Page 48 of Resurrect Me

I stare blankly ahead. Remind myself to keep my countenance stale. Don’t let him see me react.

“I save myself,” I say as I muster all my strength and fling myself against Declan, crashing down into his lap, my elbow smacking into the pocket with the syringe. In a clatter of metal and tile, I fall to the floor, taking Declan down with me. My face cracks into the porcelain, and I lie in a heap beside my mortal fucking enemy. His knee is in my ribs and his hand is on the back of my neck again. I peer around and notice he dropped the knife in the shuffle. It lies about three feet away.

“You bitch!” He yells, jumps up, and kicks me in the gut.

All the wind is knocked out of me, but the jolt of it somehow releases one of my hands from the cuffs. This is it! My chance!

I reach around and grab Declan’s ankle and pull with all my might. He stumbles over and reaches out to catch himself on the table but smacks his head on the chair on the way down. I reach out and pull myself forward with my free hand. Crawling towards the weapon.

“Fuck!” My captor shouts, and there’s a shuffle behind me as he gathers himself and stands.

Just as I close my fingers around the blade, Declan crouches over me and slips the knife from my hand, and the blade cuts through the flesh of my palm like scissors through tissue paper.

The next thing I know, I’m being lifted from the ground, chair and all, and shoved towards the corner of the kitchen. Directly in front of the security camera.

Declan pulls my free arm behind me, and secures the cuffs, tighter this time, then shoves me so hard into the countertop that my sternum cracks. I’m shocked I haven’t passed out from the pain encompassing my entire body, at this point.

“You’re going to die, Declan. I’m going to fucking kill you,” I spit at him.

He grabs the back of my hair and pulls my head back, exposing my throat to the recording camera. I mean, does this security company even do anything? Then he holds the blade to my neck and huffs into my ear. “Tell your husband I said hello when you see him in fucking Hell, you cunt.”

“Fuck…you!” I manage to get out, just as the metal digs into my skin again. Not enough to kill me, but enough to make my life flash before my eyes. I’ve become a human knife cushion.

“You can say hello now,” a third voice rings out from the back door. Sharp and ruddy. And oh so comforting.

“Who the fuck?” Declan releases his grip on me as he spins around. But before he can see who it is, a baseball bat strikes him in the face. Metal on bone makes a strange, clinking sound. Declan falls to the ground, and I wrench my head around to look.

“Get up, Harvey,” Aris says. He’s wearing a JFK mask. “Get up. And let’s fucking finish this.”

Moaning, Declan lurches himself up from the floor. Blood spills out of a slit below his right eye all over my white tile. He slips in his own blood as he stands up. The look in his eye has gone from vengeful to downright explosive.

“Solomon?” Dee asks and blinks. “I fucking knew it.”

“I’m not Solomon. Remember? You said it yourself. Solomon is fucking gone.”

Declan chuckles. “Then who the fuck are you?”

“Lazaris King.”

“Oh, right. I get it. Biblical. Nice touch. So, you’ve risen from the dead and now you seek vengeance on me? Well…I didn’t put the hit out on you,” Declan growls as he lunges with the blade.

Aris leaps backwards, avoiding the knife and laughing at the same time.

“You had plenty of enemies, Brother. No need to wear a mask. The stench of weakness gives you away.”

I press my feet against the floor and turn towards them, trying to free my hands again. I used to like handcuffs. Now…not so much. If I make it out of this alive, I’ll be pitching the damn things. Shibari is much prettier anyway.

Aris faces Declan. Declan faces Aris. They’re staring each other down. No doubt planning their next moves. Who’s going to deal out the death blow. Aris drops the bat. Declan lays the knife on the table beside him. Why the fuck did Aris drop the bat?

“You were my best friend, Declan. We were brothers. You betrayed me,” Aris says and lunges forward, slamming his fist into the side of Declan’s face. “You fucking Judas.”

Declan chuckles and spits blood at Aris. Maroon droplets spray over his black leather work boots. “You were always trying to save the fucking planet. Save humanity. But it wasn’t out of the goodness of your heart. It was so you could get the credit. The worship. So, people would love you for being so wonderful.Come on, Lazaris. You wanted to be the savior of the people for the fucking media coverage. To feed your covert narcissism. You don’t truly care about people, do you? And neither does your precious slut of a wife.”

“You leave her out of this. You’ve done enough to her,” Aris says, the JFK mask twitching with anger.

He bolts forward again, the back of his fist slamming into Declan’s ear. Declan stumbles sideways and catches himself on the kitchen wall. The clock falls off and crashes to the ground. It’s two-thirty. The kids. They’re probably being picked up by my mother again. Jesus, I hope they don’t come here. Not now. Not when I have a homicidal maniac in my kitchen fighting my deceased husband in a dead president’s mask. I’m still trying to pull my hands out of the cuffs.

Declan punches Aris in the face, then mumbles something and turns to me. “You don’t know about her, do you, Laz?”

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