He grabbed her hair in one hand, twisting it so hard the chair tilted onto the two back legs. Perfect position for gravity to help her when she was ready to make her move. His body slithered up hers, between her legs, pressing against her until his face was directly above hers, staring down into her eyes. “Clint said you were still a virgin. Said as far as he knew, you’d never even been kissed.”
He slammed his lips against hers. His hand with the knife he kept between them, sliding the blade up and down her sweater. He pulled harder on her hair, forcing a gasp from her, and thrust his tongue into her mouth.
Morgan closed her eyes. He saw that as a sign of surrender and clamped his mouth over hers with bruising force. Her back was arched so far the chair began to teeter. She snapped her wrists outward, breaking the zip ties, and wiggled the fragment of saw blade so that the sharp, hooked end now faced out between her fingers.
Pete deepened the kiss, practically choking her with his tongue, forcing her head back even farther. She relaxed, letting her head roll to the side, freeing herself long enough to take a breath.
He laughed and sheathed his knife, using that hand to squeeze her cheeks and force her to face him again while his other hand twisted her hair with cruel abandon. He was totally off balance, one knee halfway up her thigh, the other foot planted on the floor, holding her weight and the chair upright, still tipped on the back two legs.
She made a small noise, one that he mistook for pleasure as he probed her mouth even farther, his tongue almost gagging her. The movement finally put him right where she wanted him, exposing his throat.
With one swift movement she whipped her hand up and plunged the steel into the back of his neck. Simultaneously, she gnashed her teeth, biting through his flesh, tearing into his tongue and lower lip, shaking her head to do as much damage as possible before she released it.
He made a noise that would have been a scream if not for the blood gushing from his mouth and the fact that most of his tongue was gone. He didn’t even remember to grab for the knife as he arched back, fighting to get free of her embrace.
Which only impaled the serrated teeth of the broken blade deeper. She released him, shoved him back, sending her chair to the floor but she rolled her body free before it hit the ground. Now both his hands were flailing at the back of his head, trying to reach the saw blade, as he staggered away from her. His face was contorted with pain and horror, blood flying through the air with every gasp and gurgle.
Morgan spat out his tongue and part of his lip then lunged at him with a snarl. She launched a kick to his groin that dropped him to his knees, followed by another to his gut that lifted him back into the air before he fell facedown to the floor.
She jumped onto his back, grabbing his hair, twisting his head back at an unnatural angle, ready to tear out his jugular with her teeth, when through the roaring in her head, she heard a voice.
Micah. Shouting. “Morgan. Stop. He’s done. Just stop.”
Looking up, she saw herself reflected in Micah’s expression. He wore the same look of horror her father’s victims had when they realized the truth of who Clinton Caine really was: a monster.
“Morgan. It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt anyone. Just let him go now.” He spoke slowly, carefully, as if scared she’d turn on him next.
She felt her hands choking the life from Pete, felt his body go limp beneath hers, and she didn’t want to stop. She knew what came next, that delicious rush of power that came from taking a life. God, how she missed that.
But the way Micah looked at her. No. She couldn’t do it. Not with him watching. Because his expression had changed. From horror to disappointment. And she couldn’t bear that.
She wrenched her hands free and rolled off Pete’s unconscious body. Blood had spewed everywhere: over him, over her, over the floor, walls, ceiling, painting the sawdust crimson.
Pete made small, primal noises of pain as his body shuddered and twitched. He wasn’t going anywhere. If he didn’t bleed out through his mouth, her blade had most likely pierced his spinal cord. A lethal blow, once he could no longer use his muscles to expand his chest. Same way they killed frogs in grade school biology, only Morgan hadn’t perfected her technique on frogs.
Pushing herself to her feet, she stood, grabbed Pete’s knife, and approached Micah. “Let me get you down from there.”
He nodded wordlessly, his gaze tracking her movement and the knife. “What you did—”
Her ice-cold fury melted into puddles of lonely dismay sloshing through her veins. For the first time, he’d seen her for who she really was, he knew the full truth.
She moved behind him so he wouldn’t see her face. “You’re disgusted. It’s okay. It’s normal.”
And normal was something Morgan clearly was not. She climbed onto a sawhorse and cut him down. He bent over, massaging his wrists, then turned to her. She should have just run, slipped out and left him, but she couldn’t deny herself one last look.