The arm moved smoothly and quickly as the candlestick holder connected with the side of her skull, just a millisecond after she recognized the person holding it as her father.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Jessie was pretty sure she wasn’t dead, though part of her wished she was.

As she slowly returned to consciousness, her body began to throb. It was hard to discern exactly where the pain was coming from, there so many sources of it. As she waited for her vision to unblur, she did a mental rundown of her personal injuries.

Her head throbbed relentlessly where the candlestick holder had smashed into it. Her ribs ached from diving onto the street after her phone. Her hip was sore from landing on it when Murph had thrown her out of the path of the oncoming car. Her knee felt swollen, like a balloon that needed some air let out.

And there were her arms. She hadn’t injured them as best she could recall. So why did they sting so bad?

As her eyes slowly cleared, she realized the reason. They were tied to bungee cords and wrapped around the overhead beam, just like the woman next to her, who was now clearly dead.

Jessie quickly closed her eyes, trying not to let the sight linger in her brain. She was still too hazy to be truly scared yet. But she knew that feeling was coming. And being inches from a dead woman in the same position as her wasn’t going to help fight that off.

She could hear movement somewhere in front of her and assumed it was Thurman, since everyone else in the room was either dead or tied up. She tried not to move, hoping that the longer she could make him think she was still out, the more time she would have to come up with a plan.

Based on the fact that her arms weren’t totally numb but still tingled with pain, she gathered she hadn’t been out more than a few minutes. Despite the discomfort, she preferred this. Once her arms became completely numb, they’d be mostly useless—unable to grip anything that might help her escape. She needed to find a way out of this fast, while her body still had some capacity to function and before her father began the inevitable cutting.

“I know you’re conscious, Junebug,” Thurman said mildly from what sounded like only a few feet away. “Your breathing changed when you woke up.”

Since her ruse was now pointless, Jessie allowed herself to swallow. It turned into a hacking cough as her throat was dry. The shaking of her body made every injury hurt exponentially more.

“I don’t normally do this,” Xander said, his voice getting closer. “But since we’re kin, I’m going to give you a little liquid refreshment.”

Suddenly her head was being tilted back and water poured down her throat. She almost choked but still managed to gulp a bit down. Her vision grew crisper, enough that she could see the man standing directly in front of her. He smiled.