The Darkness Within

Chapter Forty Three

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Chapter Forty Three

The entire front of my body is pressed tightly against the brick wall by the man behind me, preventing me from kicking out. He wrenches my arms behind my back before I can use my fist to crush his balls, and slams my front into the wall twice. My head bounces off the brick the second time, sending stars exploding across my vision and muddling my senses even further. A trickle of wetness, probably blood, runs down my forehead. The ringing in my ears from earlier returns with a vengeance, and a bone-deep lethargy sweeps over me. If I didn't have a concussion to add to my list of injuries before, I certainly do now, and it's a nasty one if my spinning head is of any indication.

As though under a layer of water, I hear the guard mutter, "That's better."

Keeping my arms in one of his hands, he uses the other to yank the gun out of the back of my waistband with a barked laugh. I rest my forehead against the brick, trying to regain my bearings and blink the black spots out of my vision. I know I need to run and fight, but right now my only desire is to pass out and sleep away the worst of my wounds.

Unfortunately, I know that isn't an option. It's kill or be killed, and no matter how beaten down I am, I refuse to be the one in the ground at the end of this. Still, I am in no position to take a grown man in a fight right now, which means that once again I need to trust my brains to get me out of this situation. The only problem with that is my head feels like it's stuffed full of cotton, and I'm honestly not sure how much longer I can stay upright.

That thought gives me an idea. I go entirely limp against the guard, as though I've passed out, and he lets out a grunt of irritation before stepping back and letting me fall to the ground. It takes every ounce of my remaining willpower not to shout or recoil at the agony; the fall exasperates my growing number of injuries, the pain so acute that nausea sweeps through my entire body.

I hear the last remaining guard pace away from me and crack open one eye. He's faced away from me, pulling a cellphone out of his pocket and dialing it. Although he divested me of all the weapons he could see and feel, he didn't take away the one that started this entire escapade; the scissors in my bra. Although there's no way I'll get to my feet in my current state to slit his throat like I did my uncle, there are other vulnerable points in the body, and a severed artery will kill a person in seconds, regardless of which artery is severed.

I force myself to think back to the anatomy and physiology courses I took in college, while slowly and silently reaching up and retrieving the scissors from their hiding place. The guard is faced away from me, muttering on the phone to whoever's on the other end of the line.

Femoral artery in the thigh. Too high for me to reach, but I could reach the back of his knee, where the femoral artery branches into popliteal artery. I'll have to slice deep and with a lot of force—something I'm not quite sure I have the strength to manage to do, but there isn't another choice. Either I muster the strength or succumb to a dismal fate.

When I see the guard turning to pace in my direction, I use my fingers to shove the scissors in my sleeve, out of his sight, and promptly shut my eyes. He ends the call, strolls over to me, and I hear him crouch down beside me, making my task a hell of a lot easier. I barely keep from flinching when he fingers a piece of my hair.

He mutters, "The bitches are always easier to handle when they're passed out."

His words send a rage so acute coursing through me that it's accompanied by a rush of adrenaline. He's just confirmed that he's had a very close hand in the sex trafficking aspect of my uncle's and Damien's business, making him the most reprehensible sort of person that exists; one who preys on the weak.