AT FIRST I wasn’t sure where I was. I was only distantly aware that I was moving. Or being moved, that was more like it. I could feel a burning wetness on my cheek, and my limbs throbbed. Colors wiggled and hopped inside my head, a shifting kaleidoscope of confusion. My side split with fire every time I breathed in. I pressed my arm into my ribs and nearly shrieked as they thunked and crunched together in an unnatural way. My other arm found its way to my head, which was foggy and disoriented.
“Get your things,” I heard. A command, but I wasn’t sure what things I was supposed to get. “I’ll take care of this and then we’ll go.”
I opened my eyes, and that was when everything started coming together again. I was being pulled by my feet, the back of my head sliding on tile. A stainless steel refrigerator hummed by my ear. When I turned my head to look at it, the surface was a shifting checkerboard of neon green and orange, the squares trading places over and over again. I closed my eyes and opened them again. The person dragging me had silver hair and was wearing a ring that glinted in the shadows.
“Okay,” a female voice said. “I’ll be ready. Make it fast.”
All at once I understood what was going on. Bill Hollis wasn’t commanding me to get ready. I was what he was going to take care of first.
He was going to kill me.
Come on, Nikki, move. Gunner’s voice in my head. Defend. Get to where you can fight.
That meant I had to get up.
Summoning all the strength I had, I pulled my right foot free of his grasp and kicked at his knees, one, two, three times. On the third, I connected, eliciting a growl. He let go of my other foot and stumbled backward. My opportunity.
Clumsily, I pulled myself to standing, still pressing my arm into my ribs. My head ached and my eyes swam, and I could only take shallow breaths. I couldn’t focus on anything other than what I was doing, except I was aware that Bill Hollis was coming toward me again. I backed up until the small of my back hit the kitchen counter, and then I turned and scrambled for a weapon, blearily peering through my out-of-control colors. My hands landed on the knife block I’d seen when I’d first come in. I grabbed the first one I could get to and held it up in front of me.
“Get away from me,” I said, my voice coming out breathy and scratchy.
I saw a flash of teeth. The man was actually smiling. “You’re an intruder,” he said. “A stalker. You had a weapon. I was scared for my life.”
He lunged toward me and I swung the knife at him. He dropped back, just barely missing the blade, and then came at me again, his hands outstretched to grab me.
I swung the knife again, this time making contact, slicing deep through one of his palms. He roared—a bellow that cleared my head a bit—and I instantly heard the patter of blood hitting the tile floor. I swiped again, this time catching his other forearm. He stumbled away from me, staring at his palm in shock. Do what you know to do, Nikki, I thought. I threw a front kick, closing my eyes from the pain that wrenched up through my knee with the movement. I connected somewhere solid—his upper chest, maybe. He let out a strangled cry and then went down, his head hitting the marble counter on the way. He was out.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen, panting shallowly, watching him, my hand still gripping the knife so tight it was cramping, my hair stuck to the side of my face with drying blood.
I had to get out of here.
I would have to go the long way around, unless I wanted to step over him, which I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if I’d have the strength to fend him off if he were to grab my leg a second time.
But I had only taken two steps when I heard a scream to my side. I barely had time to react before Vanessa Hollis came barreling in from the living room, holding a brass statue in both hands. She said nothing intelligible—only that primal scream—as she came at me with it, swinging it down from over her head just as I had brought the paving stone down on the doorknob earlier.
I lifted my arm to block the blow, the crash making my entire arm instantly numb, my entire field of vision flash green. My fingers let go of the knife. It clattered to the ground, skittering away to where I could no longer see it. I cried out in pain, holding my throbbing arm.
Ignore the colors, Nikki. Put them out of your mind.
I glanced up, and Vanessa was still coming at me with the statue. All I could think was cover your ribs, cover your ribs, cover your ribs. Holding one arm tight over my broken ribs, and the other up in defense mode, I bent my knees and waited for her, pulling up one knee at just the right moment to connect with her stomach.
Vanessa Hollis flew back, landing on her butt, coughing and gagging from the wind being knocked out of her. Go, Nikki, my brain told me. Get out.
But I had only turned halfway when Vanessa let out a yell. “You nosy bitch!” She threw the statue, and it hit me in the temple. I reeled, my vision going swimmy again, my head bursting with fireworks of pain. I felt warmth trickle down my ear, and when I touched where the statue had connected, my hand came away dark with blood.
Unbelievably, Vanessa was pulling herself up and coming at me again. I only had just enough time to sink back into my fighting stance, letting my training take over. As soon as she was close enough, I shin-kicked her to the knee and then pulled my arm back to use a technique Gunner had only shown me once and I’d never had a chance to try in practice—an ear slap. I cupped my hand and let it fly, catching her squarely over her right ear.
Her hand flew to her ear as she fell back nearly on top of Bill, who was just starting to rouse. I had no time. I had to get out.
I zipped through the back door, feeling the dread of knowing that I was right back at square one. But now that I knew what was inside the house, I knew my chances of surviving outside were at least a little bit better.
I slipped behind a bush next to the back door and looked for Luna or Dru. I could see neither, though I could still hear both. I dropped to a crouch and ran to the side of the pool house, pressing myself into the shadows. I ran the length of the pool house until I found a corner with a trash can parked in it, then climbed behind it. I was covered, hidden, huddled in the dark, pressing my palms into my eyes, hoping for the confusing hues to stop battering me, hoping my ears and my head would clear so I could listen for Luna.
Every inch of my body screamed with pain. I was bleeding and broken, and every breath brought white lights to my eyes. I wondered if this was how Peyton felt the night of the attack. I wondered if she’d fought back as I had, if her colors had gone crazy like mine were doing, or if she’d just accepted her fate the way Mom had accepted hers. Or if she’d had a chance to even realize what was happening. If either of them had.
Peyton had called me before her attack. Maybe she’d been begging for help.
Maybe I needed to ask for help, too.
I pulled out my phone. I’d never programmed Chris Martinez into it, but I’d looked at his business card so many times, I’d memorized the color pattern anyway. I hoped I was remembering it correctly through my injured haze.
The phone rang for what seemed like forever.
“It’s Nikki Kill,” I whispered, after he finally answered.
“Nikki? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I need you,” I said. “Hollis house. Now.”
“Get out of there. I’m nearb—”
But suddenly I could hear Luna’s and Dru’s voices, so I ended the call and slid the phone back into my pocket. He would be too smart to call me back. He would know from the way I sounded that I was hiding.
He was the one cop I could trust.
Their words sounded like mumbles to me. I caught only partial sentences.
“. . . told her everything . . .”
“. . . don’t know what went down that night . . .”
“Did you like jail? Because if you don’t . . .”
“. . . has to be another . . .”
“Shut up, do you want her to . . .”
The voices went farther away, as if Dru and Luna had gone into the pool house, and I thought I could hear the sounds of things being moved inside. Maybe fighting, a crash here, a thud there. I straightened, shimmied toward a window, and peeked inside. Suddenly everything seemed too silent. I could hear everything and nothing. My ears were still betraying me. My cheek ached, and I could feel blood dripping from my chin. I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t let myself see the color of that blood, that crimson, not even in my mind, or I would lose it. I needed to keep my calm. I needed to be aware of other things.
I thought I heard shifting leaves behind me. I tensed, crouching into a ready stance, but the sound stopped, replaced by the beating of my heart.
A few minutes passed. Just when I began to think maybe I should come out of hiding, I heard them again, whispering. Fighting about how best to find me.
“I’m telling you, she’s over by the gazebo,” Dru said. “I saw her go.”
“Bullshit,” Luna hissed. “She’s hiding out here somewhere. I can smell the smoke on her.”
Shit. I’d never thought about that.
“Let’s at least just look.” If I didn’t know better, I would think Dru was trying to lead Luna away from where I really was, so I could get away. But Dru was not the man I’d thought he was, so for all I knew he was trying to find me right along with her.
“Chill. We will, but we’re going back here first.”
“She might get away.”
“I’m the one with the gun, so we do what I say.”
“I’m going to look for her in there.”
“Fine. Go. I don’t need you.”
The voices were getting closer now, and then the footsteps softened, swooshed through grass. They were coming right for me. Again, I thought I heard a swishing noise behind me, and realized it must have been a trick of acoustics. Their footsteps ricocheting off their privacy fence.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Luna sang, and then giggled, sending chills rippling up and down my spine.
I crouched deeper, pressed my elbows into my sides, and strained my eyes, trying to make out the shifting shadows in the yard. My cheek itched. The kaleidoscope had slowed down, honing itself into a few colors—black hate, orange danger, so much red—that I could mostly ignore.
Just when I thought I heard a footstep behind me again, Luna’s face popped up over the trash can.
“Boo!” she crowed, bringing the gun up to point over the trash can at me. “Found you!”