"Fine," I replied.
"Virginia says you're done with Amy Mathews?"
"Something like that."
I glanced at Virginia, whose eyes looked like someone had set them on fire. Dillon's eyes, however, were clear and glittering with menace. Virginia half-sat, half-sprawled on the bar stool, oblivious to Dillon's precipitous mood.
Dillon slammed the rest his water. "Well, that just won’t do. Me and Virginia could use the money."
I blinked stupidly, stunned. Me and Virginia—as in getting married? As in planning a future together? And was I the cash cow that would fund this endeavor? He turned towards the sink and carefully positioned his glass on the counter.
"Why don't you get a job if you need some money?" I muttered.
"What?" He turned to me. He cocked his head as if his hearing had suddenly failed. "What was that?"
Virginia spoke up. "Leave her alone, Dillon. She didn't mean it."
"Shut up, Virginia."
I looked at my sister, who'd suddenly returned from wherever she'd been. Her eyes, for the first time I had ever witnessed, registered fear.
Dillon’s eyes, however, snapped with unspent violence, his face flushed. And he was advancing on me. "What did you just say to me, Piss Drinker?"
But before I could utter a single word, he grabbed my neck and drove me backwards across the kitchen until the counter caught my hip painfully and my head slammed against the cupboard.
"Let her go!" Virginia cried. She threw herself on Dillon, arms scrabbling around his broad shoulders, reaching for the hand that held my throat in an iron grip. All to no affect. I sputtered as Dillon squeezed, gasping, watching strange contentment wash over his face. He seemed fascinated. Relaxed, even.
Dillon easily held off Virginia with one well-muscled arm, the same gym-honed arm that she had gushed over many times. My vision dimmed. A tight rasping sound echoed loudly in my ears. In my narrowing sight, closing down like an aperture, Dillon's cold dilating eyes bore down on me.
He released me suddenly, laughing cruelly. I dropped to the counter, gasping and grabbing at my neck, willing it to open wide and allow in great gushes of life-sustaining air.
I heard his calm voice behind me. "I said, me and Virginia could use the money. But apparently you want to follow your heart. Well, I'm here to make sure you follow your heart all the way to The End."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I wanted to do something brave like I'd seen all my smart-mouthed heroines do in the movies. But I could only back away from Dillon, stupefied with fear. His eyes were dilated with the pleasure he'd drawn from choking me. Any quick remark would probably send me catapulting down a steep and notoriously short ramp to death. It would be an accident; he would surely claim. Virginia may or may not testify against him, I honestly didn't know.
The lawyers would pour over their piles of paperwork, thinking about legal strategies, thinking about their conviction rate.
My untimely end would be described in court proceedings and on poster board presentations like a fourth grade science fair. The jury would find him guilty or not guilty, it didn't matter. I would be dead.
So I stood rooted to the floor, my legs two immovable stumps. I was scared to run. I was scared not to run.
"Why don't you leave, Dillon," Virginia said. "Just go. We won't say anything. Right, Genie?" She looked at me. I looked at her, unable to reply. It wasn't a question anyway. "We won't say anything," she said.
Just how she’d reached that conclusion I wasn't sure. I certainly intended to race to the local precinct and press any and all available charges against Dillon, just as soon as I could rid us of his dangerous presence.
"We talked about this, Virginia," Dillon said, leaning against the kitchen counter and folding his arms. "You had your chance to keep her writing. Get her to keep churning out those vampire books. But you couldn't do it. And now, I'm going to take over."
So Virginia had colluded with Dickhead? Not only had she told him about Amy Mathews in full excruciating detail, but she had devised some plan to keep me pumping out books? Is that what drove her to cut herself that terrible night? The two-fold pressure of Dillon pushing her to keep me writing books and my desire to move on?
My hands shook. I tucked them into my pockets. It was one thing to read about violence and scary happenings in novels. But to actually live through a near strangulation and stand across the kitchen from the unrepentant perp suddenly froze all my faculties.
"Yes, I know that's what we talked about," Virginia replied, "but you can't force her to do anything, Dillon. Not here in reality. She has to have some volition to keep writing."
"Vol-what?"
"Volition. Will power," Virginia said, without a trace of condescension. An admirable move, I thought, considering the physical advantage he had over us both.
They were speaking to each other as if I didn't exist. I wanted to be offended, but I could only focus on one single detail. I had to find a way to get Dillon out of the house, and quick. And if I couldn't get him out of the house, I had to get to my cell phone so I could text Ben and tell him to call the police.
"I'll write whatever you want," I said. Both looked at me. "I'll write it," I said in what I hoped was a believably casual tone of voice. Easy. And carnival sounds started ringing in my head. A heckler called out: Hey hey hey! You want a best seller? I got one right here for ya. Step right up. Step right up! "I mean, I'm already forty-five thousand words into the next installment. I can finish that up and Virginia and I can plan book three. No big deal." The dazzling frenzy of lights in Dillon’s eyes started fading. "All we need is for you to leave, Dillon. And you have my word."
It was a clumsy trap. I couldn't even play off Virginia because I didn't know whose side she was on.
"Forty-five thousand words?" Dillon asked dubiously. He looked at Virginia. "Is that, like, a whole book?"
"Typically ninety-thousand is a whole book,” she replied.
Dillon was dumb all right, but he was violent and irrational. I didn't want to raise suspicions, not sure what he would find suspicious. But he seemed to like my line about writing a bestseller—hey hey hey!—so I ventured carefully down that path. "I can finish up in two months tops. Maybe even sooner. I can start today."
My plan seemed to be working. Virginia, thankfully, seemed to be moving in the direction of shoe-horning him out of the front door. And once he crossed that hallowed threshold, the only place I would put my dedicated effort would be making sure he spent as much time as possible behind bars.
My cell phone rested on the counter about three feet from where Dillon stood. There was a clock on the microwave, but I prayed he wouldn't notice. "What time is it?" I asked rhetorically, and boldly moved across the kitchen toward my cell phone.
There it was, a mere two steps away, sitting on the counter. I focused on the black little lifebuoy like a drowning man adrift at sea. Two steps away. One. I reached for it—and Dillon snatched it away.
"It's five-forty," he said, slipping my phone in his front pocket. "Time to get started."
I suppressed an urge to demand my phone back. Who did he think he was? But I looked again in his dilated eyes, feeding off of my fear, and I realized exactly who he thought he was: a real live Teflon Tommy.
I'd read a book about a mafia contract killer a few months back when I was on a nonfiction binge, The Ice Man by Philip Carlo. I realized suddenly, irrevocably, that Richard Kuklinksi, the cold-blooded killer behind John Gotti's long bloody reign, bore eerie similarities to Dillon.
I didn't know Dillon's past or what sort of violent upbringing mangled his mind, but I wasn't sure I needed to know that. The similarities were more than enough for me. There was the same murderous gleam in his eyes, the same hair's trigger temper, and the same enjoyment of cool-blooded violence. It was entirely possible, I realized as my stomach roiled with fear, that Dillon could very well have an unconvicted murder to his name. Maybe more.
"Dillon," I began very slowly
, very gently, as if speaking to a person on the verge of a psychotic break, eyeing the intercom all the while. "Dillon, I think it's time for you to leave. What you've done is illegal. It's called assault and battery. But, I'm not interested in making life difficult for you." I started casually toward the intercom. There was a red panic button on the intercom. One push would summon the police, who would arrive in short order (because we were high paying customers) and find Dillon standing there with two eyewitnesses. Well, one anyway that would most heartily testify against him. "We can work out the details of book number two when we've all had a chance—"
His gaze flicked to the intercom.
He saw it. I saw it.
I bolted. He lunged.
I dashed to the little red panic button as if it was the last Messiah, stretching out my hand, index finger hungry for the point of impact. So close. Just a few more inches. And then—
I clattered painfully to the floor. Dillon wrapped his arms around my legs, worming himself on top of me.
I'd done some preliminary research about self-defense for my last book. I wanted to find some original ways to choreograph fights. I knew that a well-timed punch to the bridge of his nose could kill him instantly, hopefully. If I could just chop his neck on the side, I could incapacitate him.
But all logical thoughts fled under a hot surge of adrenaline. He worked his way higher and higher, impervious to my elbow blows raining down on him, impervious to my ill-timed kicks and bites, impervious to my panic-stricken struggling.
I heard Virginia’s shrill voice, "You said you wouldn’t hurt her!"
And then Dillon pinned me to the ground, stripped his leather belt from his waist, and slowly wrapped it around his fist, eyes glittering.
"Jinny!" I screamed, pissing my pants. "Jinny! Help me!"
Pain exploded across my temple and radiated down my face, jarring my vision. Dillon hit me again, a thundering right hook, somewhere on my head, somewhere I couldn't see, and then everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTY
A door slammed shut. I thought I could hear drilling, a blurry sound that lulled me back to watery unconsciousness. I could feel myself drifting just below the surface, and I wanted to stay there. I wanted to drown.
Sometime later, I heard the sound of doors slamming shut somewhere inside the house. I heard a distant scream. Finally, my eyes fluttered open.
At first, my vision was fuzzy. I could just make out some pink stripes on the ceiling. Exposed fiberglass, I realized. Slowly, I pushed myself up to sitting as the room swirled around me. I looked around, my heart sinking like a weighted corpse. I’d been dumped in the upstairs attic.
I fought an initial surge of outrage. Dumped in the attic like a piece of garbage! But a cold, hard realization snuffed out my fury. Dillon’s voice struck my mind like sledgehammer: I'm here to make sure you follow your heart all the way to The End.
I’d been relocated. Permanently.
I pressed my hand against my throbbing temple. With the other, I gently touched my lower lip, feeling the contours, trying to gauge the damage. It was swollen and painful all right. Slowly, I drew back my shaking fingertips and dared to look. There was light colored blood, nothing venous, and spittle. I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, feeling for loose ones. All present and accounted for.
Then I looked around at my new living quarters. Virginia and I called it the Dungeon because it had been partially finished by the previous occupant and, despite the one tiny dormer window, it was dark and dank.
It was also the dumping ground for all of our unwanted crap. Well, one man’s trash is a desperate man’s treasure. So I pulled in a big breath and struggled to my feet. I’m sure I could find something useful in the boxes of stuff that we’d carelessly tossed aside, something lifesaving.
Maybe I could find a pack of gum and some dental floss and rig up a gun like MacGyver. I opened the first box and found books, books, and more books. Maybe not.
The rest of the boxes were equally as disappointing. After I found a box of Mom’s old clothes that I’d carefully stored, I broke down in tears and closed the flaps. I didn’t have the strength to wander down Memory Lane. I didn’t have the strength to think about Mom.
Just to be sure, I checked the door and found it locked of course. The "window" didn’t matter. It could probably fit my arm through the opening, but nothing more. I lay down on a single mattress, arm slung over my forehead, and stared up at the half finished ceiling. Then I pulled a musty towel over my face, and willed myself to sleep.
During the first day of my incarceration, I decided to stubbornly bide my time, detailing my every grievance against Dillon and Virginia. Fuck him, I thought. And fuck her too! The pain of her betrayal seared so deeply in my heart. You said you wouldn’t hurt her! So my own sister had colluded with that psycho. My mind felt like it had turned to jelly. I could barely comprehend what evil tidings swirled around in my sister’s twisted head. She’s no sister of mine, I thought suddenly. She’s dead to me now.
Soon, I would find a way to push the panic button and summon the police. Soon, I would rid myself of the two terrible leeches. I lustily envisioned the day of their dual arrest and pictured in great detail the defeated hang-dog expression they would both wear in court, along with their baggy-ass jailhouse jumpsuits.
Dillon would be skinnier by the time sentencing rolled around, his carefully honed biceps deflated and small. The anvil weight of the justice system would weigh him down. He'd look weak and defeated. And he'd cry, oh yes. He would cry.
He would sob pathetically, pressing his dirty fingers against his eye sockets, when the judge's voice rang out in the courtroom, sentencing him to maximum security prison where he'd spend the rest of his life scrubbing toilets. Virginia too. She could scrub the urinals.
That juicy daydream seduced me wholly, occupying my mind for long hours that stretched before me. It became my sustenance, my reason to live, the proverbial fire in my belly that drove me to think of new ways to survive this terrible situation, to never give up.
They could keep me as a prisoner, but they could not make me write. My characters were loyal only to me. Falco had tucked away his wings. Rhenn had retracted his hollow incisors. Amelia and Maxim had retreated to their English countryside manor home, where they remained in respectful stasis, while I went into survival mode.
Soon Dillon and Virginia would relent, and we would discuss the terms of my release.
I would agree to anything Dillon demanded. Total silence? Absolutely. Won't go to the police? Never. Forget it ever happened? Already forgotten! And here I would smile a big shit-eating grin and offer a few words of sympathy. You didn't know what you were doing, did you? Yes, absolutely, drugs make you do crazy things. I forgive you both. I forgive you so much that it hurts, you piles of human excrement.
And across the forefront of my mind ran a news ticker. Absolute scum of the earth. Pathetic writhing meal worms.
I would put something in writing, because Dillon would be stupid enough to ask me to do it. The terms of my release, the exact legalese of which sent me off onto a fresh path of possibilities. Of course he would draft something up himself, written in his cramped spidery handwriting, barely legible, riddled with enough spelling mistakes to make my skin crawl.
He would pepper his missive with legal terms, which would only make his illiteracy stink all the more. I would suppress the urge to line out his badly constructed sentences. "I (insert name) do hereby promice to hold Dillon Thomas and Virginia Ward harmless of any and all grievanses . . ."
"Sign here, press hard," I said out loud, imagining him sliding the document my way. And I would smile, reassuring them that I'd already forgiven them—all water under the bridge—and I would never, ever, go to the police. No way! You stinking pile of human feces. You pathetic—
I heard footsteps outside the door. A shadow fell. Locks on the door rattled. I got up to my elbows, dread stirring in my guts. The door swung open.
Virgin
ia stood in the threshold, holding a tray. I got up to standing, but my knees weakened at the sight of her, and slowly I lowered myself back down onto the musty single mattress.
In my earlier days, I'd written a many clumsy scenes describing "lower mandibles gaping slightly from shock," but I had never experienced the slackening of my own jaw, that is, until I watched Virginia slowly cross the room and struggle to place a tray on an old rickety desk, one of her garage sale finds.
"Jinny?" I asked, afraid to go to her, afraid to touch her. "What happened to you . . ."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Virginia looked like Ben had on our first date, except her bruises weren't fake. Her lower lip was swollen and protruding. There was a bruised graze mark on her right cheek. I bought my trembling fingers up to my own cheekbone as if touching hers. Her left eye was swollen half shut. Her unharmed right eye telegraphed fear and dread.
"This is for you," she said, studiously keeping her back towards me.
I'd recovered somewhat from my shock. I rose to my feet and went to her, placing my hand on her shoulder. "Jinny? What did he do to you . . ."
She flinched when I touched her and tried to pull away. But I took her by the shoulders and turned her toward me. While she stared at the pea green carpet underneath our feet, silent tears slid down her pale cheeks. Her chin quivered.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
Stunned silence.
She shook her head slowly. "I deserve it. I deserve it all. I’m a stupid simpleton . . ."
"Jinny . . ."
But she seemed a lost in some revelation. "For anger slays the foolish, and jealousy . . . jealousy kills the simple . . ."
I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller Page 14