Page 7

seven

T rembling in the man’s grip, my legs are braced in the middle of my hallway, and my arms are up defensively between us. I don’t know what to do, especially with how tightly he’s holding onto me. I jerk back experimentally, but his hands don’t budge, and I don’t go far.

“Kai.” My preferred nickname comes out of my mouth as a breathy whisper, though I have no idea why I’m telling him.

His head tilts almost adorably, though I can’t see his eyes behind the mask. “What?” he asks, voice less menacing and more curious than before. His grip loosens, just a little, and I falter with a slow exhale.

“I hate it when people call me Kaira. It’s what my parents call me and…” I trail off when I realize I’m rambling, and I press my lips together until it stings and reminds me just how chapped my lips are. “Kai,” I repeat.

“Kai.” He says it slowly, rolling the simple nickname around in his mouth like he can taste the edges of it. “All right. I can humor you, I suppose. I think Kaira is cute, and I was sort of sold on it—” He dodges back when I take advantage of his looser grip and aim a punch at his mask. “Oh no, no, lovely girl,” the man purrs. He’s only a few inches taller than my five-foot-six, putting him at about five-eleven, if I had to guess. He’s definitely within range of me being able to punch his face.

If he doesn’t dodge or just stop me.

“You’re only making this game more exciting for me,” he growls, the words accompanied by a soft snicker. “You—” he breaks off when I lunge for him again, though this time he doesn’t dodge my blow. Instead, he uses my momentum to twist me around in his arms, pulling a yelp from my throat as he yanks me against his chest. “You’re a deliciously feisty thing, aren’t you?” he coos, and the plastic of his mask slides coolly against my face as he pretends to nuzzle my cheek.

“Fuck you,” I hiss, heart pounding.

“No, I think this is where you beg,” he hums. “I’m pretty sure this is where you start whining for me not to kill you. Where you promise you’ll do just anything for me to let you go. Don’t you watch your horror movies, Kai?” he admonishes, and the hand that isn’t locked like an iron bar around my shoulders slides down my front, fingers splayed against my shirt.

I don’t whimper. I refuse to let myself make any noise that he’ll enjoy. Even though it won’t help me in the least, I want to remain as unaffected by him as I can.

Well, as much as I can now that he knows I’m terrified. I have just spent the last few minutes hiding from him, I consider ruefully. And I’m definitely not acting brave at the moment.

“Horror is predictable,” I snap instead as I search for any way to hurt him, or to get away from him. Since he has my phone, I know that’s a lost cause. But my inherited house isn’t at all that big, and the front door isn’t so incredibly far that I definitely won’t make it.

I just…probably won’t.

When I manage to grab his wrist and try to yank him off of me, the man literally just laughs. He doesn’t go anywhere. Doesn’t even really budge. “Horror is predictable,” he agrees easily. “This is the part where you beg, or the part where the audience realizes that you’re the final girl for them to cheer for.” He drags me back against him, hips flush to mine, and leans down to murmur against my ear.

“But I can promise you, darling girl, that you’re nobody’s final girl. There’s no cheering for you. And I won’t be the one lying on the floor with a knife in my chest when morning comes.”

For just a second?—

I can’t?—

Breathe.

My head fills with the mental sight of me on the floor, exactly how he’d said. With a knife in my chest as I struggle and choke for air. I can almost feel the blood trickling down my lips as I stare up at my textured, white-washed ceiling.

“I don’t want—” The plea comes to my lips just as the man jerks backward with me. His steps are confident and he doesn’t stumble as he pulls me around to shove me through the open door of my bedroom.

“Stop!” I snarl, kicking out to wedge my bare foot against the doorframe. “Let go of me!” I won’t beg, and I don’t let my tone sound faltering or pleading. “Let the fuck go of me!”

“No.” He chuckles. “I actually think I won’t. What are you going to do, lovely girl, huh ?” With a quick shove, he forces me to stumble across my rug until I can straighten and spin quickly to face him.

I snarl out a few curses, my fists balled at my sides so my fingers don’t shake. “Why are you doing this?” I demand, as I scrutinize him in the warm light of my room. He’s no longer holding the knife, but I can see the hilt of it sticking out of a sheath on his belt.

I’m definitely not safe, but I knew that.

“Uh, hello?” He sounds snarky and a bit like a high school mean girl as he places his hands on his waist, all but cocking one hip to the side. “You called me, remember? Please don’t tell me you have amnesia like that girl in 50 First Dates because I am not mentally equipped to handle that kind of shit.”

He’s…joking. He’s literally making jokes right now, and even though I shouldn’t, I want to cackle at the stupidity of his words. I don’t, because that would make me hysterical and hysterical girls don’t escape murderers.

“You’re insane,” I murmur, not in a terrified, incredulous way. Just as a fact.

Because really, this man is insane.

He clicks his tongue in approval as he shoves me. Then with one arm, he whirls me around, forcing my calves to hit my bed before he helps me all the way down.

“Yeah, little bunny, I’ve got a little extra going on up there.” He dodges my next kick and falls down onto the bed on his knees.

Immediately, I jerk away from him to create space between us. I scoot backward, looking and feeling like a crab, until my back hits the wall over my pillows. My eyes dart toward the still open door of my room, which just sits there and mocks me.

“Seems like this is a bit of an overreaction,” I snap at him, my heart racing. I swear it’s looking for a way out just as much as my brain is, and my chest feels tight around my organs. My fingers curl in the blankets, and I vow to start sleeping with a knife under my pillow if I survive this.

God, I had better survive this …even though the odds aren’t looking so great. But I shove those thoughts away the moment he reaches out, gripping my ankle in one gloved hand.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, jerking me down the bed. It’s so easy for him, like I’m a doll instead of a fully grown adult, and I can’t stop the yelp of surprise as I’m manhandled closer to him. “But if I recall, you called me. You wanted me to answer.”

“Mads called you,” I breathe. I’m unsure why I say it, and I give a moment for an internal cringe at throwing my friend under the bus. Though, judging by this, she’s not the one in danger from him. Not considering the way he spoke to her on the phone, or the way he’s holding me, with his attention fixated on me from behind the mask.

“Your friend,” he agrees. “And how’d she get my number, Kai?” I shudder when he says my name, though surprises me with how he’s actually respecting what I said about Kaira . “I’m not exactly in the phonebook.”

I can’t help rolling my eyes and I find I’m surprisingly calm for someone who’s about to get murdered. I jerk away from him again, my free foot moving to attempt to slam my heel into his shoulder. But he just dodges it, and his other hand slides over my thigh before he yanks .

In a dizzying second, he has my knee over his shoulder and my other foot is braced to his chest, with my knee bent enough to protest. One of his thighs is shoved between both of mine at a weird angle, and all I can really seem to do is squirm and reach for him.

“Fuck you,” I snarl, voice snappy and nervous. I know he’s going to reach for his knife.He’s going to grab the knife and plunge it into my chest. He’ll rip and tear and?—

“Uh, yeah,” the man scoffs, the mask tilting toward my face. “That would be the plan, little bunny.”

“… What ?” I swear I’m hearing wrong. Maybe my brain is making things up and causing hallucinations to keep me from recognizing what he’s actually saying.

Maybe he’s telling me how he’ll carve me up and feed me to the local hog population.

“ What ?” He tilts his mask first one way, then the other, as he leans over me until I feel like he’s trying to bend me in two. His thigh presses harder between mine, causing my breath to catch in my throat. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why would I go to all the trouble of coming here and making sure you can’t call for help if I’m just going to kill you?”

He sounds…affronted.

“Why would I—” Before he can continue his villainous monologue I lunge upward, my spine screaming to remind me I’m not one of those comic book women who clearly have no internal organs with the way their backs bend. My hands come up and I try to shove him back, hoping maybe I can pry one of his hands off my leg for leverage.

Instead, somehow, my hand clips his mask. My fingers twist, finding his hood, and I shove it back, which causes his chin to tilt up as well.

The mask falls backward and lands with a barely audible sound on my mattress just as a low groan leaves him.

I can’t see his face from where I am. It’s too much of an angle with him still staring at my ceiling. All I can see is sun-kissed tan skin and a sharp jawline. His hair is dark, almost black, and my first glance of him reminds me just how normal the monster with the knife can be.

“To be clear…” The man grabs my wrists in his hands and leans forward to slam them down over my head. He positions himself over me, with both of my legs now on the bed and my knees clenched around his thigh.

I won’t tremble.

I’ve already lost the battle by staring at him, but I won’t tremble.

The man grins, his mouth full and bearing a small scar nicking the line of his top lip. His hair is just as dark as I’d thought, with only a few highlights of brown bleached by the sun. It’s pushed back like he’s constantly running his hand through it, and his warm brown eyes dance with amusement. “To be clear,” he says again. “I was going to take it off, little bunny. We just weren’t there yet. You’re skipping steps, and if you don’t play by my rules, I’m going to have to start punishing you for not playing the game properly.”

“Fuck you,” I breathe, without a lot of conviction in my words. It’s a reflex, though his eyes darken and his full lips quirk into a meaner smirk.

“Like I said, Kai.” He shoves his knee more tightly against me, causing me to yelp in indignant surprise. “That’s been the plan all along. You just need to stop trying to rush things.”

My back arches as I jerk away from him, and I can’t stop taking in the details of his stupidly gorgeous face while he pins me to the bed. “Don’t move your fucking leg, asshole,” I hiss, feeling him grind his thigh between mine. But he does anyway, his grin harsh, and I gasp as I’m forced to arch away from him. “I said?—”

“Huxley,” he interrupts, and for a moment I have no idea what he’s said. “And yeah, Kai, I heard you. But if you’re going to call me anything, you can use my name.”

“That’s a stupid name,” I huff after a moment, twisting my hands in his grip. “Who the fuck names their kid Huxley ?”

“Probably the same kind of parents that name a kid Kaira ,” he’s quick to respond. “And like you, I’ve got a nickname. You can call me Huxley, or”—he splays the fingers of his free hand against my stomach and curls them against my skin—“you can call me Hux. I’m not uptight enough to care which you’d rather use, lovely girl.”

“ Fucker !” I hiss instead, and he increases the pressure of his hand on my stomach. “Ouch!”

“You’re such a brat, aren’t you?” But he definitely doesn’t seem upset by the revelation. His words are almost crooning, but he doesn’t let up. His fingers just hold my wrists too-tight, and his other hand digs into my stomach while he grinds against me. “What’ll it take to get you to use my name, hmm?”

Writhing against him really isn’t the right move, but it’s all I have. Unfortunately, it just makes the pressure between my thighs that much more noticeable, and I swallow the groan that’s building in my throat. “You could give me your knife,” I suggest finally, my words catching slightly in a way that makes a grin tug at his lips.

“Oh, you’re so cute. Adorable , even.” His hand on my stomach shifts upward, dragging my shirt up a few inches before his fingers find my throat. For a moment, I’m sure he’s going to wrap them around my neck, to strangle me and watch me choke for air while he continues to taunt me.

But his hand finds my jaw and he curls his hand around my face, holding me almost sweetly. Then he lunges downward in a quick, smooth motion as his fingers tighten on either side of my mouth to force my lips open with a shocked, pained gasp.

Huxley takes advantage of it, and his mouth crashes into mine with aggression, sharpness, and nothing sweet or romantic. He snarls against my open mouth, fingers still pressing tight to keep my jaw wide, and licks at my teeth, my lips, my tongue, and every bit of me he can reach.

Before long, I’m panting against him, and his breathing picks up to match. He swallows every small sound of protest greedily, matching it with aggressive and possessive noises of his own that make my stomach twist and the pressure between my thighs build.

He’s so good at this .

Somehow, he knows exactly what I like, though this side of me is not one I exactly share with other people. My love of roughness, of having someone’s hands on me to remind me I’m theirs , is something I keep locked up.

Fuck , he shouldn’t be able to do this to me. I remind myself he’s going to kill me. That at any moment, I’ll feel his knife between my ribs and this kiss will be the very last thing I ever experience. Not that it’s the worst thing I could get to feel, given how my life has gone, but I’d prefer not to die tonight.

That’s the thought that spurs me to rip my hands free when his grip loosens ever so slightly, and I surge upward while managing to flip us over.

Huxley takes an audible breath and gazes up at me, shock and amusement in his eyes. He doesn’t fight me, though, and a grin curls over his scarred lips. “Okay, little bunny.” He chuckles indulgently. “You can be on top. All you had to do was ask?—”

“God, do you ever shut up?!” The words are out before I can stop myself, and just as he moves to sit up, I lash out at him with my best try at a right hook. It’s definitely not going to get me into any boxing tournament, and the bones in my hand scream in protest, but at least it knocks his head back to my pillow and lets me launch myself off of my bed.

His snarl of a laugh follows me as I grip the doorframe and turn to run down the hallway into the living room.

I need to get out of here. God, I wish I grabbed my phone from him. Or his knife. That would’ve been smart, if I could’ve managed to get either from him.

“Fuck, fuck ,” I hiss, turning toward my front door. But I see the heavy end table I inherited sitting in front of it, and I realize why he gave me so much time to hide before coming after me when I was in the closet.

He’s so prepared and smart about this that it’s not fair whatsoever.

“How is this happening to me?” I groan, turning instead to the patio door. It’s still locked, but unobscured, and I run to it to fumble with the lock for an agonizing second and a half. “How is my karma this bad, huh?” I’m still talking to myself. “Fucked over as a kid, and now the state’s most prepared serial killer is in my house. Damn it!” Yanking open the door, I run out onto the patio, mentally mapping out the route to the back gate. If I can get there, if I can just get into someone else’s yard, and?—

A heavy weight slams into me, knocking me to the ground and shoving the air right out of my lungs. “You really are fun, Kai.” Huxley chuckles as his hand wraps quickly around my face to block my mouth. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages .”