Page 26 of Stream & Scream

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Olivia

Sunday night

A loud pounding at the door has me jerking upright, jumping to my feet as quickly as I can. I’d started to doze off. The night was too quiet to fight off sleep any longer.

Heavy fists against wood, the sound echoes through the abandoned ranger station like gunshots in the pre-dawn darkness. Someone is trying to get in, trying to force their way past the barricade I built.

"Help!" The voice is male, panicked, filled with hysteria. Like he’s being hunted... "Help, I know you're in there! Open the fucking door!"

Malik.

His voice has changed since our last encounter, stripped of his carefully chosen words and falsely calm demeanor. This feels more like the real him, like he’s been stripped raw from the fear of being hunted.

"Please!" He pounds again, harder this time, and I see the furniture rattling as my barricade starts to fail under the weight of him pressing into the door. "Someone’s out there! He’s going to kill me if you don’t let me in. Please let me in!"

I press my back against the furniture, throwing my full weight behind the failing defense, but I'm not strong enough to hold it indefinitely against someone twice my size and running on an adrenaline high.

"Goddammit, let me in! It killed them! It killed all of them! I’m next, don’t you get it?" His fists hammer against wood, and I can feel the vibrations through my spine where it's braced against the door. "I'm the only one left! We're the only ones left!"

The only ones left. The words wash over me like a bucket of ice water, freezing my thoughts and making me hyperaware of exactly how isolated I am in this rotting hell-hole. If Malik is telling the truth, if everyone else is dead, then that changes everything.

I’m not letting him in. I can’t.

If it’s down to me and him, I want to be the one walking out of here alive.

"Go away, Malik," I call through the door, trying to keep my voice steady despite the fear clawing its way up my throat. "Find somewhere else to hide."

"There is nowhere else!" His voice cracks entirely now, breaking into a sob. "We can fight him off tog?—"

The pounding stops abruptly.

Complete silence falls over the forest like a blanket, so sudden that my ears ring in the absence of sound. There’s no wind whistling through the trees, no settling noises from the old building, no distant sounds of night creatures scurrying over the forest floor.

There’s only silence. It feels like a horror movie. In my gut I know something terrible is about to happen to him.

"Malik?" I whisper, but there's no response from the other side of the door.

I wait, holding my breath while straining to hear something, anything at all. But there’s nothing.

After a few more seconds there’s a single gunshot, echoing through the forest in a deafening boom.

A thud follows immediately after. Heavy, meaty.

Blood begins seeping under the door, spreading across rotted floorboards in a crimson stain.

My jaw drops and I let out a silent scream while I shake my head, scrambling away from the blood.

No, no, no, no, no.

Fuck, this can’t be happening.

Heavy footsteps move across the ground outside, slow and deliberately loud.

Then they stop directly in front of the main window.

He stands perfectly still in the frame of the cracked window, face visible with his mask lowered beneath his chin.

"Open the door, Olivia."

His voice carries easily through the broken window, low and rough and absolutely commanding. Not a request, not a suggestion or up for negotiation.

A command . Direct and unambiguous, like he’s confident I won’t defy his order.

But I don't move. Don't respond. Don't do anything except stare at him through glass that's already broken, that provides no real barrier between us.

He tilts his head slightly, like he’s studying me, and I realize he's reading my body language. He’s trying to read me.

He already knows I'm both terrified and aroused. And that part of me wants to obey his command while another part insists that opening doors for a killer violates every survival instinct that has kept me breathing for twenty-four years.

Most importantly, he knows that terror and arousal aren't mutually exclusive, that fear can coexist with desire.

"I'm not going to ask again," he says, and there's a darkness in his tone now, like he finds my resistance frustrating. "We both know how this ends. Don’t drag it out longer than you have to."

He's right, of course. We both know exactly how this ends, have known since our first encounter against the moss-covered rocks where he dominated me.

But knowing doesn't make surrender easy. It doesn't eliminate the fact that submission feels a lot like weakness, or that normal people don't open doors for people who kill for entertainment.

I don't open the door.

But I don't run deeper into the cabin either. I probably should try to find a hiding place or something…

But I just stand there, frozen between competing impulses, while he watches me process the inevitable.

The waiting stretches until it becomes unbearable, until the silence between us fills with unspoken communication that has nothing to do with words and everything to do with the sexual tension building between us.

Then he moves.

Not toward the door—that would be too simple, too expected, too much like conventional breaking and entering. Instead, he steps to the side, disappearing from the window frame and leaving me staring at empty darkness while sounds of movement circle the building.

Glass explodes inward as his boot connects with the window beside the door, sending shards cascading across rotted floorboards. The sound is deafening in the small space. I scream in response, covering my face to protect it from the glass..

He doesn't climb through immediately. Instead, he takes his time, clearing glass from the frame with movements that are careful and calm, drawing out the anticipation. He’s doing it on purpose.

When he finally steps through, he moves with the same power that has defined every encounter since this began.

But this time is different. This time, there's no chase scene, no opportunity for me to run screaming through the forest while he follows at a pace designed to maintain excitement without concluding the game too quickly.

This time, there's nowhere to run. I’m trapped.

The cabin suddenly feels microscopic, too small to contain both predator and prey, too intimate for the kind of violence that's about to occur..

I back away from him, moving deeper into the single room that comprises the entire building, but there are no other exits, no secret passages, no convenient escape routes.

My back hits the far wall, and I realize I've trapped myself in the corner. I’ve cornered myself like the prey I've always been, finally faced with the predator who's been patient enough to let me pretend I had choices in how this game would end. This is exactly what he wanted.

"There's my girl," he says, approaching slowly. "Are you done running? Done fighting?"

He gets closer, crowding me in the corner without touching me just yet.

My hands find his chest, pushing with everything I have, trying to create distance that might allow for escape or at least delay my impending death.

He lets me push at him for a while, long enough for me to believe that effort might actually accomplish something, before his hands clamp down around my wrists, effectively stopping me.

"Good," he murmurs, pinning my arms above my head against the wall with one hand while the other traces the curve of my cheek with gloved, gentle fingers. "I like it when you fight. Makes it more interesting."

Then he drives me down, forcing me to my knees.

And he’s anything but gentle with me.

One hand tangles in my hair, holding my head exactly where he wants it, while the other works at his pants and belt to free his cock.

"You're so pretty when you’re crying on your knees, needy and waiting for me," he says, and I realize there are tears streaming down my face, though I don’t know why I’m crying.

There’s too much going on. Too much has happened in too little time. I hardly know who I am right now.

"Open," he commands, and I open for him without hesitation.

I open because I want to. Because I’m a fucking idiot and this is what I've been craving without knowing how to ask for it. And this is exactly what I've needed. Someone confident and possessive enough to take what he wants without apology.

He fills my mouth completely, pushing to the back of my throat immediately. His cock cuts off my ability to breathe, making me choke as my eyes pop open.

The piercings catch against the roof of my mouth, and I let myself feel them one at a time as they slide over my flattened tongue. There are so many of them, all spaced about an inch apart.

"That's it," he encourages me, picking up speed. "Good girl. My perfect fucking toy."

Toy . The word should demean, reduce me to something less than human, but it makes the ache between my thighs spread, and I find myself reaching for my clit.

I need more .

His other hand finds my chin, fingers gentle but controlling as he sets the pace. His head rolls back on his shoulders as he groans loudly, filling the room with the sound of his satisfaction.

"Scream for them," he says through gritted teeth, and I realize he's talking about the cameras. "Let them watch. Let them see how pretty you are with your lips wrapped around my cock."

I’d almost forgotten about the cameras and the millions of people watching from home. Something about him makes me forget about the rest of the world. I get lost in time, stuck on the idea of his cock buried between my thighs. Power radiates off him at all times, and I want it.

I fucking crave it.

They're seeing me at my most vulnerable, stripped of dignity and my clothes. How do I return to society after this?

Maybe that’s the point.

I don’t.

He continues fucking my mouth, groaning and panting to the feeling of filling me until I can’t breathe.

I continue playing with my clit, rubbing in fast, tight circles.

The tightness in my stomach builds quickly, and I fall over the edge when he pushes deeper and holds it, emptying himself down my throat.

His whole body shudders and he roars into the night.

And I drink him down. Every last drop, leaving nothing to waste.

I swallow.

Then, only then, do I allow myself to collapse.

I curl into a ball on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest in a fetal position, seeking a moment of peace… a moment of silence after the storm.

My mind is a battlefield where shame wars with arousal.

I hate it here.