Page 135 of Beneath the Light of the Moon

Their ragged breaths filled the silence with his whispering against the top of her head. A shudder wove through her, her muscles tired and sore even though this was nowhere near finished. Drawing on her cardio and endurance training, Anika squirmed against his arms wrapped tightly around her.

But it didn’t matter, he drank in the fear pouring off her like an elixir.

Before she could brace, Mikko slammed both of their bodies into the nearest wall, preventing her from reaching her safe. Her teeth rattled in her skull and her body vibrated with the impact. His weightpushed against her, keeping her immobile to the best of his ability, but she still fought, her head lashing backward in hopes of cracking his nose and her feet kicking and swinging at his shins. Mikko remained firm, hardly giving her an inch.

Clamping his hand onto her face, Mikko’s blood—along with Levi’s and hers—smeared onto her skin. He forcefully brought her face inches from his, their breath mingling. It was only then she realized he’d shed his balaclava completely. His bare face, the cut on his cheek red and angry even in the dim light, haunted her.

“You can’t escape me,stopfighting it.”

Her brows furrowed, eyes cloaked in shadow as her mind remembered a time when blood had coated her skin; there had been a time when she grasped her mom’s face to—

Stomp!

She stamped her heel down onto his foot. The pain made him loosen his grip and she took the moment to break free again. Drying remnants of blood smudged across her face, her mind oscillating between the past and present as she landed a blow to his stab wound.

“Fuck,” he swore, leaning against the nearest wall momentarily, “that wasrude.”Mikko’s growl resonated in his chest as he watched her put distance between them, too stunned to catch her again. She flipped him off before hurriedly rushing to her gun safe.

“Thatwas even more rude,” he added as she input the code into her safe.

It beeped and flashed red.

Fuck, wrong password.

In her haste, she must’ve mistyped.

Copper bloomed along her taste buds and bile rose in the back of her throat as she caught sight of Mikko striding across the bedroom. At first, she would’ve thought he’d come for her, but he made his way to where his gun had been discarded.

Fuck, fuck!

Red flashed again.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Anika’s fingers shook and bloody fingerprints smeared onto her gun safe, but she forced herself to reign in her adrenaline and her fears.

You can do this.

While her kills before this had gone according to plan, she wouldnotbe outsmarted by a man.

Bang!

Mikko’s firearm erupted in the stillness.

The bullet ripped past Anika, her safe still flashing red, and buried itself into the plaster a couple inches from her head. Debris and dust settled to the floor as they both stood there frozen.

“Relent,” he commanded, hands steady and form unwavering. A true predator on the hunt.

Four strides separated them.

It felt monumental and suffocating all at once.

Anika was a grown woman still tormented by her thirteen year old self’s trauma.

Gunshots still made her flinch despite her training. Blood marring her hands reminded her of her mother. And the panic settling inside her chest…well, that had been a long time companion right alongside of rage.

She’d tried to overwrite it all with new memories, empowering actions, but some wounds took too long to fucking heal.