Giving me space, but still caging me in with his arms. And even though one of them has a knife lodged in it, he isn’t angry with me.
His eyes are green. And deceptively soft. Like his voice when he speaks next.
“Scarlett, ye have my word that no harm will come to ye when ye’re with me.”
“Rory?”
“Aye?”
“Your words don’t mean jack, Jack.”
