As a child in my family, I’d opened the freezer to find a few severed fingers, stored right beside the Scooby-Doo popsicles. Thinking back, I hadn’t realized what they were until later in life, when the truth became known to me. I just thought they were my grandmother’s Italian sausages. Thank God I hadn’t tried to eat one.
The doorknob rattled and turned, but it was locked and bolted. A boot toe briefly appeared through the cat flap, as if testing it. Mr. Beans took notice from his spot on the bed. A low growl rumbled from his chest, a clear warning echoing through the room. He stood tall, eyes locked on the cat flap, ears flattened. Villainy, however, seemed completely unconcerned,stillfast asleep nestled in the sheets beneath him.
My body went rigid as a loud bang reverberated through the room. It wasn’t a gunshot, thankfully, but the sound of the hammer he’d used to break the exterior door downstairs hitting her bedroom doorknob. I watched it eventually shatter after another few hits, the springs and screws scattering everywhere. A gaping hole remained, and a meaty hand worked to shove its way through, unlocking the deadbolt above.
Betty stirred under the sheets. Damn, she was a heavy sleeper.
I flipped the knife, gripping the tip between my fingers, and drew it back as the first man lumbered in. The moment I saw his face, I recognized him as Derek, Ron’s bigger, more unstable friend.
Without a second thought, I let the blade fly, and it lodged in his upper thigh with a thud. Based on the rigid position of the knife, I knew I’d hit bone.
Good.
Anything I could do to slow Derek down would be helpful. The man was the size of a refrigerator, and I doubted I could defeat him with my fists alone.
Derek began to scream and yell, and Betty’s movements became frantic. She threw the blanket off herself. Her face, still heavy with sleep, registered terror. She went from zero to sixty in a heartbeat, her hair flying in the air, charged with static as her eyes grew wide. She let out a guttural scream that could have cracked the room in half before she surged into motion.
Ron came in, and I swiftly drew another knife from my belt. He was so focused on Betty screaming that he hadn’t yet seen me. I let the blade fly, and it lodged in his upper arm, also producing a satisfactory thudding sound. Ron was reeling from the hit when I charged, teeth gritted, and slammed into his gut from the side. We went down hard, sliding across the floor and crashing into the bookshelves.
“What are you doing here, Ron?” I huffed out, locking my arms around him to keep him from squirming away.
Books and other things rained down on us, glass shattering and spines thudding onto the wooden floor. I winced, taking most of the impact as I stayed on top of Ron.
“What areyoudoing here, Grayson?” he replied through gritted teeth.
With Ron’s arm immobilized, I chanced a look back at Betty. She was digging through her blankets. Hopefully, she was looking for something she could use as a weapon. I knew she’d hidden some things under her pillow.
Derek was clutching his leg and rocking back and forth on the floor at the foot of her bed, groaning.
Ron kicked me, drawing my attention back to him.
“You just can’t go away, can you?” he hissed through clenched teeth. Ron wrenched his arm away and scratched at my face with a fresh burst of energy.
I instinctively punched back, my fist connecting with his cheek a few times, though most were off-target as Ron wriggled in my grasp. He was evasive and scrappy, even more so than I.
“Betty,” I huffed out, pressing a thumb into one of Ron’s eyes.“Get out of here!”
I heard her yelp and grumble, then swear before answering,“Fuck you, Gray. Don’t tell me what to do.”
Pulling an arm back, I punched Ron in the side, preventing his next words from surfacing. It bought me a moment to risk another glance Betty’s way. Derek was back on his feet, blood running down his leg and soaking into his jeans. He’d yanked the dagger out, holding it in his hand. He was waving it at Betty, blood dripping from the point down the blade, over his knuckles and onto the floor.
“Come down here, you little bitch,” Derek bellowed, spitting out of his mouth.
Betty was jumping back and forth on her mattress, hands out and stance wide in a defensive position.“Hell no, asshole. You’ll have to come get me, you little bitch,” she parroted.
Even though it was a scary thing to see her this close to danger, I couldn’t stop myself from admiring how fierce she looked. She wore blood-red silk pajamas from head to toe, taser in hand, facing Derek as if he were a simple playground bully. Her expression was hard; her body coiled and ready for action. She was a lit firecracker, about to blow.
Ron capitalized on my lapse in focus, sweeping a leg over mine and flipping me. He followed up with a punch that landed squarely on my jaw. Stars exploded behind my eyes, and a wave of pain washed over my teeth and sinuses. Dazed, I struggled to regain my bearings.
“Stay the fuck back, dickwad,” Betty threatened.
“I thought you wanted me closer, honey,” Derek taunted.
The sound of her taser buzzed in the room, or maybe it was just my ears ringing; I couldn’t tell. I pushed back at Ron and yelled,“Betty, don’t… play with your…” I huffed, Ron pressing back and squeezing the air from my lungs “…food!” I struggled out.
I jammed my thumb into Ron’s eye socket again, this time throwing him off balance. Hands now free, I frantically searched the floor for a weapon. My fingers closed around the spine of a hardcover book, which I promptly used to bash Ron on the head as he recovered and came at me. Unfortunately, it was a novella and did very little to disarm him.
Ron reached out and got a hand on the book to stop me, chuckling as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, his eye swollen.
