Running Game(177)

I had made it my stone.

It had kept me hanging on.

Roger was the demon from my past, threatening to engulf me again. If I was a fallen, burning Angel, casting myself down into the dirt from the life Trent tried to show me, then he was Satan himself.

The words came back, whispered into my soul.

I will be no burning Angel.

My eyes focused onto his, unwilling to lose to him. I could barely form the thoughts, but they came, pushing through the darkness. No matter what he might do to me – what he might take from me – he was not going to have my soul.

Maybe Trent would have deserved it. He’d pulled me up from the shattered, meaningless life I’d been living. Maybe he would have changed. He had the capacity for kindness and generosity, deep inside that arrogant mind of his.

But I’d fled the safety of his arms, because I thought I was bringing him down… but also because I knew I didn’t deserve it. Because I didn’t want him to have that kind of power over me, neither him nor anyone else.

What had that gotten me?

I’d been trapped here, with my mortal enemy. But now, even though my body’s sluggishness was going to betray me, I knew more than ever that I would never give in.

I will be no burning Angel.

“How much do you remember, sweetheart?” Roger asked, carefully watching me and grinning ear to ear.

“Stay… Stay away…” I managed to barely murmur, the words sounding far less coherent as they left my throat. “You can’t… I won’t let you…”

He laughed heartily.

Of course I didn’t have any control here.

That didn’t mean that I’d go down without a fight. Even if I didn’t have an ounce of strength in my veins, I’d resist whatever vile things my stepfather had in mind… I would never give in.

“Don’t worry,” Roger said, reaching out to the little table next to the recliner. He lifted up the bottle of pills mother had given me, glancing at it and giving it a little shake. “When I’m done tonight, you won’t remember anything ever again.”

Something snapped inside me. I couldn’t move… I couldn’t fight him… but I channeled every last drop of resistance I had into my final act of defiance.

I did the only thing I could… I screamed.





33





Trent





Without a second of hesitation, I threw my weight into the door, tearing it free from its rotten hinges in a burst of splinters and debris.

There she was. Angel was looking up at me from the floor with wide, glazed eyes full of surprise and sudden recognition. Her scream had been cut short by my sudden arrival, but a new sound had risen up in its place.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The voice was cold and fierce, but as I turned, the man who spoke them looked neither of those things. He was older and frail, but Old Greg had been wise enough to give me a physical description of Angel’s monster. Without another word, I knew what a piece of shit I was staring at.

“Hello, Roger,” I grit my teeth.

Confused and furious, he tried to clamor to his feet from the recliner. I was faster, knocking his ass straight back into the chair. With his filthy, oily head slumped to the side, Roger was out like a goddamned light.

He deserved worse. It took every last ounce of self-control to resist snapping his thin little neck in front of her.

“Get up, Angel. We’re getting out of here,” I said, looking back to my girl against the floor. She didn’t respond or make any move to climb to her feet.

“…Angel?”

Something was very, very wrong.

Angel was mumbling to herself as I kneeled down next to her. I could already see that she was a pale reflection of her former self… as if the life had been sucked out of her.

“What the hell did they do to you?” I questioned, hauling her up into my arms. Her limp, dead weight brought my rising worry to new, horrified levels.

Angel’s head rolled to the side, but she weakly shrugged her shoulder to the side. When she did it again, moving her head with the motion, I followed the direction to the bottle of pills.

They fucking drugged her.

“Stay with me. I’m getting you out of here.”

I thought quickly, deciding I’d need to show this bottle to someone. Maybe I could get her a counteracting agent if she didn’t pull back from this soon… and it would certainly give us ammunition against her parents.

We can cross that bridge when we come to it.

She smiled weakly as I snatched up the pills, then walked her out to the bike and secured her on the back of the seat. My suspicions were confirmed as I held her steady – there was no way in hell that she’d be able to hang on. Improvising, I pulled my belt off and used it to strap her tighter against the backrest. Climbing on, I fired up the machine and felt her grip me weakly.