I am waiting for the punch, closing my eyes. Ryan is shaking terribly, restraining himself, and struggling to do so. He wants to hit me; I can tell by the look in his eyes. I know that look a little too well.
“By the way, I’m pregnant,” I say. I don’t know why I say this now. I want him to be angry. I want this. “And I’m pretty sure it’s Frank’s.”
Ryan’s hand comes down, but the anger isn’t gone; on the contrary. It’s flaming more wildly than ever. Instead of hitting me with his fist, he pushes me forcefully. I fly back until I hit the wall behind me. He’s coming at me, yelling at me, almost screaming.
“You whore! You goddamn whore!”
“R-Ryan,” I say as he swings his fist at me and hits me in my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I slide to the floor, coughing and spitting, thinking I’m bleeding, but I’m not. I cry, worrying about the baby, thinking it’s all gone wrong as I try to get back on my feet, but they won’t hold me. I land on my knees, and, gasping for air, I crawl forward toward my purse on the counter.
Ryan grabs the beer bottle, then smashes it against the table, shattering it, then comes for me, the beer bottle held out in front of him. He grabs my hair and yanks me backward so hard I am sure I hear something snap in my neck.
“Where do you think you’re going, you bitch?” he yells and places the bottle against my throat. I can feel the sharp edge against my skin. He’s spitting in my face as he speaks.
“I should just have given you a proper beating like Chip told me to when you started to get out of line. But better late than never, right? I told you it would end badly for you if you didn’t stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“R-Ryan,” I whimper. It sounds like I am talking through water. “S-stop.”
“Oh, now you’re begging me, huh? Say it out loud, Laurie. Tell me to stop; tell me to let you go, beg me. I wanna hear you say it.”
He is pulling my hair still and scraping the bottle across my skin, not putting pressure on it yet, just letting me know he can cut my throat anytime he wants to if I don’t do as he says. He pulls my hair again. It hurts so outrageously that I scream. It only makes him grin.
“Say it! Beg me!”
“P-please,” I say. “Please, stop, Ryan.”
“Say it again!”
“Please, Ryan. You’re hurting me!”
He kicks me in the stomach twice, and I fall down, crying. He lets go of my hair while I cough, worrying about the baby. I glance up at the purse, and, unfortunately, he sees it. He then makes a quick move. He grabs my purse, then lets it hang from his hand.
“Was this what you were going for, huh? Let’s see what’s in here?”
He reaches inside my purse and pulls out the gun. It is dangling between his fingers. “Now, what is this? What do we have here, huh?”
Chapter 55
“That is so typically you, Laurie,” Ryan sneers. “To have your gun in your friggin’ purse!” He takes it in his hand and weighs it. I feel the hope glide from my body. I am in pain, and now I see my only possibility for surviving this being taken away. He walks to me and looks down at me. He then grabs his cell phone and dials a number, a grin growing on his face.
“What are you doing, Ryan? Who are you calling?” I ask.
He points the gun at me, then cocks it. He signals with it for me to be quiet, placing it on his lips, then points it at me again.
Someone picks up. I can hear most of what is being said.
“What’s your emergency?” a female voice says.
Ryan grins again.
“She’s dead,” he says. He makes his voice sound like he’s sad…like he’s desperate.
“Excuse me? Who is?”
“The woman.”
“What woman?”
I hear Ryan say the words. I hear him speak to the dispatch woman, and my heart starts to hammer in my chest, drowning out the sound of his voice. He is acting differently—like he’s upset like he’s someone who has just found a body and he wants the police to come. But it’s not some body he’s talking about.
It’s my body.
I whimper as I hear him tell the woman the address, and then when she asks how I died, he tells her I was killed.
“Did you kill her, sir?”
“Yes,” he answers, looking down at me.
“And you’re sure she’s dead?”
Ryan pauses. He closes one eye like he’s aiming and pushes the gun closer to me. I stare up at him; I want to beg him to stop, to stop the games and talk to me, but I can’t speak. He smiles as he says the last part, the thing that causes my blood to freeze.
“She will be.”
Ryan hangs up. He is staring down at me, a grin growing across his face. “Guess there’s no way back now, huh? The police will be here in approximately an hour. Maybe a little bit more. They won’t be able to drive fast in the rain and have to be careful when coming up the slippery mountainside.”
“Ryan, you don’t have to do this,” I say.
“Oh, no?” he says and places the gun on my forehead. He leans close to me as he speaks. “But the thing is, I want to. I have actually been looking forward to this part.”
“Ryan, please, think of the children…”
I say the words while clenching my fist. Ryan is so close to me, I can reach out, and I grab his collar, then pull him down while stretching for the gun with the other hand, tearing it out of his grip. The gun slips out of his hand, then slides across the floor, while he pushes me back, hollering, “Oh, no, you don’t!”
I hold onto his collar, using all my weight to pull him down toward me, so he can’t get to the gun. With my foot, I manage to kick it, and it slides even farther away. He presses his hand into my face, pushing me downward, groaning in effort. It hurts like crazy, and I am forced to let go of his collar. He then springs for the gun, leaving my side. I scramble to my feet, then make a run for the sliding doors. I skid on the slippery floors but get back up fast, even though my hand slips on the floor. I grab the doors, then pull them open, Ryan bellowing behind me.
“Come back here! You’re not going anywhere, you hear me?”
I feel his hand grab for my hair, but I am faster than him and jolt outside into the pouring rain.
It’s not easy to run across the wet wooden porch in my bare feet. I am slipping and skating around, falling, getting up, and trying to gain some speed, but end up tumbling forward. I hear him behind me, panting, roaring, bawling my name, trampling after me.
“You get back here, Laurie. You get back here now!”
This time, I feel his hand on my shoulder, pulling me back. I yank myself free, so he reaches down and grabs my arm instead, then pulls me backward. I fall flat on my back, and he’s caught my neck, wrapping his elbow around it, squeezing me, holding me in a tight grip. He has the gun in his other hand, and he places it on my cheek. What scares me senseless right this moment is the fact that his hand isn’t even shaking. There isn’t even a tremble to his voice as he speaks to me.
“I told ya. You’re not going anywhere, Laurie. You hear me?”