Page 83 of Love Bound

Cory. Cory and Laurel and Devon. Fire.

"Don't worry. I'm not a baby killer." He pauses and then watches me. "Oh wait, I am. But not today. Cory will be fine."

I can feel the tips of my fingers now and my feet, but I still can’t move much.

I'm so scared for Devon. She’ll be here any second.

As if reading my thoughts, Miller leans in and says, "Oh. You got a text from your sister. She says it's okay. She can meet you at two this afternoon and hopes Althea gets better." He winces at me as if concerned. "There were complications."

He stands and moves out of my field of vision, which is terrifying. The ventilator stops its odd sucking sound. I need to know where he is, but I can’t move my head.

In a moment, he's returned with the syringe of succinylcholine in one hand, and he slides it in his jacket pocket. My heart tumbles in my chest either as the anesthesia wears off, or in terror—I can’t tell which.

"Oh. Listen to that. Someone's set off the alarm." As if from a great distance, I can hear sirens go off and he bends down. "Time to move," he says.

He hoists me up on a hip, throws a wiry arm around my waist, and we go out the back door around the corral on the far side, down the embankment.

Salty nickers, and Miller carries me like a rag doll. From a distance, we must look like a silly tourist couple racing to the boat doing a coupley, side-by-side, hilarious rom-com run. But what they can’t see is my feet hitting rocks, the line they leave as they drag in the sand.

I can smell smoke now and there's my little dinghy pulled right up on the pebbly shore. Being bizarrely careful, he props me in a bucket seat, pushes the boat off the beach, climbs in, and revs the engine. Then he sits next to me and wraps his arm around my shoulders while we head out to open water, his one hand on the rudder.

My head lolls onto his shoulder and he grips me hard.

He doesn’t want me going overboard too soon.

With a slow revelation, I know what he’s about to do.

The shock of realization must send adrenaline into my system like a broken faucet. I dip forward, trying to grab his leg, to get him off balance. I know he won't hurt me. He doesn't want any bruising. No signs of a struggle. My attempt is so feeble he just smiles, jerks me closer, and holds me tighter.

Succinylcholine shuts everything down in sixty seconds including respiration. It wears off fast, can't be traced in bloodwork, and that fifteen milligrams will last about four minutes which by then, I will have suffocated. At the last second, just as the drug wears off, he'll throw me overboard and I’ll reflexively suck in water.

I will be another accident.

If he killed me with a dose on land and threw my body over, I wouldn’t swallow water and it wouldn't look like a drowning.

He wants another tragic story. Another accident.

He cuts the engine.

I don’t know how far we are from shore when he stands and removes his belt. I hear the zip of leather against denim. Next, he sits down across from me on the bench seat and rolls up the sleeve of my shirt, slipping my left arm through the belt loop and cinching it tight. I've slouched down by now, still limp.

He waits a moment for a vein to bulge. "This is going to sting," he says, as the syringe reappears.

I try to pull my arm away, weakly, trying to stop him, but it's not even enough to make him lose his grip on my bicep. The needle slips in. I watch as his thumb depresses the plunger on the syringe, just halfway, and before I can look away, the drug hits.

Grabbing my shoulders, he pulls me up to a sitting position again and tilts me forward. I slump into his arms and he holds me as my body completely and utterly shuts down.

He begins counting backward from one hundred, while heat emanates from the puncture.

I am liquid. Boneless. My breath goes ragged and I cannot move at all.

I begin to suffocate. My chest burns. I’m so weak I can barely breathe—every breath is a struggle now and I just concentrate on taking a breath.

"You can do it," he says, pulling away slightly and smelling my hair. "Until you can't. In about four seconds."

"Like this," he says, and sucks in air right near my ear. Then he blows it out in my face.

I can't smell anything. I can’t breathe.