Rafe pushed up, his sweaty hands sliding about the marble floor, but his shoes caught on the slick tiles, squealing up a desperate storm when Rafe fought to get to his feet. He was halfway up when Boots struck, kicking Rafe in the stomach with a hard-soled leather toe. The blow churned Rafe’s innards, and he gagged, choking on the bile rushing up from his empty stomach and pouring over his tongue.
Spitting a mouthful of viscous green saliva into the man’s face, Rafe gritted his teeth and backed up into the wall, using its flat surface to leverage himself up. He was dizzy, a bit groggy, and the world seemed to be brighter around the edges, a starship lens flare across his right-hand side. Rafe’s stomach argued with the movement, gurgling ominously, but for the first time since he’d been coshed across the head, Rafe got a good look at his assailant.
Boots wore a security-guard uniform, much like the ones the building’s own staff wore with one key exception—a patch embroidered with Quinn’s university logo affixed to his right sleeve. Nearly cave-fish white, puberty hadn’t been a friendly time for Boots’s face, if it had ever left. Deep scars gouged his cheeks, and a spotty, pale ginger fringe sprouted nearly straight out from his thin upper lip.
Oddly, Boots appeared to be pretty pissed off about Rafe standing up, despite his previous worry about hitting Rafe too hard. The scowl on the man’s face clicked things together for Rafe. He knew that scowl. It’d been used on him before, same amount of venom, but this time the poisonous stare made sense, especially if Boots was the killer hot on Quinn’s ass. If anything, the heat in the security guard’s eyes melted off any humanity left in his face, and Rafe slammed into the wall, trying to take a step away from the man now reaching for his weapon.
“Oh, fucking shit, you’re Sam,” Rafe blurted out.
“My name is not Sam! Quinn can never get it right!” Furious, Boots brought up the blackjack instead of his gun, swinging wildly at Rafe’s head as he screamed, “My name is William.”
Chapter 20
Moonshine and ice
Bathtub swill and broken dreams
Climbing up on a stairway
Made of nightmares and pain
A slip of my hand
Wet blood on a rung
Hitting the stone down beneath me
Made me think ’bout what I’ve done
Thought about how I’ve hurt you
How deep and how long
Can’t ask to forgive me
Since I’ve done you so wrong
—Moonshine and Ice
THE SAP hit Rafe hard, slamming into his forearm when he tried to block the hit. Sam—William—wrenched the blackjack back, ready to bring it back down on Rafe again when years of dealing with bar fights and jealousy-enraged ex-lovers fired up Rafe’s survival instincts.
Hit fast. Hit hard.
Uniforms were thick, usually a cotton meant to withstand a lot of abuse. Grabbing one meant skinned-up knuckles and sore fingers, but knees, those worked the best.
Slamming his leg up, Rafe clocked the guard straight in his nuts. William went down, his fleshy body hitting the tile in a wet-sounding smack. The strike threw Rafe off-balance, and he toppled, the throb in his forehead ramping up to a full scream. Or it could have been William’s moaning hitting new heights when Rafe tried to stop himself from falling and brought his foot down hard on William’s nose.
The fall still happened. Thrown off by the wavering slosh of his brain against his skull, Rafe stumbled over William’s writhing torso, tumbled off of the man’s thick belly and onto the floor. A movement to the left of Rafe caught his eye, and he saw Merris scuttling on his hands and knees to the elevator. Rafe made a desperate attempt to get up, but the hall burst into a sea of stars and pain, something solid and fast striking the back of his head hard enough to slam his face into the floor.
Rafe tasted blood, and the edges of the room grew dark, fragmented shadows closing in until all he could see was a wavering pinprick of light. Graham’s screams grew louder, and Rafe spat out the fluid pouring down his throat, wishing he could risk shaking his head to clear his sight.
Then Graham went silent, and the hall was filled only with the sounds of their frantic breathing.
“You weren’t supposed to come out.”
William sounded mournful, but Rafe wasn’t buying any of his remorse.
“I was going to knock on the door and tell you I had something for Doctor Morgan, something from the college so you’d open up. I wasn’t ready for you. I don’t know what Merris was thinking. I locked the elevators off of this floor. You don’t even need a special key for the building. They pretty much all use the same one.”
Rafe pulled himself up, instinctively throwing his arm up when he found William looming over him. The pinprick of light expanded, easing back the shadows until Rafe could make out the guard’s face. He’d have to guess at William’s expression. His vision wasn’t quite ready to give him that much clarity, but it was enough for him to go by.