I stared at Tonya without a flicker. She wore the smug little grin of someone who'd finally won, eyes shining with the pleasure of mocking me.
I turned to the nurse. "This woman stole my bank card. She'll settle the bill for me."
Tonya's mouth puckered into instant, wounded innocence. "Now when did I ever steal your card? If it's really yours, why don't you know the PIN?"
"You've been eyeing my money this whole time. You're nothing but a stray with nowhere left to go, and I'm going to send you to prison and let the criminals in there teach you a lesson for me." She pretended to lift her phone and call the police.
I saw it clearly. She never even unlocked the screen. She just stood there in front of me, putting on her little show of talking to an officer who wasn't there.
"Oh, and if you kneel down for me right now, I'll hang up immediately." She watched me like I was entertainment, waiting for me to drop to the floor and sob.
All the old pain, all the humiliation, went scalding hot in my chest at once. I reached out and seized the amethyst necklace at her throat. "This necklace belongs to me. Since I don't want it anymore, it'll go toward what you owe."
"You vile woman! You've left my neck all red!" Tonya clutched her throat, doubling over as if in agony, a perfect picture of misery.
Luke came rushing over, suit jacket thrown crookedly over his shoulders. "Tonya, what happened?"
Before he reached us, she dragged her own nails across her throat. In an instant, five thin lines of blood opened across that pale skin.
She threw herself against Luke's chest before I could say a word, sobbing. "She said this necklace was hers and ripped it right off me. Then she ordered me to kneel and apologize to her."
Luke looked at the blood beading along her neck, and his breathing turned heavy. He didn't even ask me what had really happened. "You used to be so gentle. How can you keep coming after Tonya like this, again and again?"
I said nothing. I just looked at him, calm.
I knew what I was to him now. A clown whose only job was to keep his beloved happy.
The red flooded his eyes in a heartbeat, like a beast about to swallow me whole. "You like kneeling so much? Now it's your turn. Kneel to Tonya."
He waved a hand. With his permission, the bodyguards' stun batons fell on me like rain. I only raised my hands to shield my head and let them hit me. The pain climbed higher and higher, and I pressed my lips tight and bit down on the tip of my tongue, refusing to let out a single sound.
That broke whatever patience Luke had left. He drove his knee straight into the backs of my legs, and with no warning I dropped, folding down onto the floor.
He fisted his hand in my hair, his eyes nothing but cruelty. "Still putting on a brave face? Then let's see exactly how long you can keep it up."
With that, he ordered the bodyguards to lock me inside an abandoned factory.
He watched, cold-eyed, as they threw me roughly into the car. "I'm going to the party with Tonya soon. Once I've announced the good news that I'm having a child, I'll come collect you myself."
Something raw and unguarded in me tore open again. For his happiness, he'd reduced me to a stone in his path.
"You're going to sit there and reflect on what you've done wrong. I don't want to see that stubborn face of yours anymore."
I chose not to answer. I just rolled up the window, leaving nothing of him but that voice with no feeling left in it.
Soon the bodyguards had me at the abandoned factory, and before they left they released more than a dozen venomous snakes.
The air was thick with the smell of mold. The snakes came toward me, tongues flicking. I could hear, with awful clarity, the dry scrape of scales dragging over the floor.
I could not let them bite me.
I tried the factory door, but no matter what I did it wouldn't budge. I pounded on it, hoping the bodyguards hadn't gone far, that someone would let me out.
But however hard I beat on that door and cried out, no one came. All I could do was claw my way up onto a high platform inside the building.
I watched the snakes twist their bodies and lift their cunning heads, scales throwing back a strange, sickly gleam in the thin light.
It wasn't until nightfall that the factory door swung open, and Luke walked in, his face dark.
"This time I invited prominent people from every circle to share the joy of my having a baby." He looked at me with stone-cold eyes.
"So you threw me out here, in some derelict factory on the edge of town? And to keep me from running, you set loose all these snakes to bite me?" I looked at him, all hope gone.
The breath caught hard in my throat, and for a moment I couldn't get it back.
Luke lowered his eyes. "I can grant you one request."
When I stayed silent, he turned to leave.
Then I shouted his name. "Luke. That island you promised me before. Does the offer still stand?"
He thought for a few seconds, then turned back. "It stands. I thought you said you didn't want it."
I shook my head. "I've thought it through. I want it. The contract's already drawn up. It's under the passenger-seat cushion of that Maserati you're driving right now."
"Sign it, and I promise I'll never bother you and Tonya again."
Luke nodded and went back out to the car. Three minutes later he returned with the stack of papers.
"Signed. Remember, don't go back on your word." He dropped the line and left at once.
I picked up the contract and read it carefully. His careless signature sat on every page. He hadn't even noticed that tucked inside the island deed was a divorce agreement.
Half an hour after the car roared away, I found a long wooden pole, used it to flick the snakes aside one by one, and walked out of that place for good.
The dark swallowed my fleeing shape. I caught a cab to the airport at top speed and booked the earliest flight to Seattle. There, I couriered every piece of Luke's criminal evidence, along with the divorce agreement, to my lawyer.
Before the plane took off, I dropped my SIM card straight into a trash can. I would never need that number again.
Years ago, Luke and I had walked into the carrier's store hand in hand to set up a matching couples plan. He'd said it was the only way to let every man know I was taken, that he wanted to tell the whole world I was his.
Luke, I hope we never see each other again.
