Page 100 of Hurt Me Not
“It would seem you were a little too slow,” he said. “I just got confirmation that our little friend has already made it to Pearl's house.”
No. Where were the bodyguards? Did he get past them? Did he see them?
Horror grabbed hold of me. I tried to push away thoughts of Pearl getting ambushed at her own home, unaware of what was going to happen. Of what he would do to her. But I couldn't. Everything my mind conjured up was horrible, and it was playing in my head like a movie.
He leaned closer.
“What? Not so cocky now, huh?” He stood and motioned for one of his men to come closer. “So this is what's gonna happen. We're gonna let him have a little fun with Pearl, and then he's gonna bring her here. And then we're gonna have a grand old time together.”
I heard sounds of chains and other metal tools clinking in the distance.Are they going to torture us or some shit?
And all of this just because he got sent to jail. Like he didn’t actually deserve it, when even without the child abuse charges, he would've gone away for a long time.
He was just a bitter old man with nowhere to focus his anger and nothing to lose. Which made him dangerous.
I needed to be smart about this.
Wait for it.
My father leaned closer, obviously confused as to why I wasn't saying anything or fighting back.
“Did you paralyze her or something?”
“I didn’t hit her that?—”
My eyes fell to the gun that my father now had on his belt. Quick as lightning, I grabbed it and rolled away so I could put some distance between us. I raised it, but not at my father.
One shot went into the man on the left, who was holding the chains. I got him right in the head.
I wasn't as lucky with the second, and instead of getting the other guy’s head, I got his chest. It was good enough.
My father was stuck there, frozen. A frown on his face. Not at all worried about losing two of his men.
“Are you really that stupid, Emerson?”
I heard it before I saw it. The loud pop that echoed throughout the room.
A blinding pain ran up my side. Black spots appeared in my vision. I gritted my teeth, trying to stop the scream that wanted to rip itself from my throat. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
I fell to the ground in a heap, unable to stop myself from groaning as the burning sensation got worse. I pushed my hand to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but as I looked down, I saw that my upper thigh was already slick with blood.
Fuck. Fuck.
The gun was kicked out of my hand, and only then did I realize there were five people in here, not three. The other two had stuck to the shadows, unmoving, which was why I hadn't heard them even as my vision had been too fucked from the blow to make them out.
The pain was worse than anything I had experienced before. It clouded everything and allowed the men to come closer unhurriedly, one of them tangling his hand in my hair and forcing me to look up at my father.
“You know, those two men were pricey. The people who loaned them out to me are not gonna be happy about losing them.”
I gathered my saliva in my mouth and spat it at him.
It landed right on his face.
He wiped it off angrily and sent a punch straight to my cheek, but the pain was dull in comparison to the one on my thigh. Child’s play, really.
“Fuck you,” I hissed. “Just you wait. I’m going to kill you.”
He stood up and looked around. “I'm waiting, but it looks like you’re just stuck there. Bleeding out.” He sent me a smile. “Maybe it’s time to wonder if you’re too confident for your own good?”
