Can't Touch This (Can't Touch This #1)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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Vesper

WHAT THE HELL AM I doing?

I’d never been so carefree and idiotic. I felt like a moron as I dashed left, then right down a maze of black walls with glow-in-the-dark graffiti as strobe lights blinded me.

It was a sensory overload but not the reason my heart galloped in my chest.

It was because of him.

He’d refused to tell me where he was taking me. At the time, it had pissed me off but now, I was glad. There was no way I would’ve agreed to this stupidity but, my God, it was liberating.

I hadn’t been this silly in decades. I hadn’t been silly period. Being an only child meant I was more adult than kid from the moment I could speak. My mum was strict and tolerated perfection while my dad was under her thumb and never spoke otherwise.

Ryder was a cyclone in my quaint carefully rowed field. He’d just decimated my neat little cabbage patch, but I didn’t care in the slightest.

“I’m gonna find you, Ves!” His voice shouted over the boom of a guitar.

A manic giggle fell from my lips as I careened around a wedge wall and slammed to a stop in front of a metal staircase. Without thinking, I took the steps two at a time, able to see the floor between the open weaved metal construction.

The moment I was on the bridge, I charged back the way I’d come, looking below, seeking my prey.

He thought he could win?

No way.

Not going to happen.

It took a few moments, but I found him prowling like a cheetah around a corner, his gun high like a marine in a real war, his face splattered with pink and green laser beams from the crazy light show above.

Crouching down, I put my gun through the slats of the metal bridge and fired at the red bullseye on his spine.

Immediately, my vest trumpeted and his wheezed.

“Ah, shit. What the hell?!” He spun around, looking down the alleyway he’d stalked down.

When he couldn’t see me, I slapped a hand over my mouth to hold my giggles.

But then, he looked up.

We made eye contact.

My heart stopped.

Oh, no.

“Ah, there you are, my little Vet.”

I squeaked and darted to my right, running along the bridge—not knowing if it was a dead end or freedom.

“I’m going to catch you!” Ryder’s shouts merged with a cymbal crash and tambourine jingle. “And when I do, I’m going to take something I’ve wanted to take for months!”

I slammed to a stop. What the crap did that mean?

Was I safe here with him? He could do bad things to me and no one would know. No one would hear me scream.