Page 161 of Nowhere to Hide

He just kept advancing.

Angry that I was at the disadvantage—again. I kicked out, nailing him in the knee.

He swore, the voice making my flight response kick in.

Must get away.

But I rolled onto my elbow right onto the slip.

He stepped on my hip then down on the thigh he’d cut. “Right where I wanted you. This is much more fun than killing your protector.”

“No. I don’t believe you.” I winced at the pressure, then curled around myself at the kick to my side.

“You’re all alone.” The black eyes dragged me back to that night when he loomed over me.

I shook and put my arms up over my head.

“I don’t have time to tie you properly.” He pushed the hair out of my eyes, then thumbed away one of my tears and tasted it. “Your tears were the only ones I wanted to live on forever.It’s almost enough for me to hold onto you.” He leaned in and smelled my hair, then flinched. “You smell like him.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Where are you, Bastian? Dom?

“No matter. I can wash you. I wouldn’t mind watching you wither under my ropes.” His voice got closer to my ear as he tasted the skin there.

I saw the shadow. It dented the fear clawing at my throat and making me shrink.

Bastian?

It took everything in me to smile up at him before I ripped off his mask.

He recoiled and tried to hide the majority of his face, but I clawed at his face. Everyone should know who and what he was.

I felt skin under my fingernails and the tearing as I dug deeper.

He howled and stumbled back.

The voice distorter made the shriek metallic and spine chilling.

But seeing Bastian over him, a crowbar in his hand. The metallic thwack against bone had me hiding my eyes.

Too late, the blood splatter striped my face.

I tried to swipe it away.

The man rolled onto his side, blood trickling down his head.His patrician face, all angles with slight jowls. His eyes wheeled, no room for the whites with the thick contacts he wore.

I scrambled away, trying to get onto my feet, but my thigh burned from his thick booted feet on my skin.

“Cilla. Roll this way.”

I followed direction, finding Dom on the other side of me.

He gathered me into his chest. “I got you.”

“Safety Locke?” The adrenaline was leeching out of me.

“We got him.”

“Cilla?”