Page 48 of Poisoned Promise
Parking haphazardly, I scramble out of my car and sprint up the steps to my apartment.
It’s cold and quiet inside. I make a beeline for the bathroom, flick on the light, then crouch and dig under the sink for the medical kit.
Locating it, I snatch it up and open it on the edge of the sink but my hands shake so much I can barely prevent all the contents from spilling out into the bowl.
“Fuck!” Gasping for air, I brace both my hands on the cold sink and lift my gaze to the mirror. “Calm down,” I scold myself. “Take a breath.”
Wide, bloodshot eyes stare back at me. I’m running on pure adrenaline at this point and the tired, bag-heavy eyes gazing back at me tell me I’m on fumes.
It’s fine. I can sleep on the plane.
Wiping my bloody nose with toilet roll, I turn my head and study the gash on my temple, then the split on my brow.
Pain from my temple overwhelms the pain from my other wounds, including the split on my lip, so that’s where I focus.
Clearing the items out of the sink and back into the kit, I turn on the tap, gather water in my palms, then duck my head and splash it all over my face.
After three handfuls of the same, I lean back up and freeze.
Blue eyes glare back at me from a black balaclava and for a second, the stranger and I both freeze in place.
Fuck.
I didn’t hear anyone.
I should have checked.
Why didn’t I check?
A bounty is a bounty.
The stranger whips rope over my head and I lift my hand just in time to catch my wrist in the noose as it tightens over my neck.
He tightens it with a grunt, leaning back and thrusting his body into mine so I’m dragged off the floor with nothing but the noose around my throat and trapped wrist to hold me close.
I choke.
Blood pounds in my ears, the rope cuts into my wrist and ignites hot pain all the way down my forearm and the pressure of the rope and my wrist against my throat briefly cuts off my air.
I lift my legs, scrambling with my feet until my heel catches on the edge of the sink.
As soon as I’m stable, I tense my leg and push with all my strength, throwing my body back into the stranger.
He stumbles backward with a yell and topples into the bathtub.
We crash backward and land together but he keeps all his strength on the rope, choking me.
I can’t breathe.
I’m going to die here.
Fuck.
I throw my elbow back hard and catch the soft tissue of his gut.
He grunts and I do it again, and again, frantically throwing my sharp elbow back into him again and again.
He tries to tighten the rope further but the next plunge of my elbow causes him enough pain that the rope slackens and gives me my window.
