Page 187 of Wicked Little Darling

He pushed her away, sending her hard to the ground. “Getoffme!”

There was a sharp, pained cry from Evelyn, and Jesus fucking Christ, he was a monster.

Everett turned around when he realized that it was his mom he’d pushed. “Oh, fuck. No, I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t—God, what are you even doing in here?!”

Evelyn looked terrified, holding her hands up in front of her face. “Albert!” she wailed at the top of her lungs. “Albert!”

“Shut up!” Everett hissed, slapping a hand over her mouth.

Fuck no.

I shove off the wall and jumped onto his back with an enraged cry and tried to get him a chokehold.

“You little—” He slammed me into the wall, knocking the wind from me, then ripped my arms from around his neck and turned on me. “I’ll fucking kill you, you?—”

Everett paused when the door at the far end of the room banged open and Albert stormed in. I thought he would come this way, to save me or his wife, but he headed toward the opposite wall. He grabbed something and ripped it from a wire, then turned on Everett, his face pale. He was breathing hard, his eyes wide as he stalked toward his son.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he hissed. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

A twinge in my side had me hissing in pain, and I reached up to wipe the blood off my eye.

He grabbed onto the front of Everett’s shirt. “Are you insane, you stupid bastard? Have you forgotten where you are?Whoyou are?”

The uncharacteristic panic in Albert’s voice was jarring. I finally managed to use the wall to sit up, breathing hard as the scene came fully into focus.

“Dad, it’s not what it—what are you talking about? He attacked me!”

Everett pointed at me as Albert held onto the front of his shirt. I glanced over at a trembling Evelyn, who looked dazed. Like she might faint any second. Was that blood on her face?

Had he hit his own mother?

“Everett!” Albert’s shout rang through the room. “The entire ballroom just heard every single word you said because the microphone was still on, you stupid fucking imbecile. You haveruined us.” Albert’s voice shook with the force of his words, a profound panic threaded in them.

Everett ignored his dad, pushing at Albert as he snapped at me. “How dare you hurt my mother!”

This jackass was still lying through his teeth, and all I could do was laugh.

“You think this is funny?” Everett ripped himself from his dad’s hold and started toward me.

“Everett, so help me god, if you?—”

He ignored Albert, who yelled at him while Evelyn cried quietly off to the side.

Everyone had gone off the deep end.

I blinked as something warm and wet slid down into my eye. Fuck, that stung. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried lifting my hand to wipe it away, but then a hand was around my throat again, squeezing even harder this time, shaking me like a ragdoll.

“Everett!” Albert roared. It sounded faraway now.

I kicked him between the legs again, then clawed at his eyes. “Fuck you,” I wheezed, scraping my nails down his cheek.

“Get the fuck off him!”

Dakota?

The pressure around my throat disappeared as Everett was suddenly yanked backwards, and I sank to the floor in a boneless heap, sucking in breath after breath, coughing when it felt like tiny knives were digging into my lungs.

My head pounded viciously and all I tasted was bile as I wheezed and coughed.