Page 52 of Dirty Roxie

“Well, no,” she responds. “I didn’t mean it like that. It was a real bullet—”

“Are you honestly this stupid, Quinn?”

Her head rears back, eyes wide with disbelief. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“What kind of person sets out to be kidnapped? By human traffickers? I mean, you must be a special kind of idiot to do that. Do you want me to show you the videos of Katya being raped by five different men at once? FIVE, Quinn! A different man in every orifice of her body, plus one in each hand. Playing a sick game of musical chairs where they would switch spots periodically. Treating her like nothing more than a cum receptacle. Is that what you wanted for yourself?” I’m yelling, but I don’t care. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so angry with another person before. At least not someone I loved. And it’s just compounded right now, and I don’t know what to do about it other than to just let it out.

Tears well in Quinn’s eyes. “No, but it didn’t work anyway.”

She’s fucking crying again. God, I hate it when she cries. “How can you say that? You were fucking kidnapped.”

“Because they kidnapped me when I was on my way to try to get kidnapped. They’d already planned to do it. I had nothing to do with that.”

I stand to pace, needing something to take this edge off my emotions. Because right now, I want to kill her for being so careless.

“Do you hear yourself?” I ask. “Do you realize you don’t even make sense when you talk? How can these be actual thoughts in your head? Do you even think?”

Quinn looks down at her lap, refusing to lift her head and meet my eyes. And all I can think is, how dare she not even meet my eyes after everything I’ve sacrificed for her. The things she’s accused me of that I’ve forgiven. The—

“Are you even listening to me?” I interrupt my own thoughts. “Did it occur to you how close you might have been to dying?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Do you want to know?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

“Look at me, Quinn,” I instruct, barely able to hold in my rage at this point.

She looks up. I grab my switchblade from my pocket, pop it open, then throw it at her head, all in one move. The blade nicks her ear before sticking into the wall behind her.

“That barely scratches the surface of how close you were,” I tell her.

She looks at me. Then to the knife in the wall beside her head. Raises her hand to her ear and brings her fingers away to see blood. Her gaze returns to me one more time.

And then she screams.