“I think you better had just to make up for your gerbil dick.”
“Maybe I’ll even invite the other lads too. What do you think? Would you like a nice, big reunion?”
“You just can’t move passed that failed rape in the alleyway, can you?”
“That afternoon would never have happened anyway if you had just chosen me in the beginning over McKenzie.”
Anger and disbelief swirled through Jaxxon. “What?”
“You knew I wanted you, you knew -”
“Hang on a minute, at what point did our roles reverse and you became the victim?”
“You chose him!” he shouted, spittle shooting out of his mouth. “You looked down on me!”
“Oh you can stop right there with that talk! No way am I letting you blame me for what you tried to do to me back then. You did that because you wanted to. It was never that you wanted me. No, you didn’t want a girlfriend. You wanted me crying in pain while you forced me to do whatever you wanted. And that’s because you’re a sick twat.”
A smirk spread across Sean’s face as he watched her steady herself at the edge of the hole. She’d be able to see now what he already knew; there was an almost identical hole in the floor below, as if something extremely heavy had once crashed through both floors. She wasn’t going anywhere and she knew it. He cracked his knuckles. “Just think, I’m about to finally get what I’ve been wanting.” He was expecting a snarl, he got a smile. “Something amusing about that?”
“It’s just that I haven’t the faintest idea why you would think you’re getting what you want.”
When she peered down at the drop he understood. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t pick the coward’s way out.”
“It’s not about being a coward. It’s about bringing a dramatic early end to your plan. If falling to my death means I get to stop you from having what you want, I’ll happily do it.”
No, it couldn’t be happening again. He couldn’t stand this feeling of being so close but so bloody far. She was right there…He finally had her. No, he wasn’t going to let her rob him of this. Not a chance would he let her.
He abruptly reached out to grab Jaxxon, but he hadn’t known a few things. He hadn’t known that she was expecting this, that this was what she wanted him to do, that she in fact had no intention of leaping to her death. And there was something else: Sean hadn’t known what had happened with Matthew. Every time Matthew had touched her he’d tied her hands behind her back first. She’d never been able to figure out whether that was a precaution or if he’d just liked it that way, but Jaxxon had hated that feeling of being totally helpless. She’d learnt over time how to untie that knot, but never had she freed her hands; it hadn’t been that she intended to fight back, it had been that she then had that small knowledge that she wasn’t helpless. It helped remind her that she was allowing it to happen, she was doing it for Annie. But right now the only person she had to protect was herself.
Her movements were just as quick as his: she flung out her arms like they were wings and sharply sprung to the side. As she’d hoped, he lost his balance and fell flat on his stomach; leaving from his head to halfway down his torso dangling over the hole. He dropped the knife and it fell through the hole and hit the floor below with a clang. He could have easily slid himself backwards out of harm’s way…if Jaxxon hadn’t sat on his legs, keeping a firm grip on him.
“Now I haven’t seen this film,” she said. “Usually the victim makes a run for it when she gets her opening, doesn’t she? Then the killer chases her and eventually closes in on her, delivering the killing blow.”
Sean attempted to struggle, trying to buck her off him, but then stopped abruptly when the floorboards beneath him creaked.
“I don’t feel like running, Sean. I ran last time and look what happened. You came after me. How old was I back then, fourteen? Is that how old all the other girls were? Or were they even younger like your daughter?”
He grunted when she dug her fingers into his legs. “Get off me!”
“Hurting any kid is vile but your own daughter, Sean…How could you do it?”
“Get off me!”
“Shall I tell you how? Because you’re certifiably evil. Oh I’m not saying you were born evil. No, because that would be the same as saying that you can’t help the things you do and that it’s part of your make-up. No, you’re evil because you choose to do such cruel, disgusting things.”
He gritted his teeth against the pain of the cracked floorboard digging into his chest. “Get off me you bitch!”
“Are you sure you want me to do that? There’s a good chance that if I do you’ll topple to your death.”
“Get off me!”
“Doesn’t feel good being helpless, does it?” she growled. “It turns out you’re not so big and bad without your knife.”
“You bitch! I’m going to f**king kill you!”
“You know, that’s really not the way to get in my good books and make me consider letting you up and, thereby, live. I could so easily shove you down that hole and you know it.”
He sniggered. “You wouldn’t kill me. You’re a lot of things, Jaxxon -”
“Oh you mean like a slut, a bitch, a slag -”
“- but you haven’t got it in you to take someone’s life.”
“Maybe you’re right. But then maybe you’re not.”
“If I were you I’d run so far so fast -”
“How can you not realise how ridiculous you sound threatening me right now?” She dug her fingers into his legs again, wrenching another grunt from him. She could tell he was in some serious pain. He was shaking from the effort to keep his upper body from dangling, and his hands were bleeding from where he was clinging to the broken, spikey boards. “Would you like me to move off you so you can get up? I’ll want something from you.”
“Oh yeah?” he snickered.
“Yeah, I’ll need you to apologise to me for everything you’ve done.”
“Fuck you.”
“Sorry, that plan’s already been foiled. Let’s instead hear you say a great, big sorry.”
His words came out through gritted teeth. “Get off me, bitch!”
Jaxxon sighed loudly. “This is very disappointing. But you know, Sean, even if you were sorry and I genuinely believed that you’d never, ever, ever hurt another kid ever again, that you’d never take another girl’s innocence away, that you’d never beat up or rape another woman or hurt any human being ever again…it just wouldn’t be bloody good enough.” She punctuated that by digging her fingers into his legs again.