Page 4

CHAPTER 4

ARIELLA

S taring at my computer, I smiled with relief. After working on it all evening, I'd finally finished my humanities project. It was only the third week of school. Between classes, practices, my first project of the year, and Zaiden's bullshit, I was already overwhelmed.

I clicked to save the PowerPoint to my OneDrive, and an error message flashed across my screen: No internet connection.

"Shit." The word escaped under my breath as my fingers flew to the WIFI icon.

Disconnected.

I clicked to reconnect, my teeth pressing into my lower lip as the loading circle spun and spun and spun. My knee bounced under the table, each second stretching longer than the last. "Come on, please don't do this right now." My whisper echoed in the silent room, desperate and small.

Thunder cracked like a whip outside the window. I flinched. The library's ancient WIFI collapsed at the first hint of a storm, reliable only in its unreliability.

I hit the save as button again, saving the file to my desktop, and said a silent prayer that nothing happened between now and the short trip home when I could save it to my drive.

My gaze flashed to the single window in the back of the library. Rain hammered against the glass. I glanced at the time on my MacBook. It was after ten. I scanned over the empty third floor.

During the school year, the library stayed open until eleven, though at this hour, it was typically deserted except for a few high school or college students completing community service hours as librarians. The regular staff departed at five.

Which meant they were hiding somewhere, counting down the time until they could lock the doors and leave.

I closed my laptop at the exact moment a bolt of lightning flashed through the window, followed by an instant boom. The lights went out, and a blanket of darkness covered me.

"Fuck," I muttered as my heart began to race. "Please come back on. Please."

I sat frozen, unable to move, paralyzed by fear.

Every sound in the quiet room was amplified. A floor creaked on my left. Then on my right. The hair on my arms stood up.

"Hello?" The word barely escaped my lips. "Is someone here?"

Nothing.

I cleared my throat, shaking my head. Darkness and fear, a perfect recipe for imaginary monsters.

The legs of my chair screeched against the linoleum floors as my eyes flicked around the dark like something might appear.

Heavy breathing.

My heart jumped, and my hands trembled. "Who's there?"

Nothing.

Something brushed my arm—fingers?—and I flew from my seat, pulse hammering in my throat.

"Who's there?" My voice cracked.

Heavy breathing. Close. Too close.

"This isn't funny." I backed away, hands outstretched in the dark.

Something touched my arm from behind, and I whipped around. Stepping backward, I slammed into something hard.

A scream tore from my throat.

Strong arms wrapped around me, holding me tight against his chest. A mixture of masculine scents surrounded me, making it hard to pinpoint one specific smell.

"Let me go!" I thrashed against his grip, muscles straining.

A palm slapped over my mouth, smothering my scream into a muffled whimper that vibrated uselessly against his skin.

"We don't want you here." His breath scorched my ear, the voice unfamiliar, rough, and distorted.

Then he was gone.

I took off running but didn't make it far.

Tripping, I stumbled forward. Pain shot through my hands and knees as they slammed against the hard floor. I scrambled to my feet, heart hammering. Where was he? Them? I didn't know how many there were. I shuffled backward, eyes straining, desperate to escape whatever—whoever—waited in front of me.

This felt calculated, planned. The power didn't go out from the storm. Someone turned it off, and if I had to guess, whoever was responsible for locking up for the night was long gone.

The heat of his body reached me before he did, and all the air rushed from my lungs as long fingers wrapped around my throat, shoving me back. My back slammed against something—a bookshelf?—so hard it rattled.

I sucked in a harsh breath, inhaling a scent I'd recognize anywhere.

"Zaiden," I whispered, the name falling from my lips before I could stop it.

My stomach fluttered, a dizzying riot beneath my ribs. My breath came quick and shallow, not just from fear. Heat bloomed across my skin, contradicting the terror squeezing my lungs. I should have been thinking of escape, of survival, but instead, I found myself hyper-aware of every place Zaiden's body nearly touched mine. The wrongness of my reaction only intensified it.

A low growl rumbled deep in his throat as he dragged his nose up the side of my face. "I love the smell of fear." His fingers flexed the tips pressing into my pulse point as his free hand landed on my hip. "Are you scared of me, Ariella?"

He squeezed, momentarily cutting off my air supply and leaving me unable to say, 'fuck no.' That wasn't exactly true, though.

"I'm in complete control." His lips brushed mine, the touch feather-light despite his words. "I could fuck you against the bookcase, and no one would ever know. I could squeeze a little tighter." The pressure increased. My hands flew to his wrist, nails digging into skin as my lungs screamed for air. "I could break you. Right here. Right now."

His grip loosened, and I sucked in a sharp breath. "Then do it." I gritted out.

He huffed out a humorless laugh as he pressed his nose to my cheek, and I could feel his smile against my skin. "Oh baby, I'm going to break you." He pressed his hips into mine. "I'm going to do it so slow it's torture watching your life crumble in front of you." His thumb stroked the pulse point in my neck. "And I'm going to enjoy watching it."

"Fuck you." The words tore from my throat, rough and defiant. Even if he broke me, he'd never see the cracks.

His lips pressed against the shell of my ear. "I don't fuck dirty little whores."

My teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. "Go to fucking hell, Zaiden."

He dropped his hands and stepped back, disappearing. "You should leave town and never come back, or you'll regret it, princess."

I reached out for him, but he was gone.

A shudder shot through me as the darkness felt like it was suffocating me.

"Zaiden?" My voice broke on his name. The silence that answered pressed against my eardrums, worse than his threats had been. The thought of being alone was more terrifying than Zaiden. My hand flew to my chest, fingers splayed wide as panic consumed me.

The lights flickered once, twice, then blazed to life with a harsh electronic hum.

I scanned the room, heart still hammering against my ribs, expecting to see him lurking in some corner. Nothing. Empty tables. Empty chairs.

A wave of relief crashed through me, so intense my knees nearly buckled. He was gone. The air rushed from my lungs in a single exhale, as if I'd been holding my breath since the moment the darkness fell.

But beneath the relief, something else stirred, something I didn't want to acknowledge. A hollow ache. An echo. The same feeling I'd had as a child when the roller coaster ended: terror so acute it circled back around to exhilaration.

I rolled my eyes at my own conflicted emotions, my breath escaping in a shudder. My fingers trembled as I pushed my hair back from my face, the ghost of his touch still burning against my skin.

If Zaiden Knight thought his little intimidation act would drive me out of town, he had seriously underestimated me.

This—whatever game he was playing—was one more thing to endure, to overcome. To win.

The trembling in my hands stilled as determination replaced fear.

Straightening my shoulders, I strode back to my table, ready to pack up and put this whole night behind me. I stopped cold.

"No." The word barely passed my lips as I frantically scanned the empty surface. "No, please, no."

My laptop was gone. With it, hours of work had vanished, the project that had kept me here late, that I'd just finished minutes ago. The project I'd only managed to save to the laptop's desktop.

"Fuck." The word echoed in the empty library, carrying more weight than all of Zaiden's threats combined.