Page 150 of Fame & Obsession

“I’m hurt, not deaf, Julian.” she whispers weakly, her eyes still closed.

“Can you move? Where’s the blood coming from?”

She nods and points to her abdomen.

My heart sinks.

The baby.

I jerk her shirt up to find a three-inch-long jagged slash beside her belly button. “Fuck!” Tearing off my T-shirt, I press it against her stomach “Can you turn and help me hold this? Come on, princess, work with me.”

With another nod, she slowly rolls against the wall and places a shaking hand over mine as we hold the material against the wound. “You’re late,” she murmurs, her head lolling onto her shoulder.

“Traffic,” I say, trying to keep her mind occupied. “It won’t happen again.”

“Mmmhmm.” She nods as her lashes flutter open. With a jolt, her eyes widen, and she screams in terror as another voice slithers behind me.

“Spoiler alert, Julian—at the end of your book? They all die.”

I cover Phoebe with my body as the lights go out.

Forty

Phoebe

My scream fadesas Julian slumps forward, the side of his head erupting in a red waterfall.

Tanna stands with Gage’s bat in her hand. “I really didn’t want to do that,” she says, frowning down at him.

“Then why did you?” The panic slicing me is sharper than any blade. I have to trust that she loves him enough not to kill him.

“Because you poisoned him. You’re worse than all the others. He fucked them and moved on, but you—you got in his head and ruined him.” She shakes her head at his motionless form. “Shame. A real shame.”

“Tanna?”

“Angela! Christ, are you people stupid?”

I’m not strong enough to fight her. After all I’ve been through, I can’t believethisis how it all ends.

Still, I won’t give her the satisfaction of hiding. She’ll have to face me to kill me. I’ll stare her down until I take my last breath. All I have left is my dignity, and I won’t hand it over without a fight.

“Then fucking do it,” I wheeze as I stare into her cold, dead eyes.

“My pleasure.” She raises the knife and aims at my stomach again.

This one will kill me and the baby.

I brace myself for the pain. Just as the smile parts her lips, the door opens behind her.

“Hey, baby doll, what’s with all the noise? People are pissed.”

Gage.

Startled, Tanna turns her attention toward the open door. I have a split second to make a decision: I can die right here, or I can use the diversion and pray.

I frantically scan the room for something—anything within reaching distance I can use as a weapon. That’s when my eyes latch onto my stun gun, lying on the floor beside me. I have no idea how it traveled all the way over here, but I’m not about to question it. I stretch, muscles ripping as I wrap my hands around it and then force myself to my feet.

Light starts to darken as I stumble toward her turned head.