Page 2 of To Have and to Hold

Fingers dug into my shoulders and pushed, chucking me into the air again, nothing but a sack of warm bones. I banged against the wall and slid down. Tried to scream again, to find the iron weapon. Blood bubbled on my lips. I needed to say something, anything to protect myself, but he stepped out of view.

Gasping, rising onto my knees, my hair obscuring my vision, I thought, crazily, for a shred of a second, that he’d gone. When the thump came, a lancing blow at my temple, my eyes bulged and I gagged, vomit leeching from the sides of my lips as nausea collided with the agony and sent me into a spiral of blank insanity.

Couldn’t think, couldn’t function. I was a nothing-person, a body housing a brain with no synapse, merely a gland that registered danger, fear, pain—

I hurt. Oh fuck, blood. I’m tasting—

He came at me again.

Run.

I lurched for the door, any door, window, heels skidding, toppling sideways. My mind was lopsided, but he was right side up and prepared, tracking me with the ease of a cat waiting for an injured bird to stop flopping.

Pounce.

With little effort but the toss of a towel over his shoulder, my stomach was speared by someone else’s bones. The pressure had me gagging, vomiting more, leaving a trail of saliva and liquid as I was carried out of the loft and into the elevator, my head smacking against this person’s back, an incongruous velvet smoothness against my cheeks. I pushed off his legs for leverage, to lift myself up, but he pulled, throwing me off his shoulder and slamming me to the elevator floor.

“M—mo—No…” My forearms protected my face. I kicked out, connecting with his shins, using my one remaining heel as a spear and driving it into his skin over and over and over.

He dodged most of the blows, bending down and lifting me by my underarms. Twisting and wrenching wasn’t working so I played rag doll instead, becoming dead weight in his arms in hopes that he’d loosen his hold and drop me. Instead he tightened his grip until I was suffocating against his chest and a cold wetness painted my face, staining his jacket. It was a mix, a cocktail of blood, saliva, tears, vomit, a blend of terror that fused the further he walked, easily, out of the building. His were smooth steps, mine were desperate beats against the floor.

I screamed, a spiral of sound that was thick of tongue and spiked with rage. He held me tighter, rushing to the curb.

My heel dug into the fat of his thigh and he cursed, then my knee drove into his dick and he grunted, loosening his grip enough for me to stagger away.

The street was barren. No cars, no people, falling snow. But there. A deli at the corner. Lights on, someone. Get there. Reach it.

I ran barefoot and stumbled over a mound of driven snow and fell onto the sidewalk, salted pavement flaying skin off my palms, but I righted myself and sprinted. My lungs sucked in ice, spreading in my chest as frostbite flames. My wounds screamed, my head pounded, but I was almost there. Get to it!

My arm was yanked and I spun backwards, toppling right into his arms.

“Goddamn you!” I howled, punching at anything, then wrenched away enough to scream, “Help me! Please!”

I begged to the lighted window, fingers spread, but he was too strong. I was dragged away, back into the cold, sucked into the dark until shadows inked across my hands. The heels of my stockinged feet dug frantic patterns in the slush as he took me away.

Finally he let go, enough for me to almost get my bearings before he held me against something. I heard the slide of metal hinges. He cocked his head under a dark hood, his teeth glittering in the gloom.

Smiling.

“Fuck y—”

I didn’t finish. I fell, blacking out from the punch he threw to land me in the van.