“Shut up,” a male voice hissed by her ear. “Just shut the fuck up. I’ll let you go soon, you just have to shut up and stay here awhile.”
Levi. She was 90 percent sure. Between the slender body being pressed up against her and the voice, she would have bet Zach’s tiny college fund on it. She shook her head, trying to tell him who she was, trying to tell him about the fire, trying to get any words out, but he only squeezed her jaw until it hurt.
“Fucking shut up. God, you’re as bad as them. We’re just going to wait until this pile has burned, then we can go out and you can go on your way.”
He’d started the fire? Deliberately? Inside? What the hell was the matter with him? He had to be crazy. She couldn’t tell what exactly the fire was feeding on, but it grew quickly, growing fast, burning in a blackening cardboard box that was surrounded by nothing else on the concrete ground. She was no Smokey the Bear, but even she knew this wasn’t a fail-safe way to contain the flames. Crazy Pants apparently didn’t know that. Or maybe didn’t care . . .
And it was getting hotter. Perspiration beaded her forehead. Behind his smothering hand, it was harder to catch a breath. “Please,” she moaned, though the word was garbled, nearly inaudible.
“Please? Please what? Let you go? Did the Marines let my brother go when he wanted to get out? No, they recalled him. They killed him. They murdered my brother. Why would I let you go?” His voice was low, and as she twisted just a little, she could see him staring intently at the fire, as if needing to see every last bit turn to ash.
“They’re all assholes. All of them. They’ve made Nikki and I feel like nobodies, looking down on us. Hell, your own boyfriend screamed at her, and then turned her in for that stupid prank. Just a prank!”
His hand tightened reflexively, and she squeaked.
“I’m not like them. I don’t kill. I show mercy. But mercy and forgiveness aren’t the same thing, are they? Sometimes, you have to pay for your mistakes before you can be forgiven. Little ways, you know?”
She wriggled a little, testing his hold. He cinched his arm tighter, but she instinctively fought harder, clawing at his arm now in an attempt to find one millisecond of weakness she could break out of. Then he moved up to grip under her chin. His forearm cut into her windpipe, making the effort to breathe around his hand almost impossible. She quit struggling in order to save her breath.
“Yeah, you’ll calm down. If they don’t have uniforms, they can’t compete, right? That’ll hurt. They should have disbanded already. I don’t know why they kept going. The MPs are idiots. Taking Nikki away. She’s innocent!” he said in a guttural voice, and he squeezed with the final word. “One more mistake.”
Seeing stars, Kara knew even if he didn’t intend to, he’d suffocate her. The air was too close. Too thick now. She wouldn’t make it. Weak with lack of oxygen, she went completely lax against him, which forced his hold to shift just enough that she swung her arms back and dug her thumbs into his eyes. Or as close to his eyes as she could reach. Simultaneously, she arched her back away and swung her heel up between them, aiming for his crotch.
Thank you, yoga, for giving me this range of motion.
She missed the crotch, but landed a solid blow somewhere on his inner thigh. And he let go enough that she could fall to her knees and crawl for the door. He lunged for her, landing on top of her and flattening her to the cool concrete of the storage room.
Opening her mouth, Kara fought to scream, but choked on a cough instead.
Gotta get out. Gotta get to the fresh air.
Hysterically, she thought she’d never before considered the stale, humid air of a gym to be fresh before. But she’d have given everything she had for one gulp of it now.
She bucked and fought, rolling with Levi for every inch. Boxes rained down around them, some on top of them. Her temple hit the metal edge of something and she retched, stomach heaving from the pain. But she kept fighting, even as her lungs burned and her limbs weakened.
And from the corner of her eye, she saw the flames rising higher.
*
“WHERE the hell are the uniforms?” Tressler walked back out of the locker room, nearly bashing Greg in the head with the door as he shoved out. “Do you guys know where they are?”
Greg looked at Brad and Graham, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I put mine in the hamper last night to be laundered, just like they said.”
Graham looked around, wondering who actually did the laundering. “I’ll ask Coach.”
“We better find them soon. I’m third up, and I can’t go out there in my damn underwear.” Tressler stormed back in with a scowl. Brad rolled his eyes, shook his head and went to Marianne’s training room. He wouldn’t fight until last and had plenty of time to kill.
Graham was toward the middle of the day, with another potential match later in the evening if his first was a win. He jogged over to where Coach Cartwright and Coach Ace stood, heads together, discussing something.