67
At college orientation, the dorm coordinator had passed out rape whistles to all the incoming freshman girls. Sporting a cheery gap-toothed smile and meaty forearms, she’d placed the whistle in Victoria’s hand.
“You never know when you’ll need it,” she’d said. As if it were a given. As if no matter what choices she made, there would always be danger.
Victoria didn’t have the wherewithal to ponder the implications of that memory, but it flashed through her mind all the same as Teagan lunged at her, the tip of the knife just missing her shoulder.
Laughter bubbled inside her chest, so sure she’d been that Teagan would pull away at the last minute. Teagan wouldn’t stab her, that little voice in the back of her head insisted. They were sisters—like that word meant something. Another voice, however, a smarter, darker voice, registered the brutality in Teagan’s expression and ordered her to move.
She sidestepped and cut around the counter. Teagan reared back and swung again. Victoria tucked her arms against her body, the brush of air warm on her face.
Teagan didn’t speak, the same determined glare on her face as she pursued Victoria. Victoria dodged forward, using the counter as a buffer. It wouldn’t last long. Even in childhood games of tag, they’d been evenly matched. The merry-go-round effect would falter, one of them making the first real move.
This was a precursor to the main event, Victoria realized, and Teagan smiled as if she could hear her thoughts.
“Put the knife down,” Victoria said.
“Make me.”
“Teagan.” She whipped the blade again, narrowly missing Victoria’s forearm. “Teagan, just—Jesus, just stop.”
“No.” They rotated again, Teagan blocking the exit. “We’ve got two options here. One,” she said, swiping across the island and chuckling when Victoria grunted avoiding the blow, “you stop being a baby and help get rid of Meyers, give me the papers so I can get the money, and both of us live happily ever after.” Slice. “Or two, you decline my generous offer and put yourself on the losing team.”
Slice.
The blade snagged on Victoria’s arm. A tear appeared in the gray cotton fabric of Warren’s sweatshirt. She hissed, a reflex more than anything, and watched a thin red line blossom on her skin. The pain came next but was overshadowed when Teagan hacksawed the air, capitalizing on the momentum.
Victoria clamped the wound, backpedaling blindly into the far counter. “You cut me.”
“Extremes are kind of my thing,” Teagan said.
Victoria had a clear but narrow chance as Teagan went on the offensive, and she took it. She bolted into the living room, searching for a weapon to protect herself. Unless she was planning on papercutting Teagan into submission, the books wouldn’t work.
No matter what, she couldn’t leave. The front door was right there, but Victoria discounted it immediately. She wouldn’t be able to explain Meyers’s predicament to anyone before Teagan covered her own tracks. Probably set it up so that Victoria took the fall. She could see it clearly: the rescue squad blasting into the apartment with a power kick and arsenal. Meyers, already dead in a pool of her own blood. Teagan, severely injured but still able to point a bloody finger.
Maybe she could prove herself innocent of Warren’s murder, but there would be no way to defend herself against that.
She’d been right all along.
This would only end in death—for one or both of them.