Page 106 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“Uh, yeah.”

His brows lift. “Damn, neighbor girl. Guess I’ll have to find another place for ya. At least this time, I can tell you ’bout it directly.”

“… this time?”

“What, you thought the email with this listing came from a leasing agent?”

“You…”

My hand’s barely started moving toward the knife in my pocket before Pell’s right there, folding me into his side. His thigh presses against my hip, and the steel band of his arm wraps around my waist to restrain me just below my elbows, locking my upper body in place.

“None of that,” he says lazily, shifting his leg back when I try to scrape my heel down his shin to get him to let me go.

“You threw me into his path without warning?” I seethe.

“Maybe I threw him into your path.”

He’s laughing. I want to explode. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“I was bored. It amused me. I thought you might hit it off.” He shrugs. “Pick one.”

“You’re such an asshole,” I mutter.

“Also true.”

Goddammit, I have had it with these men who toy with my life like this. I may not be able to throw a punch or elbow him in the balls from this position, but I can bend my arm to reach his hand where it’s splayed on my stomach. I move fast and wrench his little finger back until something pops.

He releases me with a hiss, sending me reeling backward, scrambling for my knife.

What a dumb way I’ve just chosen to die.

Pell turns to where I’m plastered against the wall, his expression perfectly still, almost pleasant. As he walks toward me, my screaming brain locks on little details about him: the precise edge of his sideburns, the lack of soap or coffee or toothpaste scents, the fact that he’s breathing normally while I’m gasping.

I keep my eyes open and wait for him to wrap his fingers around my neck or gut me with my own knife. Instead, he stops three inches away.

“That,” he says quietly, “is strike two, Miss Alsop.”

My veins fill with ice, but instead of pursuing the threat—to me? To Fi? To both of us?—I choke out, “Y-y… you know?”

“Of course I do.” As if all of the State’s efforts to protect the identity of Jennifer’s daughters were child’s play to him. “Now behave, or I won’t tell you what I found in your bathroom.”

His brows lift as his eyes drift to my knife. I nod woodenly and slip it into my pocket, my hands shaking. Then a grin splits his face, and he reaches up and boops my nose like I’m a little kid, his dislocated pinkie jutting out at a grotesque angle.

“Bathroom was clean,” he tells me, his molasses accent creeping in as he grabs his pinkie and forces it back into place with an audible crack.

A hard exhale through his nose is his only reaction.

“Gimme a sec to pack up, and I’m gone.”

Once I’m alone in the hallway, I give myself twenty seconds to steady my breathing before I stumble into my bedroom and sink onto the edge of my bed, taking in the walls, the ceiling, the dresser. None of it looks any different than yesterday morning.

A few minutes later, Pell strolls in and drops a cardboard box full of disabled cameras and motion sensors on the mattress next to me, setting the RF and lens detectors on top.

“Keep ’em. Scan everywhere, every day. Set up cameras on his side. Put ’em up in your new place. Whatever it takes to make you comfortable.”

“Comfortable,” I say with a bitter laugh.

Moments later, the garage door on Hugo’s half of the duplex rumbles to life, and I spring off the bed.