Page 9 of Blood Ties

Riley

T he edge of my knife slashes through Kai’s black t-shirt. He stumbles back, pressing a hand to the slash across his rib, and I lunge again.

I always wondered if fight or flight would take hold of me when danger struck.

When it came down to it, I froze first. I heard May screaming and I was paralyzed for precious seconds before I scrambled around Knox’s room for a weapon.

I wasted more time hunting for my shorts before I gave up and ran to my friends.

Now May lies crumpled on the floor, limp and bloody, her eyes glassy like a doll’s. I was too slow, and that guilt will haunt me — but now I have a knife, Caleb and Felix are in danger, and I am ready to fucking fight.

Until Kai catches me by the wrist. I strain against him as he forces me back against the counter, away from my remaining friends.

“You should’ve run,” he says.

I knee him in the balls.

He bends over with a choked sound of pain, and I wrench my knife free from his grip and sprint toward where Knox and Felix are wrestling. Felix is falling back, inch by inch, and I will not lose another friend.

It’s shockingly easy to sink the knife into Knox’s shoulder.

He howls in pain, stumbling back. Felix, freed from his grip, pushes me behind him.

We both turn toward Caleb — only to see him being lifted bodily by the towering hulk of fat and muscle that killed May.

The man is freakishly gigantic, his sweat-stained wife-beater straining over his gut, and there’s a blank look in his eyes as he lifts our friend off of Knox and Kai’s father. Caleb looks like a toy in his hands.

Felix lurches forward, shouting. But before he can reach them, the boys’ father climbs to his feet, grabs his gun, and slams the butt into Caleb’s face.

Once, twice, three times. There’s a sickening crunch and a spatter of blood, and Caleb lets out a gurgling shriek of pain.

Then the man hits him once more, and he goes slack and boneless.

Felix skids to a stop on the tile. He shoves me ahead of him and toward the front door. “ Run ,” he shouts.

I run. He’s hard on my heels. But as I stumble out the front door, I realize I’m alone.

I turn to look over my shoulder, and choke out a sob as I see him bracing himself in the doorway, blocking the others from following.

But Knox shoves past him, sending Felix stumbling and falling onto the dusty path leading away from the porch.

My feet come to a stop. I’m too scared to turn back, too scared to even make a sound, but I can’t turn away, either.

So I watch helplessly from a few yards away as Knox advances on Felix.

He yanks the knife out of his own shoulder, fury rendering him unrecognizable as the man who drank and laughed with us last night.

Felix raises a hand, and Knox swipes at it, sending two of his fingers flying.

Then he kneels on Felix’s chest and cuts his throat. Blood fountains out of him.

For the first time today, I scream. I scream for Felix and for Caleb and for May. All of my best friends — dead. Dead at the hands of these fucking monsters. Including the one whose bed I stayed in last night.

Knox rises from Felix’s body, crimson splattered across his face and soaking the front of his shirt. He locks eyes with me and grins, flicking blood off of the edge of his knife.

I turn and run. Stumbling, sobbing. I’m barefoot still, dressed in only my shirt and underwear, but I barely feel the rocks cutting into my feet as I sprint toward the nearby scrapyard.

I am horrifyingly aware of how far I am from civilization, but maybe I can find a weapon, or a car, or at least a place to hide.

Towers of metal rise on either side of me, stark and glinting in the morning light. My eyes dart between piles of crushed cars, searching for something, anything usable. I spy a red car that looks mostly intact.

“Riley!” Knox’s voice bounces off of the piles of scrap and makes every hair on my body stand on end. He’s laughing like this a game. I can’t believe I let him fuck me; he sounds like a fucking psychopath. “Don’t make this hard, now, darlin’.”

I run toward the red car, pull on the door handle, but it’s locked. I drop to the dirt and climb beneath it. Dust tickles the back of my throat. I cover my mouth and nose, stifling my frantic breathing.

A few moments later, a pair of boots walks by. “Ri-ley,” Knox calls out again, sing-song. “Ain’t no use hiding from me, Babygirl...”

Hot tears slip down my face. I close my eyes and wait until I can’t hear him anymore. When all is quiet, I climb out into the sunlight.

Then — footsteps. Fast and hard. A body slams into me and we both hit the dirt. I gasp and choke on a mouthful of dust, writhing in vain as a long, lean body presses me down beneath him.

“Stay down,” Kai says in my ear.

“Fuck you,” I shriek, sending an elbow back into his stomach. He grunts, but stays on top of me, his weight holding me still. Dirt chokes me as I sob, helpless and afraid. I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to die .

Kai wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me up, holding me against him. It would almost seem protective if he wasn’t dragging me to my death. Maybe he isn’t, I think, for a moment. He told me to run earlier. Maybe he’ll help me escape—

“She’s here,” he shouts, and that hope shrivels and dies in my chest. “Don’t shoot, I got her.”

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