While her best friend Cassidy snacks on brie and boys in France, Darcy Li-Quinn must face her last year of high school and the unpredictable wrath of her sister, Danica, alone. Darcy's plan for dealing with Danica and her heinous friends is simple-b...
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When I hopped on the bus on Monday morning, prepared to do something brave, being held hostage at knifepoint by a raging murderous pit bull was not part of the plan.
Sure, it's a used butter knife from somebody's discarded breakfast tray, but it's still metal and finely serrated, and Shane has it shoved up against my throat with such force that it's definitely biting.
Up close, with his hot, vicious breath in my ear and his bulky arm a steel vice across my torso, Shane Milano is terrifying. Unwittingly (but, in hindsight, somewhat predictably), Hunter and I have backed him into a corner so tight he has little to lose and everything to gain from seeing this stand off through to the end. An end where he wins and escapes, and maybe I don't. Even without the knife, he could probably kill me just by squeezing a little harder. He'd at least snap a rib or two.
Circumstances dictate I should panic, and most of my body got that memo, because my legs are wobbly and my hands have the shakes. But my mind, weirdly, is calm and crystal clear.
That I'm relatively composed is a major plus, because Hunter is swiftly losing it. He's frozen in place, halfway between the coffee table and the door, and his expression is worryingly blank. It's the same mask of nothingness he wore on Tuesday when we pulled up in the Uber out the front of Archer's workplace. Hunter has tripped face first into his greatest trauma, his pain over Archer's murder, and it's immobilised him.
In my eyes, Hunter Viera is a giant among men (well, a giant among teenage boys at least) but today I think I'm going to have to be my own hero. For both our sakes.
Flying on instinct alone, I open my mouth and tiptoe softly into the fray. "It sounds as though you were very upset that Archer wanted to marry Lily?" I say to Shane. I do my best to keep my tone gentle and empathic.
"Upset?" Shane hisses in my ear. "Upset doesn't begin to describe it. Lilliana has so much potential, so much to offer the world, and she wanted to waste it with him! Marry a worthless loser who didn't even finish high school. I couldn't let that happen."
The slight against his dead brother is enough to make Hunter reflexively jerk towards us, and Shane swiftly tightens his grip on both the knife and me. Seeing me wince in pain, Hunter backs up again, raising his hands in front of his chest with his palms facing out in surrender. It's the same gesture Archer made when Shane shoved him in the workshop that night, and I send fervent prayers out into the Universe that Hunter doesn't remember that in this moment.
"Back it up, Viera," Shane orders. "All the way to the wall. Further away from the door. Over. Over towards the sink. Stop. Now don't move a fucking muscle, you fucking dickhead."
"Just don't hurt her," Hunter croaks, sounding so desperate I want to fling myself across the room and give him a hug.
Be your own hero first, Li-Quinn. Hug Hunter later.
"You were being a protective big brother," I suggest to Shane.
