Page 60 of Chalk Outline

I swallow the sharp pain in my sore throat and scramble to my feet.

“Do you like pain?” Jason mocks. Rainwater drips down his hair onto his face and mask. “Do you actually know what pain feels like?” The raw tone of his voice shatters something in me.

With a swift move, Jason dislocates Spider-Web-face’s shoulder, and he screams in agony before Jason does the same to his other shoulder.

“Breaking your neck is too easy, and you deserve to suffer, you psycho piece of shit,” Jason growls, his voice is dark, hostile.

Pulling a rope out of his thigh bag, he ties his broken hands together and drags him as he walks around the tower to the garden. His tower comes into view on the other side.

I shuffle behind him carefully. My body feels stiff, and my lungs burn. “I told you not to come here,” I cough out.

“I didn’t ask for your permission,” Jason mutters loud enough for me to roll my eyes in return. “If you had waited until I passed the zipline, this,” he points back toward where we came from, “wouldn’t have happened.”

“Ooo, trouble in paradise,” Spider-Web-Face makes a snappy comment just to get a rise.

“I handled it just fine. I was trained for these situations.”

“I know you can handle yourself,” Jason says, dropping him in a random spot several feet from the cliff’s edge, “but the fact is, he could’ve killed you.” He pulls out a pocket knife and tears the hood off Spider-Web-Face’s black robe before tying it around his eyes like a blindfold.

“So mysterious.”

Still amused with himself, despite his hands hanging limp at his sides.

“You’re not my bodyguard,” I frown.

“I am!” Jason snaps at me, his voice booming while another thunder crashes in the distance.

“That’s why you’re here?” I squint my eyes at him.

Partner my ass.

“No.”

“Then why?”

“I signed a contract.”

Liar.

“If you die, I’m a dead man too. Your grandma will slit my throat herself.”

He already said that.

“Who sent you?” Jason questions, glaring at him.

“Your mom.”

“She’s dead,” Jason answers, unimpressed.

“Oops.”

“Guess where I’m going to cut.” Jason’s mouth curves into a smirk. Voice playful and sinister. Stance lethal and confident.

“You already broke my hands, bodyguard. Why don’t you break my legs too?”

“Nah, I like cutting silly things.”

I almost smile at Jason’s diss, but I clear my throat instead.