Page 50 of Blood Ties

Riley

H e’s going to kill me.

I thought I’d have a chance to talk to Knox.

Beg, seduce, do whatever it takes to persuade him to let me go.

But there’s a dead, resigned look in his eyes as his hands squeeze my neck.

When I rake my nails across his cheek hard enough to draw blood, he doesn’t even flinch. He just presses his thumbs in harder.

I thrash and struggle and claw at him, but none of it makes any difference.

As I stare up at his face, there’s none of his usual maliciousness or lust or dark joy.

There was the briefest flicker of emotion across his face when he first pulled his mouth away from mine, but now there’s nothing at all.

Without air, my body soon grows weak. My writhing slows, and my hands feel clumsy, numb. I can’t do more than paw at him, and even that feels impossibly hard, like my limbs are moving through water.

I made a critical mistake, I realize, as my vision begins to flicker.

I didn’t understand Knox as well as I thought.

I thought he kept me alive because he enjoyed playing with me, because of twisted affection or at least pure lust. But it wasn’t about me at all.

It was a way to get his brother’s attention.

And now that I’ve threatened to take Kai away from him, it’s over.

My body goes limp. My vision darkens. I accept the fact I’m going to die.

But then I think of the little life I suspect is growing inside of me. My oxygen-starved brain produces a flicker of a possible future: me and Kai and a tiny dark-haired baby who looks like both of us.

No. I’m not going to die here. I drag myself up from the darkness, cling to life with every last scrap of my being—

And suddenly my airway is open. I suck in air reflexively, greedy for it even though every breath sears my raw and damaged throat. With every gasp, the darkness clears away, until the world around me snaps into focus again.

Knox is still standing over me, but his hold on my neck has loosened. He’s looking away, toward the house, distracted by something. As the drum of my pulse fades slowly from my ears, I hear it too: the sound of a truck. Their father is back.

Knox swears under his breath. I don’t think he’s realized that he’s loosened his grip enough for me to breathe. I lay still, drinking in air and building my strength.

Then, as he starts to turn back to me, I lift my leg and kick him hard in the groin.

He goes down with a shout. I roll off of the car’s hood, metal denting beneath me. But he grabs my leg and yanks me back before I can run. I go down in the dirt, coughing and clawing at him, one arm curled protectively around my stomach.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he grits out. He tosses me down into the dirt, draws back a fist, and punches me in the face.

His knuckles slam into my cheekbone. My head hits the ground hard. I must black out for a second, because suddenly I’m gasping back into existence in a world of pain, just in time for him to hit me again.

“I tried to do it gentle for you,” he says, his voice muffled as if very far away, even though I can feel him on top of me. There’s a high whine in my ears, and my vision swims. “But you always gotta make things difficult.”

I try to shield my stomach again, but his knees keep my arms pinned at my sides. He hits me again. Again. My eyes roll in my head.

He’s going to beat me to death. I need to do something, to fight back. But he’s so strong, and every slam of his fist shatters my train of thought with sheer overwhelming pain.

As he winds up to punch me again, my scattered thoughts reach for something, anything, that will delay him by even a second.

I remember May’s quick smile, the playful mischief in her eyes. “You’ve still got one card left to play, babe. Don’t be shy. He’s the one who wanted it, after all.”

“I’m pregnant,” I gasp out.

His fist freezes midair. Blood drips from his knuckles.

My breath rasps in and out of my raw throat, the only sound between us for a couple of seconds.

“What?” he asks.

“You... h-heard me.” Blood bubbles up in my mouth as I speak, dribbles over my lips. One of my eyes has swollen shut. I struggle to think past the pain. “Missed... two periods. Means it’s... Y-yours.”

As I watch the emotions shift over his face, I realize it was an even smarter play than I thought. I remember how he threw out my birth control, all that talk about breeding me. I thought it was a control thing, or a kink, but maybe it was something more.

“You’re lying,” he whispers, but he lowers his fist, and shifts his weight so he’s no longer putting pressure on my stomach.

I turn my head to the side, spit a mouthful of blood into the dirt. “I’m not,” I rasp out.

Knox hesitates. He studies my battered face, and then looks down toward my stomach.

“Fuck, I don’t have time for this,” he mutters, like he did before.

But instead of hitting me again, he eases his weight off of me, and lifts me off of the ground.

My head lolls back, my body limp in his arms as he carries me out of the scrapyard.

I’m too weak to fight back. “Guess you go back in the basement for now.”

My vision swims in and out of focus as the house looms up. Fear claws at my insides, choking me. He’s taking me back. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe it would’ve been easier to die out there.

Knox slows as he steps onto the porch. He freezes there, head tilted to one side as he listens.

Then he drops me. My battered skull bangs against the floorboards, and as darkness closes in around me, I hear the sound that must’ve sent Knox running — somebody is screaming inside, a sound full of pain and terror.

Kai is screaming.