That’s it, you sick whack job. Die! Take your last damned breath.

Wobbling, he sank to his knees.

Still, she clung to the rope as his throat rattled, a hiss of air still escaping. Damn it! With all her strength, she wrenched the cord so hard she was certain the bones in her hands would break. She didn’t care. “Chloe!” she yelled. “Get yourself free.”

More wailing.

Sometimes her twin was such a wimp!

“Pull yourself together! The scissors. Cut yourself free! Come on, Chloe! Do it! Do it now!” She was barking orders as the big man teetered on his knees. “Die, you son of a bitch,” she growled into his ear as gravity dragged him to the ground. “Just frickin’ die!”

As he slumped to the floor, pinning her leg, she didn’t let go, wasn’t about to take any chances. Still holding tight to the cord, she searched the gloom and ignored the pain screaming up her thigh. Damn it all to hell, he was a heavy bastard.

With difficulty, she unwrapped the cord from one hand, then in the gloom, gripped both ends with the other. Slapping and sweeping the floor with her free arm, she frantically searched for a weapon.

When he moaned, she tugged the rope again, but her strength was nearly zapped. Chloe was still whimpering in a far corner. Shit! As usual, Zoe had to do everything. Scrabbling wildly with her free hand, she hit something sharp. Metal. The scissors!

She slid backward and kicked at the beast of a man with her free foot to roll him off her leg. Finally, she let go of the cord around his neck. Then she curled her bloody fingers through the eye ring of the scissors, turned, and with all her might, stabbed him in the throat. The blades went deep into the soft tissue, right into the welt created by the cord.

Chloe screamed.

Zoe wasn’t finished. With an effort she pulled at the eye rings of the scissors and forced the blades open, trying to slice whatever tissue she could. Then, she slammed the scissors shut again.

The beast roared over a sickening slurp of blood and muscle and tendon. Zoe hoped to high heaven that she’d severed something important—the carotid, his jugular, his spine. The ensuing sucking sound curdled her blood, but she couldn’t think about it. She only hoped the bastard bled out quickly, for both their sakes.

Zoe crawled across the floor toward the sound of her sister and found Chloe naked, bound, and trembling against a wall. Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow and rapid.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” Chloe babbled, quivering and pale. “You killed him.”

“I hope so.”

Chloe started crying.