Pretend You're Mine(100)
She heard more screams and barely recognized that they were coming from her own throat. She wasn’t scared. She was enraged.
Harper threw an elbow over her shoulder that connected with his face, but he didn’t drop the knife.
Suddenly it seemed like every light in the house came on and Sophie and Hannah barreled in from the hallway. Sophie was wielding a baseball bat. Harper couldn’t see where the first blow landed, but the satisfying crunch told her it was somewhere crucial.
Glenn howled like a feral animal and brought the knife to Harper’s face. She froze. The tip of the blade trailed down her cheek. It scratched a shallow path in her jaw before coming to rest against the delicate skin of her throat.
She felt her blood pumping through her system. Saw Lola try to right herself. Heard Glenn’s snarl in her ear. Felt the blade prick her skin. This couldn’t be how it ended.
Then bare feet were sailing over the hardwood past her and there was a clanging crunch. Glenn’s weight went limp on top of her.
Everyone was screaming at once.
“Get him off me!” Harper groaned. “He’s crushing me.”
Lola crawled over to Harper and licked her nose. “My sweet girl,” Harper whispered. Lola’s rear end wiggled.
Gloria and Hannah shoved Glenn’s dead weight off of her and Harper could breathe again. She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling as Lola nuzzled her ear.
“Tape him up!” Sophie ordered. Hannah straddled Glenn and wrapped camo duct tape around his wrists.
“Get it up higher into his arm hair,” Gloria suggested, her breath coming in short gasps.
Harper rolled to face her. Gloria was leaning against the staircase in her plaid pajama shorts clutching Luke’s cast iron skillet.
The first giggle slipped out and there was no stopping it.
It was contagious. Her friends slid to the floor in a loose pile, shaking with laughter and adrenaline.
Lola limped over, pausing to lick each one, reassuring herself that they were all okay.
The front door exploded off of its hinges and crashed to the floor, narrowly missing Sophie. Ty and Aldo tumbled through the opening. Ty’s gun was drawn and Aldo had blood in his eye.
“You could have come in through the window,” Harper said.
It was silent for exactly two seconds before the girls exploded in peals of hysterics again.
***
The pizza arrived at the same time the cops did. Harper took the food and sent the delivery guy back for four more pizzas to feed all the extra company.
Between the cops, the pizza, and the neighbors, Harper knew the news was all over town by now.
Glenn was once again cuffed and carted off to the hospital for what held the promise of a massive concussion.
No one wanted to leave Harper alone for the night so Aldo and Ty decided to join the sleepover, and an hour later, Hannah’s husband, Finn arrived with his sleeping bag and fishing gear.
“I can’t leave you girls alone for an hour without someone getting arrested,” he teased, wrapping them both in a bear hug.
Ty called an emergency vet from the next town over, and one of the veterinarians made a house call in her pajamas to check on Lola, who was deemed the hero of the night.
“She’s going to be sore for a couple of days, but there’s no breaks. She’s a tough little girl, aren’t you sweetie?”
Lola ate it up and rolled onto her back to bare her belly while Max danced in circles around them. The vet gave Harper a bottle of pain meds and told her to keep Lola away from any strenuous activity for a few days.
As the police were wrapping up their interviews, Frank and a full crew of Garrison guys showed up with plywood to cover the door and broken window.
“We’ll be back in the morning to get measurements and order new glass,” Frank said, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Thanks for the pizza. Try not to let any more maniacs in the house.”
Everyone made the necessary calls to the appropriate relatives letting them know they were all safe. Harper could imagine the story spreading like wildfire through Benevolence. Tomorrow there would probably be paparazzi from the high school paper on the lawn.
They traded versions of the break in.
When Harper had hung up with Ty, he had sped over to Gloria’s apartment. Finding nothing, he sent an officer to Gloria’s mother’s house and headed straight to Harper’s. He and Aldo had pulled in the driveway at the same time and bolted for the door when they heard the screams.
When Harper yelled for everyone to get out, Hannah had ushered little Max into the basement while Sophie and Gloria ran for weapons.
They converged in the hallway for the ultimate beat down. Gloria had hit Glenn once in the face, knocking him out instantaneously.
“It was so weird. It was like he didn’t even see me,” she said. “He was so intent on you and that knife, Harper.” She shivered and Aldo pulled her into his chest.