Page 55 of A Series of Rooms
“What do you think you’re here for?” Nathan sounded angry now.
It was the anger that faltered Jonah’s resistance. He stared over Nathan’s shoulder, his vision beginning to slip in and out of focus. His instincts warred with each other, screaming at him to stay still, to endure, and simultaneously begging him to resist. He felt his hands come up again with the intentof pushing Nathan away, but instead, he ended up clutching the larger man’s shoulders in an attempt to steady himself.
He had direct experience with Nathan’s physical strength, and knew he didn’t have a good chance in a fight.
“Please,” he tried. “Liam wouldn’t... He won’t—”
“Liam doesn’t have to know.” Nathan ground his hips forward and Jonah felt himself start to slip. Into his head. IntoLeo. Into the body of someone who had survived this before, could survive this again.
Fingers curled around the back of his neck and applied pressure. His body folded obediently, eyes going blank as his knees hit the carpet. He turned away at the sound of a zipper.
“I didn’t come all the way out here totalk,” Nathan said.
A fog descended over Jonah, his body a disjointed composite of shallow breathing and closed eyes and tingling limbs. For an indeterminate amount of time, Jonah was rendered helpless, watching from a distance as his body was handled with no regard for the person trapped inside it.
At some point he became vaguely aware that Nathan was saying something to him. “Hey.” A palm tapped his cheek.“Hey.”Jonah flinched. “You’re not going to say a fucking word to him.”
Jonah’s mind went blank, a few seconds of blinding white-out, like staring directly into a camera flash. When it dissipated, it was white-hot rage that rushed to the surface.
His hands came up to push at Nathan’s thighs, sending him stumbling back. Nathan tripped on the jeans around his ankles and crashed to the ground. For a moment, Jonah wastrapped between past and present: he saw Nathan hit the carpet, but it was Mr. Becker staring back at him, his head split open and bloodied.
The image froze him long enough for Nathan to get his bearings. Jonah scrambled away but only made it as far as the desk. Nathan snatched him by the shirt as he pulled himself to his feet, tearing the neckline. A sharp crack of knuckles across his face stunned Jonah to stillness long enough for Nathan to get the advantage.
Jonah cried out again as his arm was twisted painfully behind him, his body pinned across the surface of the desk. The tray of pre-packaged coffee grounds and cups clattered to the floor, two crystal glasses shattering.
Jonah kicked out behind him, trying to catch any part of Nathan’s body. “Get off me!” he shouted, hoping for someone, anyone to hear and intervene. Nathan plastered a hand over his mouth, muffling the sound.
With one of Nathan’s hands occupied, Jonah lashed out with the elbow that wasn’t pinned down, knocking Nathan back just long enough to worm out of his hold. He collapsed to the ground and started crawling toward the door, but Nathan’s weight was on him in an instant, crushing him against the carpet. For a horrifying moment, Jonah thought that was it. Then he opened his eyes.
Across from him, several feet away on the carpet, he caught a glint of light reflecting off a shard of glass. He had no time to hesitate, no time to think his plan through. When Nathan focused his attention on yanking down thewaistband of Jonah’s jeans, Jonah threw his arm out and clamped down on the broken glass. The sting against his own palm didn’t even register. Praying for the best, he thrust his arm behind him with as much power as he could leverage.
“Fuck!” Nathan cried out as he made contact, and Jonah didn’t waste the narrow window of opportunity to wriggle himself onto his back.
Face to face, he saw that the glass had struck Nathan’s arm, a long gash of red bleeding down to the crease of his elbow. Jonah threw another slash, this time toward Nathan’s face.
Nathan made a sound like a wounded animal. Both hands left Jonah’s body to cover the weeping gash on his cheek. Jonah bucked his hips as hard as he could, brought both knees up, and kicked. The second he dislodged the weight on top of him enough to move, he pushed himself up and stumbled into a run. This time, Nathan didn’t pursue him.
He couldn’t risk stopping to look back at the person he’d left bleeding on the hotel floor. It wasn’t until he reached the door that he realized he was still clutching his makeshift weapon. He stopped just long enough to uncurl his fist, cringing at the deep line of blood that cut across his palm.
He couldn’t think about that now. Every thought, every nerve ending and instinct in his body was screaming the same thing at him, all at once: run.
He dropped the glass shard, and he did.
Rubber soles smacked against the thin carpet of the hallway, then even louder down the concrete stairwell—alleight flights. The cold wind smacked him in the face the moment he was out the door, but he didn’t stop running.
Marcus was parked two blocks down, as arranged, waiting for the two hours to be up. Jonah slowed as he approached, his stomach churning as realization set in: he was coming back empty-handed.
Maybe at some point in his fight, he had made the decision that getting out of that room was more important than avoiding the consequences, but now he wasn’t so sure. Either way, his bed was made.
Jonah tapped his knuckles twice against the back window and heard the lock click open. Wordlessly, he slid inside, tucking himself against the far door. A beat of silence passed, undercut with the soft rumble of the idling engine. Jonah kept his eyes unfocused in the direction of the tinted window, waiting to feel the car move. Instead, he felt Marcus’s eyes narrow in on him in the rearview mirror.
“That was barely fifteen minutes,” he said, words laced with warning.
Jonah swallowed, gagging around the taste of blood. “He didn’t waste any time.”
Another beat of silence followed, and Jonah really hoped he would drop it. The burn of his injuries was starting to seep past the wall of adrenaline. He cradled his hand in his lap, squeezing around his wrist to slow the blood flow.
“Where is the money?”
