Blood Money by Lana Sky

Chapter Twelve

Istartle awake, blinking rapidly through the darkness. Within seconds I realize I’m still in that white room, though now it’s bathed in shadow, the lights off. As I sense the mattress beneath me, my heart plummets with a mixture of dread and shame.

Damn it.I failed, letting down my guard long enough to drift off. Domino is gone, and I’ve blown my one shot at freedom. Numb with despair, I try to sit up and realize that my hair is tangled in something. In someone, their fingers, to be exact...

He hasn’t left.

Slow and steady, his breath fills the air as a dangerous lullaby. I gather the nerve to look up, catching the chiseled line of his jaw, barely visible in the dark. He’s actually asleep, and a terrifying question comes to mind. How long have we been like this?

Beyond the windows, the sky is pitch dark. Hope creeps up my throat as I look back at Domino. I raise my hand, waving it through the air. He doesn’t stir.

Slowly, I gather the nerve to roll unto my side next, lifting my head as high as I dare.

His hand falls free, but he doesn’t move. His eyes are closed, his chest rising and falling steadily. He’s asleep, and I nearly exhale in relief—only the fear that the sound might wake him keeps me silent.

What now?

My first thought is to scan the bed, searching for my dress, I find it slung over the end of the mattress, and I pull it on, ignoring my disgust at the stickiness coating my inner thighs. My lips…

Shaking my head, I try to focus. Carefully, I inch toward the end of the mattress, holding my breath as I feel along the seam between it and the bed frame. No. No…

Here!I clutch the smooth surface of the vial and wiggle it free. Shit! It slips from my grasp, rolling across the floor.

My heart falls along with it. There it is. I’ve blown my chance. I wait for Domino to wake up, but he doesn’t move. I strain my ears to track the rhythm of his breathing. Slow and steady, still. He’s asleep.

I don’t waste any more effort on stealth. I lurch to my feet, racing on tiptoe for the vial. Then I grab the syringe, trying to remove the plastic casing without making too much noise. It’s an eternity before I finally get it free and ease off the plastic cap covering the needle. It’s so dark in this room. All I have are glimmers of a faint glow entering from the windows. Yard lights?

They barely illuminate the glass of the vial enough for me to find the rubbery top through which I can inject the needle.

Luckily, muscle memory takes over. Ironically, as far as drug use goes, my injecting phase didn’t last long. It was too risky. Too ugly, leaving angry red marks that threatened my one defining attribute—beauty.

I switched to snorting and never looked back, but you never forget the intricacies of manipulating a syringe. Though, I don’t think this needs a vein. Just muscle. Like an arm or a thigh.

Eyeing the bed, my gaze fixates on one of his outstretched legs, and I decide on my method.

For all my confidence, my hand shakes so badly that the needle goes into the vial crooked on my first attempt to fill the syringe. When I pull back on the plunger, liquid seeps through the rubber top, but I keep going. How much should I pull up? Is the whole vial too much?

I can’t remember the dosage, so I just draw back until I can’t anymore. The liquid glows amber in the faint orange light. It nearly fills the entire barrel, and for a second, I weigh the possibility that I could potentially give him an overdose. Kill him.

My finger jerks, spilling some of the liquid onto the floor, but there’s still plenty left, and my conscience is a little lighter.

Though why the hell should I care at all? This man is a monster, and as I rise and pivot on my heel, I realize that if I do manage to hit a vein when I inject the needle, I could kill him with this. If not with the drug alone, then the infection he’ll get from my sweaty, filthy hands, and the lack of sanitation.

But I don’t have a choice.

Cautiously, I reach for his thigh, touching him as lightly as I can. Hard bone flexes beneath my fingertips. His knee? I go higher, until I find the thicker, sturdier feel of solid muscle.

Then I aim and stab, shoving the plunger down.

“What the fuck?” He comes alive swinging, easily snagging my hair in the dark—but not the chain.

I clutch the length of it in my palm and leverage my weight against him, ignoring the pain as strands of my hair are ripped clean from their roots.

“No!” I lunge for the door with everything I have.

Somehow, I break away, and I don’t look back, staggering into the hall, racing for the circular room.

“You bitch!”

I can hear him raging behind me, crashing like a bull.

Don’t look!I just move, despairing as I reach that round door, sure it will be locked. But when I throw my weight against it, it opens.

I race on bare feet down the stone path, meeting no one to stop me. It feels easy. Too easy, but the doubt isn’t enough to make me second guess this plan.

I’ve come too damn far.

So I run, my lungs heaving, muscles aching. Still, I don’t stop until the ground beneath my feet switches to dried, rough earth. It strikes me now that I have no idea of where to go or which direction civilization may be.

It’s not like I have a choice to stop and plot.

All I can do is run.