Page 10 of Savior
“I can’t. I’ve got a project due tomorrow.” She sends a pained look at the door and I immediately sober somewhat. I should have asked before I dragged her out here. “Are you going to be okay by yourself? You know you can always come hang out with me.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll follow your suggestion.” The last thing I want to do is interrupt more of her night. One of us needs to make our parents proud. “Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you home?”
“We will. And please call me when you get home so I know that you made it okay. We should be back around one or two, depending on the movie time.”
“I will.”
She stands, and I give her a one-armed hug. “Thanks again, for coming,” I whisper.
“Anytime,” she says. She gives me a big smile and then is swallowed by the crush of college students.
An hour later, I’m walking the five blocks from the bar to the apartment complex where Paige and I have lived for the past year. I did follow her instructions, mostly. After she left, I downed two more glasses of beer and a couple of shots, and I managed to grab a dance or two before deciding it was time to call it a night. My heart just wasn’t in it anymore
The streets are deserted, most students safely inside their builder’s grade houses and tidy worlds. It’s way past midnight, and not even the meager glow from the street lights penetrates the darkness that envelops the porches of our two-story walk-up.
Paige normally leaves the porch light on because, despite what she says, she's the most maternal, responsible person I know. So, it’s a bit odd that it’s turned off.
A figure in the space between our house and the next catches my attention. I squint against the darkness, but whoever it is disappears into the shadows. Immediately, I think about Carl. About how alone and vulnerable I am out on the street. Too much beer has my vision hazy, and I struggle to pull my phone from my pocket, just in case. It takes four tries before I’m able to wrestle it out, and by then, my eyes are half closed. God, why didn’t I just go home with Paige, like she suggested?
The first whispers of unease filter through my boozed brain as I make it to the place where I’d seen the shadow. I glance around again, hoping to find someone out on the street, but there’s no one. Lights flicker in the windows of the neighboring buildings, but the street is otherwise devoid of any sign of life. With my phone poised in my hand like a threat, I inch closer to our dark apartment, my steps now hesitant, and my heart thudding heavily in my chest. I can barely see through the shadows that engulf the alley, but I can feel it in my bones that something isn’t right.
My thoughts are fevered and grow more so the closer I get to the yawning opening. I peer into the blackness as I pass, but find nothing out of the ordinary.
“You really need some sleep,” I tell myself. It’s probably just a stray cat or something.
After a couple deep breaths to clear my head, I clomp up the stairs and manage to get the key out of my pocket much more easily than I did my phone. I’m walking in the doorway, already dreaming about a twelve-hour hibernation, when a hand closes over my mouth and drags me backward. Instinctively, I try to scream, but it doesn't make it past the barrier. An arm clamps around my waist, trapping my arms against my side.
I fight a full body shiver when the person behind me leans closer. So close that I can feel the scrape of stubble on my neck and smell the sweat and an earthy pine-scented cologne clinging to his skin. “Don’t scream.”
Piper
My heart dropsto my stomach, and my first thought is of Paige. The last hug we shared at the bar and how the last thing I saw was her head bobbing through the crowd.
My second is of Carly.
I struggle to make my brain fight through the exhaustion, the residual effects of too much beer, and sharp tang of fear. He maneuvers me through the front door in seconds and by the time my brain catches up, we’re already heading down the hallway toward Paige’s room. I try to kick my legs to throw him off balance, but he’s too strong. The arm around my waist constricts to the point where I can hardly expand my lungs to breathe. The fingers on my mouth flex, and I can feel the tender flesh bruising. As we near Paige’s room, the dread in my stomach sharpens. By now I’m crying and struggling against his hold even more violently, twisting one way and then the other.
A strong metallic smell reaches my nose when we get to her partially closed door. Through the opening, I spot thick drops of blood framing a hand on the floor. My entire body goes slack at the sight, and I struggle to catch my breath to no avail.
He nudges the door with a shoulder, and I clamp my eyes shut. I can’t look, I won’t. Inside my head I’m screaming her name, but I can’t seem to get my voice around the knot in my throat. He drags me into her room, where the scent of blood mixes with musk of sweat and sharp bite terror. I’m sobbing, and my brain is racing wildly to figure out a way to get the fuck out of there. To find help. To rescue Paige, even though a part of me already knows it’s pointless.
We’re two steps in, and I can feel my chances to escape getting smaller and smaller the longer he has me trapped in his arms. He releases the hand on my mouth, and I finally find my voice. I scream as long and as hard as I can. So hard that I feel my throat tear at the force of it. It breaks, and I heave a deep breath to scream again.
I scream until I can’t scream anymore.
He whips me around, his face mostly obscured in shadows, and I flinch instinctively when he raises an arm. The room is dark, but the street lights shine through the window, outlining his body. I don’t move fast enough to dodge his hand as brings it down. The back of his knuckles connect with the delicate flesh of my cheek with such force that I’m knocked to my knees and land roughly on my hands. My wrist gives under the pressure and awkward angle, pain streaking up my arm. He jerks me up off the ground, and I slip on the slick residue that coats the floor and tumble into him.
He’s reaching behind him in the direction of the bed—for what I’m too terrified to even imagine. The pain in my wrist is blinding, and I can feel the bones grinding together as I struggle to break free of his hold.
A glint of light and a flash of metal render my knees boneless, and I fall like dead weight into his arms. He hefts me across the room and onto her bed, and I can see the bat—a leftover from Paige’s softball days—in his hands more clearly than I’ve ever seen anything in my life. In the light from outside, I can see the dark smears on it’s thickest part. I remember the autopsy report I’d found online about Carly. How she’d been beaten and my insides turn to ice.
I’m grateful because the light isn’t strong enough to illuminate whatever horror is on the bedroom floor. Thinking about what happened to Paige in unconscionable. Seeing it would break me.
He props the bat by the bed and studies me, the pause before the pain. I close my eyes, unable to watch what comes next. It takes me a minute to realize I’m talking, begging for him to please, please, please, please stop. No. Nonono. Mindless. Thoughtless. Complete and utter terror.
What’s more terrifying than the bat, is his rapt focus. He hasn't said anything, not one word since he attacked me on the porch. Like I’m not human. Like I’m just athinghe’s playing with. Less than a person. Not worthy of his words.
Anger floods over me in a hot rush and I’m surprised it doesn’t simply steam right out of my ears. As he twists his torso to reach for a section of rope sticking out of his back pocket, I snag the handle of the bat and swing. There’s no time to aim, no time to second guess myself.