Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“You can’t be interested in that girl you brought.” She snorts. “I mean, that hair. And is she even Society? I’ve never seen her around.”
A gong chimes and from behind her, the door opens, and the Councilors emerge. In my periphery, I see Vivien’s posse approaching, pointing. I guess she’d slipped away.
“Your friends are coming,” I tell her. “If you don’t want to be humiliated, I suggest you walk away and don’t approach me again. Not interested. Never was. Never will be. Not sure how to make that any clearer.”
“Viv! You sneaky thing! Did you steal her away again, Ezekiel St. James?” One of the women giggles, giving me a flirtatious poke on the chest.
“She’s all yours,” I say and extricate myself.
Wyatt Hoxton separates himself from the other two guards and turns down a staff corridor. The gong chimes once more, the halls thinning out. I follow Hoxton, watch him slip through the last door. I think about him on top of Blue.
Think about him putting his hands on her.
Touching her.
I push the door open and enter. It’s a staff men’s room with lockers along one wall, stalls along another, and a long, mirrored counter with sinks opposite the door I just entered through. Apart from the occupied stall where I can hear a man taking a piss, the room is empty.
I lock the door.
A toilet flushes and Hoxton steps out of the stall. He does a double take.
“You can’t be in here,” he says.
I glance down as he finishes tucking himself back into his pants. For a big guy, he has a small dick. But most men like him do. It’s why they’re such assholes.
“This is a staff room.” He walks to the counter, and rather than washing his hands, he picks up a comb and runs it through his hair.
“You should wash your hands, you know. Says so, right there. Employees must wash hands.” I point to the sign.
He glances at it, then at me, pale blue eyes narrowing in his fat face.
“You’re with that girl. With the blue hair.”
I narrow my eyes, study his features.
“Do we have business?” He sets the comb down and turns fully to face me.
“We might.”
He cocks his head, watching me. “What business would that be?” He shifts his gaze down to my hands, then back to my face. “Ezekiel St. James.”
The tattoo. Jericho and I have identical tattoos. It’s common knowledge.
“What business do we have?” I ask. “I guess I have a question for you.” He raises his eyebrows. I step toward him. “What makes you think it’s okay to shove your dirty, unwashed hands down a sixteen-year-old girl’s pants?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks, and for a moment, I wonder if I got it wrong. But then, his expression changes. I see the instant it all clicks into place. Not that it matters, because I’d already decided I was going to do what I’m about to do. Whether or not he remembered what he did to Blue is irrelevant.
Hoxton’s face morphs, that mask of civility that was barely there dropping, the monster beneath surfacing. He reaches around back, under his jacket. I expect a gun, but he draws out a switchblade instead, pushing a button to release the knife and stepping toward me, his violence practiced.
But I’m no stranger to violence. When he slashes the knife through the air an inch from my face, I duck backward and grab his wrist. He’s strong, but so am I. And I have much more rage inside me than any one man should.
I keep hold of his wrist, slamming it against the mirror, hearing the glass crack, watching it splinter.
Blood from the back of his hand spills into mine and I do it again, slamming it hard enough to knock the knife out of his grasp. It clatters off the counter and drops to the floor.
He doesn’t need it though. This man knows how to fight. But so do I.
He slams a fist into my gut, and I stumble backward, but I’m up fast, dad taught me that, taught me to swallow the pain or there’d be more. Pussies always got more. A rage I haven’t felt in a long, long time takes over, that beast within wide awake and given free reign, autonomy over my body, my limbs not my own, but belonging to this thing. This animal inside me.
The killer inside me.
We’re on the floor. I taste blood, my own possibly. His? Likely. I pummel my fist into Hoxton’s face. He’s gotten soft, fat.
“Tell me. Tell me why you’d think putting your filthy hand inside a sixteen-year-old girl’s pants is acceptable. Precursor to your little dick following? Is that it? You like to rape little girls, you fucking pig? You fucking filthy, disgusting pig.”
He laughs and it throws me off. Something isn’t right. He fights back but he’s no match for my growing rage. For my years’ worth of fury. When his fingers close over the switchblade just above his head and bring it up to my face, I take hold of his hand and twist it, turn it, and, looking into his beady, evil eyes, I plunge the dagger into his gut.