Twist My Heart by Brooke Taylor (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

doing this all wrong. I’m beginning to wonder if you were really even there.”

“I said, shut up!” He rashly shoved Aimee to the side, discarding her. The force of his thrust propelled her into the wall with a heartbreaking thud. But at least she was away from him. If only she’d take the opportunity to run, get the hell away from this cabin and this demented man, go for help. But she was frozen in fear, burrowing into the corner, blood still seeping from her arm.

Clay seized me. “You’re right, we’re deviating from the past. This time it’s only you and me. The way it should’ve been in the first place.”

He lunged for me, grappling with my body, gripping at my jeans as he tried to remove them. I squeezed my bound legs together, making it harder for him.

My heart slammed to a stop as his hand slipped into my front pocket.

“What’s this?” His body stilled as his fingers coiled around my last hope—Nik’s knife.

“I always knew you would be fun to play with.” He tossed the knife aside, leaning in close to whisper, “But let’s play with my toys first. Don’t want our games ending too quickly.”

Clay’s weight jammed me into the mattress, his hands bruising as he grabbed at my clothes. Bound as I was, I managed to knee and kick at him enough to prevent him from doing much more. With a jerk, he flipped me. My face and upper body were shoved into the old bedding and my lungs filled with dust.

On my belly and bent over the bed’s edge, my eyes were level with Nik’s knife where Clay had tossed it onto the bedside table. With my hands behind my back, I would never be able to reach for it. I eyed Aimee in the corner and motioned with my face for her to grab it. She turned her cheek away from me, her eyes squeezed shut, her lips moving as if in prayer.

This was how I would die. How Nik would find me.

Clay laughed as his finger sloppily mashed the slick streams of tears, swirling them playfully on my cheek. He sucked the salty remains from his fingers. “There’s the girl I remember so well.”

The success in breaking me invigorated him. He yanked at my jeans, working them over my hips as his fingers dug into my skin. My bound hands clutched my back pockets, but it wouldn’t be long before the tightly pinched denim would give. I fought against every slipping inch and he enjoyed every second of it, knowing he’d win.

I filled my mind with darkness. Dark as the blackest night sky. I went behind the moon where it was as cold as the snow in the mountains where Nik had taken me. Where there were so many flecks of light, so many stars infinitely spreading into the universe like they had from up on the boulders above Estes. I reached out, wanting to be far, far away. The heaviness holding me here to this earth, gone. I floated, flying.

Wait… The weight holding me down was literally gone. A horrifying groan ripped through my ears. My eyelids sprang up. Nik’s knife wasn’t on the bedside table, Aimee wasn’t in the corner, and Clay’s body was off of me. I rolled over as Clay reared back in pain, clutching his bleeding neck.

Aimee delivered blow after blow until he wheeled, turning his fury once again toward her. Darkening spots grew on the back of his shirt, but the wounds didn’t look imminently fatal. Most were in the muscles of his shoulders, but his breath wheezed and gurgled as if she’d managed to nick his lung.

He staggered toward her. The cabin was too small for her to escape.

Bound as I was, I helplessly watched him lunge for her. With a shaky slash she caught him under the chin, right across the throat. But the blade only lanced off his thick larynx, angering him more.

“Use both hands,” I called out. She gripped the knife as instructed and as he lunged for her again, she struck. This time she caught both his carotid artery and the jugular vein. He careened forward, falling hard into the coffee table with gruesome thud.

Aimee scrambled around his body and raced to me, the bloody knife still clutched in her right hand. She straddled over me as I angled, giving her access to cut my hands free. We were both shaking so bad, it was a challenge for her to safely slice the ties.

My eyes flashed to Clay. A sick smile splayed across his face. His eyes wide with life. “Hurry, he’s not dead.”

Aimee, not paying attention to Clay, struggled to cut the tie at my wrists. “Stay still.”

He crawled across the floor toward us. “I’ll take you to her,” he threatened as he came ever closer. With a large hand, he reached over the wood floors, grabbing my ankle. A scream ripped from my throat.

“It’s me!” Aimee rose up. The binding at my ankles cut free. She gripped my shoulders. “He’s dead, Thea. He can’t hurt you.”

My eyes refocused on Clay, slumped across the coffee table. The sick smile I’d caught was the gaping wound at his throat. His eyes were wide open, but dead.

A loud noise fired off as the cabin door flew open, startling us both. Nik cleared the threshold. His eyes flicked to Clay’s lifeless body and then to us. Instead of appearing relieved, he continued to stride forward with his pistol aimed at Aimee.

Realizing she still grasped had the bloody knife in her hand, I spun, shielding her with my body. “Don’t shoot her. She saved me,” I kept repeating as we slid from the bed’s edge to huddle on the floor.

Nik holstered his gun, skidding to his knees alongside of us. We looked a mess, blood coating us both from the wound on her arm. Reaching in to separate me from Aimee, he commanded, “Let me see how bad it is.”

“I’m okay. It’s not my blood.