There's no need to get crazy. You're just trying to survive. You decide to use the rake only if Wes comes at you.

Which he does; you hear his booted footsteps. One. Two. Teasing you.

"You're a feisty one, ain't ya?" he says from the shadows, a smile lacing his voice with levity. That he's amused at a time like this makes your skin crawl, makes you shiver, makes you feel sick. "Well, Kendall? I can't wait all day."

You take a nervous step backward, holding the rake up in both hands across your body, trying to see him through the dark. You just need to keep him away from you and somehow get past him toward the door; you don't think he locked it—at least, you didn't see him lock it.

Before you can decide what to do, Wes lunges out of the darkness, sprinting toward you with his hands outstretched. It looks like he's reaching for the rake.

"No—" You stumble backward, coming up hard against the wooden support the rake had been hanging from, and lift the rake to fend him off. He takes hold of it with both hands, his grip just inside yours on either side.

You can see his face now, lit by the eerie glow of the moon coming through that high broken window, but you can't see his eyes. His eyes are just deep, black pits.

The two of you wrestle with the rake for a moment. Wes is strong; the muscles underneath that tight black T-shirt weren't just for show. When he lunges in, bringing a knee up to your stomach, you instinctively flinch, your grip on the rake loosening.

The cruel blow, combined with the effects of whatever he used to drug you, is too much. You fall to your hands and knees and wretch—you would vomit, but you haven't eaten since a granola bar yesterday morning...

Wes stands over you, one booted foot on either side of your hips, and you close yourself up, scooting backward on hands and knees in an attempt to slip out from underneath him.

Crack!

You're on the floor, dazed, without fully understanding what has happened. When you look up, seeing Wes's shadowed face through blurring tears of pain, you notice that he is holding the rake like a bat. The side of your face feels like it's six times as large as it should be, and it's hot with pain. You lift one hand to touch your cheekbone, and it comes away wet with blood.

"I didn't want to get messy," Wes says. He flings the rake away, and it clatters along the floorboards of the ancient barn. "Kendall, darlin', you just have a flair for the dramatic."

[[Go to Chapter 56.]]