Page 41 of Pain

Devil might have thought he’d beaten all the fight out of me. He was wrong. And one of these days, I’d show him that. For right now, though...

I avoided another punch and then shot up toward Mandy, banging my forehead right into her nose. She screeched in surprise and pain, and her nose started bleeding, which gave me the momentary pause I needed to get my arms around her neck and my legs around hers. I rocked her to the right, took a breath, and then threw us both over toward the floor on my left, using every muscle in my body to roll us so that she was underneath me and I had her pinned.

Now came the tricky part. The part I’d never actually been good at, because I was always shorter than everyone else, and this part took real strength.

I had to keep her there.

I kept my legs wrapped around hers so she couldn’t use them against me and grabbed one of her wrists, then the other, using everything that was left in me to pin them to her sides. When I sat up, she stayed where she was—though she looked even angrier than she had before, and I wondered if she was going to actually spit at me.

“Saraya!” a voice said suddenly, a pair of hands clamping down on my shoulders and trying to pull me off.

As if I was actually doing any damage.

I shook Knight off of me, angry that he was trying to stop me when he hadn’t done a damn thing about Mandy pinning me down and taking swings at me. “Don’t touch me!” I shouted. “This bitch just tried to break my nose!”

“And you did break mine!” she shouted, turning back and forth and trying to get me off.

I sat on her and watched her struggle, knowing she couldn’t go anywhere. She might be bigger and heavier than me, but I was the one on top. I had her legs secured and her arms stuck to her sides, and the angles weren’t right for her to get away from my grip.

I just needed to hold on long enough for her to realize she couldn’t get out of this. I needed Knight to keep his hands off me until Mandy calmed down.

We needed to work this out on our own, without his interference.

Mandy struggled for what felt like an eternity, though I guessed it was more like five minutes, and finally stopped, her chest heaving and her eyes watering.

“Are you done?” I hissed, not trusting her.

Mandy glared at me, looking like she wished she could burn my face off with nothing but her eyes, and didn’t move. She didn’t move for so long that I started to think she was actually planning something and tensed all of my muscles again. If she thought she was going to get out from under me by getting me to relax, she had another fucking think coming.

Then, to my surprise, she nodded once. “I’m done.”

Well that was a surprise. But I wasn’t going to question it.

“Good. Now get this through your head. I’m not Devil’s girl. Fuck Devil. You think Knight’s just fucking me? Fuck Devil. And fuck you if you have a problem with me. Fuck you if you think I’m just some object to be passed from one guy to the next and used like some sort of tool. You actually think that? Do you?”

When she didn’t answer, I shook her a bit, making sure she knew I expected an answer. “Do you?”

“No,” she whispered.

Another surprise. Or rather... No, not a surprise. That just confirmed what I’d thought yesterday, when I’d thought that Mandy and I might actually be friends.

“Good. So I’m going to let this go, because I understand that you’re scared and upset. I know how hard it’s been on you to see Gem hurting, and I know how scared you are about losing him. I’m not going to hold that against you. I’ll let you up, but only if you agree to let this go. Forget you ever said it, and never say anything like that again. Got it?”

“Got it,” she whispered. “Yes.”

I got off her and stood, holding a hand out to the girl. Mandy hesitated, then took my hand and let me pull her up. We stood looking at each other for several long moments, neither of us saying anything.

And then she dissolved, the anger melting off of her face and disappearing in a storm of tears as she came undone and lost the strength she’d been holding on to.

The anger and frustration that had been holding me up and driving me forward disappeared at the sight of it, and when she fell forward, her fear dragging her down, I caught her in my arms and led her over to the bed.

And then I sat and let her sob into my shoulder, rubbing her back and wondering how the hell we’d gone from trying to kill each other to me comforting her as she came apart at the seams, terrified at the situation she found herself in.

CHAPTER 19

KNIGHT

I stared at the women sitting on my bed sobbing and took three steps backward.