Page 5 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

“Do you think I’m that stupid?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the bloody memories welling up weren’t any better than the present.

“I asked you a fucking question.” Julian yanked at my arm until I faced him. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”

“No, I do-” The phone smacked across my face. Copper taste exploded in my mouth. Before I could fully process that he’d just hit me with my own phone, Julian threw it on the ground and dug his heel into it. The cracked screen collapsed under his shoe.

I hadn’t backed up my photos in weeks.

Another pathetic thought.

“Sit down.” I let him throw me into the chair across from his, still too stunned to put up much of a fight. He had a duffel on one of the chairs and dug some thin rope from it. If he had placed his duffel there in preparation for this, he must have seen my phone.Maybe he’d even placed it there. He’d wanted me to go for it. He’d wanted a reason to hurt me.

Tears welled up and I tried to blink them away, but Julian tied my ankles to the chair tight enough to cut my skin and that just prompted more tears. He did the same to my wrists, binding them behind the chair.

“I’ll go make sure the new Cordelia survives her injuries,” Julian hissed. “Don’t move.”

He left me in the kitchen, and I let out one quick sob, just to get some of the pressure of my chest. Then inhaled deeply and tested my restraints. My toes didn’t even touch the ground, and my arms wouldn’t bend high enough to cross over the backrest. Ditching the chair wasn’t going to work. But I just had to make it across the room.

This house was secure. As long as you didn’t invite the gunman in voluntarily, it had the systems in place to keep me safe. So I just had to make it to the security system by the door and hit the silent alarm.

I wiggled my hips and shifted my shoulders to find a way of maneuvering the chair. It took me a moment, but I managed to do it without toppling over. Inch by inch.

Barely made it two feet when Julian walked back into the room, gun in hand. “Are you kidding me?”

“Would it help if I said I was just going to get us something to drink?”

Face like stone, he marched across the room to his bag and pulled out a bottle of wine. He held it up demonstratively.

“That’s messed up,” I said before I could stop myself. Who brought a bottle of wine to a murder?

It was the wrong reaction. Julian swung and threw the bottle across the room. It shattered against the wall, shards and wine spraying everywhere.

At least it was white wine.

God, I was messed up.

Maybe my violence threshold had just been blown to pieces sixteen years ago, but I should have been freaking out more.

Julian must have thought the same, because he stalked over and grabbed the back of my chair “I told you not to fucking move.” He shoved me against the table. The tabletop rammed into chest, wrangling a pained gasp from my lips. And in that split-second of pain, he shoved his gun into my mouth.

I screamed.

I wasn’t sure how or if I was even using words. All I knew was panic and adrenaline seizing my body, and I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to die.I didn’t want to die.

Julian tore the metal from my mouth. The cut on my lip started bleeding again, but it barely registered. He grabbed the back of my head and smashed it forward, banging my forehead into the table just enough to stop my screams.

“This would all be a lot less painful if you cooperated,” he hissed against my ear.

“Getting shot?” I mumbled, blinking against the throbbing in my temple.

“Maybe not that part. But everything that comes before.” He kissed the back of my head and I winced.Quality time.I’d rather he shoot me outright than make me find out what exactly he meant by that.

He sank into the chair across from me and placed the gun beside his plate.

As long as he ate and talked, I was safe. Fine. One minute at a time.

“So you’ll kill me, Del officially becomes Cordelia, and then what?”