Alex paused, reaching an arm out like she wanted to grab the woman's hand though they were far apart. “Thank you,” she said with feeling then ran to her side of the car and threw herself into the passenger.
I gave the girl a wink, getting into the minuscule backseat of the truck, watching out the window as the girl slowly moved down the driveway, away from the house. She watched us for a moment as we drove away before moving herself into the center of the street, turning toward the house, and lifting her remote-laden hand.
“How the fuck do you know Janie from Hailstorm?” Breaker asked the exact second the blast made the truck jolt, our ears pop, and Lex's house fucking... explode.
Twenty-one
Alex
In the end, the glass bottle trick did work. I just wasn't prepared for the show of force. I had been half-expecting Bob to come in the middle of the night horny with a handful of date rape drugs. I was prepared for that. I had Breaker's gun sitting beside my hand on the surface of the table with Jstorm's burner phone as well. Right before I drifted off, I found Breaker's burner in my pocket, staring at it for a long, long time, fighting the urge to open it and call him. Then, wiping my arm across my cheeks to rub the tears away, I removed the SIM card and banged at it and the phone itself with the butt of the gun until there was no temptation left.
Then I went to sleep.
Prepared for Creepy Bob.
Not, however, prepared to hear the bottle drop and crack apart with the other bottles just seconds... seconds before three huge men stormed into the room, hauling me out of my chair before my hand could even reach for the gun.
And that was how Lex got his slimy hands on me again.
I was dragged to a car, one hand like a vice around my center, one pressing hard against my mouth, then hauled into the backseat and on the lap of the man who was holding me. A man who was hard doing so. So I didn't struggle.
Then we were driving.
After that, I was being hauled up a driveway into Lex's ridiculous estate. I was dragged through the kitchen, down the stairs, into a finished basement, then into an unfinished portion of the basement. The hand moved from my mouth, but only to be replaced with a gag. The arm moved from my waist to cuff my hands behind my back, the bracelets too tight, biting into my skin.
And then I was left in that bathroom. For the better part of a day.
Only to be un-cuffed and un-gagged and hauled out to see Shooter sitting in the chair looking very much like he had been there a while and I felt the bolt of realization that he had been there all along. If only I had gotten to the door. Gotten his attention...
But it was too late for that.
And Breaker was there.
Alright. So maybe I told myself that I was taking my feelings for him and putting them in a chest deep inside to be opened never. But all it took was one look at him and the chest burst open and all the feelings slipped out raw and wet and painful.
Then his words smarted across my face like a slap.
He was going to leave me there. I was pretty sure I was a little bit in love with the man and he was going to... leave me to the man I hated the most in the whole world. A man who completely destroyed my life in more ways than one.
I shared my body with Breaker. I'd bared my soul.
And he was going to turn his back on me?
But then Joshua walked into the room and shock replaced the betrayal.
Joshua Kaidisen. Glenn knew him way back when they were pre-pubescent boys playing video games and sneaking around the internet looking for dirty pictures. Back when Joshua wasn't the looker he turned out to be. Glenn had showed me pictures once of the two of them. Glenn pudgy as a kid, bespectacled, a shorter version of his adult self. But Joshua had been the quintessential ugly duckling. He was thin to the point of gaunt, all arms and legs, making him resemble a skeleton more than a flesh and blood person. His skin had been ravaged by the kind of acne that garnered the moniker 'pizza face' for years. And from what Glenn said, he had been awkward and bumbling with a slight speech impediment that made him painfully insecure.
See. He was the kind of guy you were supposed to feel sorry for.
And I had.
Until I met adult Joshua.
Because adult Joshua finally grew into his arms and legs. His thinness became a lithe swimmer's body that he dressed well. His skin got slathered in creams then lasered to even it out. He saw a professional speech therapist who ironed out his impediment and taught him perfect elocution.
All good things.
Except with those things came the most arrogant, intolerable, jackass womanizer I had every crossed paths with. Which, given my line of work dealing with cheating bastards, was really saying something.
He was also one of the best hackers on the east coast. Better than me and Glenn certainly. A fact that he rubbed my face in constantly. At first I thought it was just because he was trying to push me to learn more. But, in the end, he was just a jackass.
It really shouldn't have come as much of a shock that he got himself involved with the likes of Lex.
And then he fucking ratted me out. Which was just... so against everything hackers believed in. It was us against them. Always. We watched each other's backs. Without fail.
The rat bastard.
I purged my rage at him, enjoying the fear overtaking his features as he realized how jolly well fucked he was. For no reason. Just his own vanity, thinking he could roll with the big boys. But, in the end, they would just remind him of the bumbling, stuttering nobody he had always been.
Then there was fighting.
And then the room cleared.
Save for me. And Lex. Breaker. And Greg.
Then I was at the receiving end of Lex's anger. Like my mother had been for so many years. Feeling his fists slam into my face, making my vision into little white explosions, making the punch Breaker had given me feel like it had been a love tap.
I was tasting and spitting my own blood when he got me down on all fours. And there was no time. No time to get to my boot. To get the heroin. To get it in my system and start to OD before he put his hands on me.
It was over.
I lost.
And I was going to pay.
I looked up at Breaker for a second, my heart in my eyes, before I shut that down and lowered my head, feeling Lex's hands reach for my pants, his fingertips grazing over my ass in a way that made my skin crawl. The sick crept up my throat as I heard his zipper move down.
It was one thing to have willing but awful sex. I had submitted to that with two different men.
It was a whole other to have the right to deny sex taken away from you... yeah, there were no words for that kind of awful.
But then Breaker's voice was cutting in.
Saying shit he had no business saying.
Though, in the end, it saved me.
I was seconds away from feeling Lex's body slamming into mine. And I knew enough of the police reports to know how terrible he would make that for me.
Then Lex was away from me. And the world went BOOM.
Breaker flew at Greg.
And I reached into my boot and I flew at Lex.
For my mom. And Glenn. And every woman whose battered, broken body I had seen. And also, for me. For what he had already taken from me. For what he was just about to take from me before he was stopped.
I never really thought much about if I was a violent person or not. In general, I was safe behind my computer screen. I had never been in fights. I had never hurt anyone.
But my arm flew out and the tip of the knife plunged with a force that made my stomach drop into Lex's eye socket.