Khaki-prick shifted in his seat uncomfortably, giving me a wary glance that told me he might be a little less sold on this plan than Walter was. At least someone in this car had some common sense.
Walter glared at me, black eyes glittering. “Mr. MacKenna’s too good for you,” he hissed. Mr. MacKenna? Like I wasn’t worthy of hearing Declan’s first name. What a fucking toolbag. “And he’ll thank me eventually. He’ll realize I’m the one who’s been there for him all this time. I’m the one he needs. This will show him what a worthless slut you are.”
I couldn’t help laughing, even though it hurt my chest. The weight of Walter’s magic sat on me like a pile of bricks, making everything hurt.
“I didn’t do anything but what you made me do. And he doesn’t want you. If he hasn’t wanted you yet, he never will.” Walter opened his mouth, but I talked over him, using every ounce of energy I could muster, every bit of willpower to combat the pressure of his magic and his fury. What Mark had said at the party had finally percolated through my brain, and I was going to use anything in my arsenal. Maybe it’d piss Walter off so much that he’d kill me more quickly, but maybe it’d throw him off his game instead. Give me an edge. “What, did you think you were trading up when you left Mark for Declan? Getting a hotter guy with even more money?”
The khaki-dick next to me laughed quietly, quickly cut off in a forced cough when Walter twisted further in his seat to shoot him a look of death.
“You’re the gold-digger, not me!” Walter cried, rounding back on me, voice rising a whole octave. “You don’t deserve what he’s given you! You think you deserve—I deserve to be taken care of! Mark never wanted to take care of me the way I—” He broke off, panting, one fist resting on the center console and clenching and unclenching convulsively.
Fucking hypocritical bastard. Mark had probably dumped him for expecting to be a kept man, or maybe just for being a creep, and then Walter had tried to attach himself to the next rich guy who could give him a life of luxury. Gross.
The irony of it wasn’t lost on me, though. All I’d wanted, a few months ago, was any way to get some money out of someone, enough to keep me in the kind of lifestyle Walter seemed to think the world owed him.
And now all I wanted was Declan. I would’ve wanted him even if he still had to wear a vest and a nametag to work every day.
But irony aside, it was working, my half-assed plan. I could feel Walter loosening his grip on me with every bit of self-control he lost. My arms and legs had real sensation in them, becoming limbs that I’d be able to move and not heavy, useless lumps. Even my mind had started to clear. Thinking didn’t take as much effort now.
A little more. I only needed to piss him off a little bit more. “You won’t ever have him. You know I’m right. Even if he doesn’t care about me,” which he probably didn’t, but fuck, I had to save the pity party for later when and if I had the time, “he’ll never get over a betrayal like this. And besides, he’ll come after us. He’s probably following us right—”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Walter demanded, his voice taking on that snake-hissing timbre again. There it was, that red blush in his cheeks, the tell for him losing his temper that I’d noticed the other day. Human eyes might not have caught it in the super low lighting, but I did. “I texted Dec—Mr. MacKenna from your phone.” A slip of the tongue, there, and I felt some strength and power coming back to my hands. “I told him you were leaving, and I knew what to say to make him never want to see you again. Your phone is in very small pieces in the gutter. He can’t track you that way. If he tries to hire someone with magic to find us, they won’t be in time to help you. And once you’re gone, the story will be whatever I say it is. You’re nothing, Castelli. Nothing to him. Nothing toanyone.”
Maybe true. Almost certainly true.
But I was something tome. My life mattered, simply because it was mine and the only one I had.
And if I lived…well, maybe I could convince Declan to give me a chance. A real chance, not the fucked-up blackmail-and-sex-and-occasional-spreadsheets limbo we’d been existing in. Or even just convince him to keep me around as his sex toy. I’d take it. Not too likely that it’d work, but if I held on to that faint idea of a future, it could keep me going.
Fuck it. I wanted to live, and that was enough for me.
The phone thing didn’t surprise me, since I didn’t think Walter was stupid and I’d already figured out that he wouldn’t make a simple mistake like keeping my trackable phone. And I hadn’t really believed Declan would be coming after me like a bat out of hell. The fact that he’d texted Declan pretending to be me shook me a little, though, since it made the idea of Declan wanting to follow me even less likely. Somewhere, deep down, I’d been holding on to a little bit of hope for a rescue. But I’d shaken Walter’s cool, too, and that was something.
“At least he wants to fuck me,” I said, letting my fangs drop a bit, snarling at him. My heart picked up its rhythm. My fangs. I could shift. Walter’s hold on me had relaxed enough that I could use my shift! Keep going, keep pushing… “He was so desperate to get inside me the other day that he completely forgot about you. You don’t even exist for him when I’m in the room. I bet he’s never even thought about doing the things to you that he’s done with me. A few days ago, I had his tongue in my—”
Walter let out a cry of incoherent rage, and fierce delight rose up in me, a burst of energy and power. I had him! He raised his arm, fingers flexing, and the air in the car took on a charged, staticky buzz, all the hair on my body rising as if I’d been rubbed against the world’s biggest balloon.
He was going to hit me with magic. Maybe to kill me, maybe to silence me, maybe just to hurt me.
I had a split second to react.
My sense of smell told me that I was the only shifter in a car with three other humans. They were vulnerable in a way I wasn’t.
Pulling on all of the strength I had, all of the determination, all of the magic inherent in my body and my genetics, I forced out the claws on my left hand, five razor-sharp six-inch dealers of death.
Khaki-douche shouted a warning to Walter, who reared back, his magic gathering in his hand.
But instead of going for Walter, I slammed my claws around the edge of the front seat and through the driver’s shoulder.
The world exploded around me in a chaotic cacophony of screeching tires and screams and people flying through the air, the SUV spinning and jerking, Walter’s magic surging past me in a messy wave of energy that singed me around the edges. My body got thrown forward, but I braced myself with a foot on the back of Walter’s seat, kicking my asshole seat-mate in the process and connecting with something soft.
I hoped it was his balls. The way he shrieked suggested it, anyway.
Ignoring his cries and Walter’s incoherent shouts and the thrashing driver, and his blood spurting everywhere—so disgusting, and I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t, I had to keep it together—I yanked my claws back out of him, nearly throwing up anyway at the sound of them scraping over his bones.
I twisted, kicking again, desperate for leverage, and tried to get a hold of the door handle. My blood-slick hand slipped and slid, my claws refusing to retract enough to let me use my fingers properly, and I scrabbled at it, panicking.
Fuck. This.
