Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I wasn't sure if it was the fear, the anger, or if it was my body shutting down from the pain, but I was numb.

Numb and scared and angrier than I'd even been in my life.

Billy Rice was crazy. Certifiably, needed-to-be-institutionalized sick. How this man held down a job and no one hadn't seen his insanity was beyond me. Or maybe he'd snapped and he couldn't hide it any longer.

Lucky me.

I had no idea why he hadn't killed me yet. He waved that Colt Python around while he yelled his nonsense at me. He held that damn revolver in one hand while he took pictures of me with his other. He never put that damn gun away or down.

The fucked-up twist of fate—my dad's favorite revolver was a Colt Python and now I was going to likely die by a 357 magnum bullet.

"You fucked everything up," Billy ranted.

Obviously I didn't point out, he was actually the one who'd fucked everything up.

"Twenty-eight years and you go and fuck it all up. Tearing up that house. Tearing down all my hard work. Stupid bitch."

He swung the revolver willy-nilly, with his finger inside the trigger well. Apparently no one ever taught this asshole gun safety.

"Listen…" I caught myself before I called him Billy. The last time I did that he knocked me out. "If you just?—"

"If I just what? Let you go? Is this when you start to beg for your life? Promise me you won't tell anyone who did this to you? Cry and plead for your life?" Billy's mouth curved up into an ugly smile that made me recoil farther into the couch. "Beg me not to kill you. Hate to tell you but as poor, stupid Stephanie learned, dead men—or women in this case—tell no secrets."

Who the hell was Stephanie?

"You know the part that makes me angriest?" he asked in a conversational tone that sent chills up my back. "Those fuckers were in my house. They thought they had the right to invade my privacy."

That was rich coming from the man who took pictures of girls without their knowledge.

"Now I gotta start all over. Years of collecting, all gone. My masterpiece destroyed."

His masterpiece?

He was crazier than I thought.

"But it started with you." He pointed the barrel of the revolver at me. "You ruining my house."

"I thought Brittney and George?—"

"Don't say his name," Billy yelled, spittle flying out of his mouth. "Did he give you permission to tear apart the house? Is that why you did it? Good ole George with his perfect life and perfect parents never did appreciate what he had. All I wanted was a little of what he had, all he had to do was share just a little and he couldn't give it to me. Warned me not to touch his sister. Told me Brittney was off-limits. She was too good for me. He didn't care I loved her. He didn't care my dad was gone and all I had was him and his family. Perfect fucking George is a lie. He's a selfish dick. Bet he told you to tear out the walls, erase all my hard work. He didn't do shit. I did it all. Me. And you fucking ruined it."

Sweet Jesus, he really loved that house, and by the sound of it he was crazy jealous of George.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, you're sorry now. But you weren't when you were ripping it apart."

Right, I hadn't been sorry then. But now I was sorry I ever bought the sex house turned into house of horrors.

Something struck me; if I was going to die I wanted to know why he sent the letters.

"What do the letters mean?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The letters. One every two weeks saying ‘I know'. What does that mean?"

"Are you accusing me of sending you letters?"

Clearly he was not behind the letters.

"No."

"It sounds like you are."

I clamped my mouth shut. Now that every single molecule in my body wasn't throbbing in pain it was time to figure something out. I'd have to move fast, and there was the issue I wasn't sure I could with my ribs reminding me they were broken with each breath I took.

"So you've decided not to beg?"

No. I wasn't going to beg for my life. Or maybe I was. I needed to buy myself time. If he thought I was weak and frail maybe he'd let me off the couch. I could get to the kitchen and find a knife.

"Please don't kill me."

Billy rolled his eyes.

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

Um, yes .

"I don't think you want to kill me. I think you want to leave?—"

"Leave before those assholes get here," he finished for me. "They're not coming, bitch. They'll never find you."

He was wrong about that. Smith and his team would absolutely find me. whether I was alive when they did was a different story, but I knew Smith was looking. I knew Kira was right then working her crazy magic. I knew it with every fiber of my soul. Smith would never stop looking.

I was just afraid of what he'd find.

I was afraid of what it would do to him if he found me looking the way I was sure I looked. Not that I'd passed a mirror since Billy had used me as a punching bag but I knew one eye was swollen shut. I knew my face was caked in dried blood because I could feel it cracking on my skin when I spoke. And I knew because I could see my legs, I indeed had road rash from my hip to my ankle.

Smith had seen Valerie beaten and he'd spent over two decades feeling guilt. He'd blame himself for this. I didn't want him to find me beaten, but I also didn't want him to find me dead.

"Answer me!" Billy swung the revolver and popped off a shot.

His look of surprise said he hadn't meant to shoot a hole in the wall.

Safety first, dickhead.

"Look what you made me do."

The ringing in my ears from the three-fifty-seven blast muffled his voice but not the fury that shone from his eyes.

This was it.

Someone in one of the houses nearby would hear that shot and call the police.

He knew and I knew it.

My time was up.

It was now or never.

No more worrying about what Smith would find. No more wondering if my body would work the way I needed it to.

It was either be shot to death while sitting on the couch or shot to death fighting.

My parents didn't raise a meek daughter.

It was time Billy Fucking Rice learned he'd fucked with the wrong woman.

With his attention still on the hole he'd shot in the wall, I sprung off the couch. My head connected with his chest, my neck, spine, and ribs screamed in pain but I didn't stop shoving him back. Another shot rang out, reminding me I had to control his hand holding the gun. Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity before he hit the edge of a table and toppled to the side, taking himself and me to the floor. A third bullet lodged into the couch I was thankfully no longer sitting on.

"Stupid bitch."

His muffled insult barely registered over the constant buzzing in my ears. If I came out of this alive I might do it with hearing loss.

The side of my face slammed against the carpet, opening up a new gash or making an old one bleed. I blinked away the blood flowing in my eye. The numbness crept out, letting the pain rush back, taking my breath with it. Billy shifted behind me and his gun hand came down and slammed into my side.

Pain so overwhelmingly immense bounced around my insides, making salvia pool in my mouth. I might've cried out in pain. I might've screamed. I might've puked. I couldn't say for certain—adrenaline spiked, my head swam—and in one last-ditch effort not to die, I rolled and grabbed Billy's hand, shoved my finger in the trigger well with Billy's, and forced him to pull the trigger.

Once. Twice.

Five shots fired.

One more.

I just needed him to fire one more.

Billy hefted his heavy body over mine, trying to get control of the gun. He came up over me, his face twisted in rage. Hellfire spitting from his eyes, he lifted the gun between us.

I pulled the trigger.

My second-to-last thought as the dark spots danced in my peripheral, was that blood tasted like pennies as it filled my mouth.

My last thought was, that was a weird thing to think about.

The darkness was closing in. I couldn't breathe and not in an I'm-too-scared-to breathe way. Literally, I could not breathe. It felt like each breath I exhaled meant I couldn't suck in more oxygen.

Then suddenly on my next inhale my lungs filled painfully. Just as suddenly, I was floating. My body was off the floor, the excruciating pain too much.

Way too much.

"Puke," I cried out.

"I got you," a muffled male voice said.

I pried one eye open, saw Cash's concerned eyes staring down at me, and immediately regretted my decision. It could've been the pain of him jostling me, the motion of him running through the house. Whichever it was had the unfortunate consequence of me losing the contents of my stomach all over Cash's tee.

He didn't break stride as I heaved and spit and choked.

As soon as fresh air hit my face, relief washed over me.

Then it receded and new fear threatened to take me under.

"Smith," I croaked.

"He's here. He'll be right out."

"No."

Cash stopped running. I was jostled some more and the back hatch of the Escalade slowly lifted. Then he moved again, leaning in, pushing buttons until the backseats went flat. After that, he gently sat me down in the back.

"Can you sit or do you want to lie down?"

I swayed but rallied quickly.

"He can't see me like this."

I was sure I was slurring but Cash clearly understood what I was saying.

His face became eerily menacing.

"Honey, I'm not keeping him from you. I know you got good intentions, but he needs to see you're alive and breathing. He needs to know you're safe."

"But—"

"Shh, Aria, trust me. Your man needs you right now."

I hoped Cash knew what he was talking about because if I survived Billy fucking Rice only to lose Smith I was going to be super, extra pissed.

"Stay still for me." Cash held up a clean t-shirt.

He gently pressed the fabric to my mouth, stopped to open a bottle of water, drenched the shirt, and went back to gently wiping away my vomit.

"Sorry I puked on you."

"No worries."

There was commotion behind Cash. He had to have heard it before I did because he was already stepping to the side by the time I heard muffled yelling.

And that's when I saw it.

My big, tough Smith stuttering to a stop a few yards away.

I watched him rear back, his mouth formed the word, ‘baby' right before he fell to his knees in the driveway of the house where Billy Fucking Rice almost killed me.

There was something putrid about seeing my Smith on his knees with his head bowed.

The sight burned a hole through my heart.

"Help me down."

"Aria—"

"Help. Me. Down. Or I swear I'll jump."

Covered in my puke and blood, Cash lifted me out of the back of the Escalade, wrapped his arm around my waist, and helped me hobble to Smith.

I ignored Jonas's flinch and the way his mouth got tight.

"Please stand up, Smith."

He moved not a muscle.

My heart sank.

"Please, Sailor. I need you."

Smith's head tipped back. I saw it then—not fear, not guilt, but the tears swimming in his eyes.

Cash leaned in, dipped his mouth close to my ear, and advised, "Honey you're yelling."

"That happens when six rounds are shot off in a small space, Cash," I informed him of something he should know. "I can barely hear over the ringing. And I think my eardrum is bleeding on the inside."

"Right."

"You're lucky you let me puke brain fragments all over the t-shirt and now I'm indebted to you for the rest of my life."

It sounded like he mumbled, "Good to know."

"Fuck," Smith cursed.

And that I heard—it came from someplace deep in his chest and rumbled out of his throat in a tortured growl.

The wooziness came back in a rush. The remnants of adrenaline faded faster now that I was standing. I felt myself start to sway. Cash moved to steady me but Smith moved faster.

"I don't know where to touch that won't cause pain."

I didn't know how to answer that since everything hurt—from my scalp to my feet there wasn't a place that didn't ache.

"Just take me home."

Smith scooped me up. Try as I might, I couldn't stop the whimper.

"Fuck, baby."

"Just…" I breathed through the pain. "Take me home, Sailor."

This time when the darkness tried to pull me under I didn't fight it. I knew I was exactly where I belonged, safe in Smith's arms.