Page 18 of Unmasked Rivalry
Knox is staring at me. Not angry, not even annoyed, just... unreadable, which is way worse. He stays silent long enough that I pick at the hem of my shorts, then he growls low, “Don’t want to talk about her.”
And that is the end of it. The words are a door, and he slams them shut with finality. He stands up, looming, and I think he’s going to storm off, but instead, he grabs me under the arms, hauls me to my feet, and then—without warning—throws me over his shoulder.
“Knox! What are you—let me—this is not—” I protest, my voice way too high-pitched and girly. I catch a blurry upside-down glimpse of his boots stomping through the living room, then without warning, he tosses me down onto the air mattress before reaching for my folded-up camping chair and undoing it, slamming it down onto the ground and sitting on it.
I’m confused as hell.
I force myself into an upright position, the air mattress wobbling a little too much and making my stomach turn. “Wha...what are you doing?”
“Sittin’ here until you’re sober and I know you won’t get stabbed in your fuckin’ sleep,” he says.
I blink at him. I want to argue, but my head is spinning in a way that forces me to lay back down and stare at the ceiling, scared to close my eyes because I will actually feel like the room is spinning. I rub my stomach, praying I don’t vomit, and wondering how I’m going to get up fast enough if I do.
“You want water?”
I nod, not moving my eyes in his direction, far too scared of what the consequences of that action might be.
He leaves, but I don’t hear him return, because just like that, my world goes dark.
Bliss.
5
The next morning comes like a fucking hurricane.
Well, in my head at least.
By the time I wake, it is because the scorching hot sun is powering through the window and blasting me. One glance at my phone tells me it’s midday. I can’t remember the last time I slept until midday. It takes more than a minute for me to force myself up, my head pounding and my stomach twisting.
Last night is a blur, but my eyes move to the empty chair in the corner where Knox was the last time I saw him. I don’t know when he left, but on the floor beside me are two aspirin and a bottle of water. I reach for it so fast I knock the water over and am thankful it has a lid. I throw the aspirin into my mouth and gulp the water, regretting it almost immediately as my stomach turns.
Today is going to be a long one.
I spend the first twenty minutes of the day sitting there, trying to will myself to get up. I debate crawling back into the sleeping bag and dying quietly, but my phone vibrates, and I feel a jolt of panic, my hands weirdly clammy as I snatch it up. No new calls from the prison, but a spam email promising to make a thousand dollars a day working from home.
I delete it without reading, which pretty much sums up my career ambitions.
I pull on the cleanest T-shirt I can find and slowly make my way outside, hoping fresh air will help. The heat outside is a slap, but somehow less oppressive than the stuffy, whiskey-soakedinside. I take a deep breath, praying the aspirin works sooner rather than later.
I finish the water.
I only manage to shower, get a coffee, and start slowly working on the living area when I hear the sound of a truck rumbling down the drive. It isn’t Knox’s truck, I can tell purely by the sound. This one is rattling, clunking, and it sounds awful. I peer out the window to see an old black truck coming to a stop. Then the door swings open, and Ralston Cupp climbs out.
Fuck me.
This time, he’s not alone. A second guy gets out from the passenger side, tall and built, with a plain white T-shirt and a neck that is so thick it almost just blends in with his head. The third man, clearly the driver, doesn’t get out; he just leans over the steering wheel and stares with the bored, cold expression of someone who has already sized me up and found me uninteresting. Or maybe already dead.
I freeze.
I look around for my phone, realize it’s still in my hand, and look for Knox’s number. I don’t get a chance to dial before the front door swings open and Ralston steps in, as if he owns the place. He is so loud in the small entryway that I flinch. I press my back into the kitchen counter and hold my phone in my hand, refusing to let it out of my sight.
“Well, good morning. You look,” Ralston scans me up and down, “unwell.”
I ignore the greeting. “What do you want?” I snap. “Obviously you’ve never heard of knocking.”
He walks over casually, looking around, then puts both hands on my kitchen counter and leans in. The other guy follows, standing a deliberate two feet behind Ralston and crossing his arms, glaring at me.
“I hear you got a call from your brother.”
