Page 72 of Finding Denver

But I can think.

I grip my watch, squeezing the small, silver button on the edge—pepper spray squirts into his face. He jolts back, alarmed, his back slamming into the closed doors.

My eyes immediately start watering. My nose feels likeit’s been shoved into minty bleach. I cough, squeezing my eyes closed even though I know it won’t do a damn thing to help. My attacker is subdued.

But so am I.

I try to get to my feet just as his boot lands in my ribs. Any air that I’d finally pulled into my lungs is knocked out again. Lessons with Lewis rush through my memory.

The seconds that matter, the ones you waste reacting, are the ones that stand between you and survival.

My hands shoot out and I grab his ankle, yanking hard. I can’t see, but neither can he, so if I keep hold of him and knock him off balance, I’ll have some kind of advantage. A bang tells me I’ve managed something, but I don’t know what. He swears, and a cold breeze must mean the elevator doors have opened.

I try to open my eyes, but there’s haze over everything. Shapes are muddled and spread across each other, but I can see a space of darkness between what I assume is the silver of the elevator doors. I leap for it, stumbling over my attacker, my knees meeting the ground.

Are we in the lobby? I can’t hear people speaking. And there don’t appear to be any lights, either.

“No, you fucking don’t?—”

I scream as he grips my hips and yanks me away from freedom. I kick out, holler, yell at the top of my lungs. I don’t know what I’m screaming, but I scream over and over and?—

It feels like a brick slams into my jaw. Pain jolts through my face, blood fills my mouth, and my back slumps and meets the ground.

“So, what’s the end goal?” I jump up and down, excited for my first lesson with Lewis.

“Escape.”

I tut. “You mean fight.”

“No, escape,” Lewis says. “You hurt, you run. No sassy one-liners. No hanging around. You do what you have to, you free yourself, and you get the hell out of there.”

I huff. “Fine. And how do I get out of there?”

“Weapons.”

“An ideal scenario.”

Lewis smiles at me. “Everything can be a weapon, Denver. You’re a weapon. Your fingernails, your thumbs in his eyes, your teeth. You may not always have a gun, but you always have you.”

Me, and …

The man is straddling me. Speaking. On the phone, I think. I blink, my eyes still painful, my body protesting as I reach for my hair.

“I’ll bring her down.”

One last bit of energy. One last sliver of fight.

Giving up isn’t an option.

Weakness is a bullet.

I grip his shirt and pull myself up, my metal hairpin in my hand, and ram it into the general direction of his throat. I pierce skin, and the sound he makes tells me I at least got his windpipe.

That’ll do.

Now fucking run, Denver.

I shove him, a sickening wet whistle leaving his throat as I stumble by him and into the elevator. I’m on my knees, frantically pressing whatever buttons I can feel. The doors close.