The breath whooshes out of me in a flat rush.
Bruising force smashes into my chest, my face.
For someone so small, she knows how to throw her weight around.
Next thing I know, I’ve got a pointy elbow digging into the small of my back, and a skinny arm around my neck with the point of that blade digging at the soft spot under my ear, just behind my jaw.
All she’d have to do is jerk her arm back to open up a second smile and make me grin bloody bright red.
The last thing I’d ever do.
I’m helpless, the handle of the mug clutched in my fingers. I can’t even do anything with it unless I really think flailing back and banging it at her hip would save my bacon.
Unlikely.
So much for being brave.
Not even my dog’s coming to the rescue, the sound of his startled bark tells me he’s skittering away to hide in the bedroom. Who could blame him?
My vision swims with panic.
I try to make my pulse stop trying to burst through my skin, struggling to survive, to think.
Think, Felicity.
Try to find some way out of this—even as Paisley presses into my back and hisses in my ear, her voice lisping and sickly intimate.
“You really are a major dum-dum. Not very smart, Fe-li-ci-tee,” she giggles, digging the knife-tip into my skin, pushing it so taut, a pressure point on the verge of doom. With a whimper, I rise up on my toes, straining away. “What’d you think you were gonna do, missy? Smash a window? That’s destruction of property. My property. Until I get what I want, everything you think is yours belongs to mwah. So be nice to my ugly old house, okay?”
This is where I should shut it.
Say nothing.
Stare at her with teary doe eyes, desperate and scared and pleading for mercy.
But if I’ve ever had one talent, it’s not doing what I should.
My lip curls in an acid hiss as I push myself closer to her.
“What did I think? I think I was about to crack your evil fucking head open, you psycho pixie bitch,” I snarl.
Yeah.
Not the smartest bluff where self-preservation is concerned.
But my head throbs from being smacked against the wall, and maybe she scrambled something loose in my grey matter. Because as scared as I am?
I’m also rabid-dog fighting mad and trying to figure out if I can hook a foot around her ankle and pitch her tiny ass on the floor.
But she pushes harder against me until it’s starting to feel gross.
The way she molds her body into mine, her lips moving against my ear like she’s enjoying just how uncomfortable she’s making me with her weight against my skin.
“I’m going to let you get away with that because it was funny,” she croons. “You’re so cute when you try to play tough, Fe-li-ci-tee. Screw your coffee. All that dirty talk gets me wired. But I wanna know what you’re up to. You must be up to something, hmmm? So many people sniffing around you. So many dogs on your trail. I think you’ve finally figured something out and I want to stop playing patty cake and hear it!”
I grit my teeth, turning my head just enough to catch a glimpse of her over my shoulder, and angling a little so I’m pressed to the edge of the blade, not the point.
“What? What do you want?” I spit.
“You know your daddy stole millions from my daddy,” she whispers, her face suddenly going creepily empty again. “And I want his money—my money—back.”
I make a derisive sound.
“Please. I’ve paid you so much it’s probably covered whatever he stole, and then some.” I’m playing dumb. I can’t let her know I have that gold, but now I’ve got an even better idea where it came from.
Thanks, Dad.
Thanks for getting me into this clown show.
“Do you just get off on this? Shaking people down?” I hiss.
I’m expecting an insult.
Not the sudden sharp sting smacking against the back of my head—a backhanded blow so fierce it whips my head to one side, slapping my cheek and temple against the wall hard enough to make me cry out.
“Shut up—shut up! I’m sick of you throwing pennies, Flissy-wissy-piss-itee, and you fucking know it.” It’s almost more chilling when she finds a new way to mangle my name in her hideous syrupy voice. “I want what Morgan Randall took. What that good-for-nothing sack of chickenshit stole from me, and since you can’t give me back my daddy...”
Suddenly the knife slips from my throat.
Now it’s against the small of my back, replacing her elbow.
One push, and she could sever my spine.
If I don’t bleed out, I’ll be paralyzed for life.
I don’t dare move, every inch of me trembling.
“...since you can’t bring back daddy, I want my fucking money!” she finishes.
I breathe in shallow gasps, struggling to pull my panicked thoughts together.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I whisper. “H-how did my father take yours away?”
“Like you don’t know. Like you don’t know that lousy rat killed him!” What’s even worse is the real emotion in her voice. Loss, pain, sorrow, years of rage marinating in this stew of poison vengeance. “Who do you think was with him the night Morgan crashed that plane? Huh, Felicity? Only, my daddy never came back. I don’t even know where your prick of a father hid his body.” Then she lets out a giggle, a manic titter wild with raw evil. “But y’know, I remember where I left his.”
I go cold from the tips of my toes to the ends of my eyelashes.
Grim truth bitch-slaps me harder than she ever could, nearly knocking me flat.
Her.
Of course, it was her.
Those fingerprints on the car were hers.
Paisley Lockwood murdered my father in revenge when she was just a kid, because she thinks he killed hers.
What’s worse is that she may not be wrong.
I swallow thickly, my throat knotted.
“...you...what did you do to him?”
“Exactly what I said I would.” The point of the blade twirls slowly, and I suck in a breath as I feel the first tiny pinprick against my skin, biting like a needle through my dress. “Your father was a loser. Good for nothing druggie. Which is why I hate how damned good he was at keeping his mouth shut. I told him if he didn’t talk, he’d be riding that white pony until his poor ol’ ticker gave out.” The malicious grin I see from the corner of my eye looks like death. “He lasted a long time. I’ll give him that. Old man had a hell of a tolerance. Once a junkie, eh?”
My nostrils flare.
I’ve always told myself I don’t miss my dad.
That I only resented him, hated how he treated us, never really cared for his loss when the man I missed—the man who took me fishing, the man who smiled at me and called me Little Bee with his hand resting on top of my head—died long before they found that body.
The white-hot fury and sorrow and rage I feel at those words stuns me to my core.
I’ve been lying to myself all this time.
And I’ve never hated another human being more than I abhor Paisley Lockwood in this moment, where everything turns blood red.
My eyes go hot. My chest constricts. My blood boils against her stupid switchblade.
“You monster,” I gasp out, half a sob, half a snarl, and slowly start to creep one hand to brace against the wall for leverage. “You bitch.”