Chapter 37 Amber #2
My admittedly shady research led me to two tokens of wisdom that served me well with my last assailant.
The first? Prepare mentally before physically. The throat is vulnerable, and so is the human mind. I think my mind has been fucked up for years, in spite of how much I've tried to pretend it's not. So, no concern there.
The second tip? Aim for the jugular and then pull the blade across.
“Your blood.”
He never even sees it coming until I'm burying the blade in his neck. Someone knocks into me, though, before I can drag it across his neck. He stumbles backward as I turn the knife on whoever just helped him, expecting his friend who'd lingered in the shadows.
Instead, it's a large man with a beard who looks like he could crush my windpipe with a single meaty hand.
My chest heaves, the adrenaline keeping me alive as he takes a step toward me, his hands outstretched like he means to snatch me up.
I don't give him the chance, slashing out at him with the knife and forcing him to step back to avoid being struck.
I laugh at the look of shock on his face and then laugh harder when it morphs to rage.
Behind him, the man with the tattooed knuckles struggles to stem the flow of blood that's spurting fast from his neck, drenching the floor like a sprinkler. The sound of shoes slapping concrete recedes, telling me the friend who ran is a fucking coward. But I already knew that.
“What the fuck, Cal?” One of the men yells, gripping him by the shoulder and shaking him. “Get your bitch under control. Get that fucking knife from her!”
Fucking idiots still haven't put two and two together. At least, not all of them have. The one I stabbed seems to realize something more was at play here, because his eyes are on Cal, angry.
“I like her like this.” Cal says, pulling the syringe from his jacket pocket. In a flash, he gets the big guy, who's too distracted by the blade to see the sleight of hand. He tenses and tries to fight Cal off when he feels him pulling against him, but it does no good.
Cal stabs the man in the neck, in the same spot I stabbed the others. But instead of blood spouting from the puncture, Cal floods him with drugs that make him still, his efforts to fight him off failing.
He's bigger than Cal, but the element of surprise gave him the opportunity he needed to flood his veins, and as he drops to the ground, the older man who was trying to help Knuckles bolts. He launches into a run from the ground, like he's bracing for a marathon, and takes off back the way he came.
“You dropped your teddy!” I call after him, bending down to scoop it into my arms.
Cal grins at me and runs past me, stalking our prey.
He goes for the first to escape... the one who's far too high to figure out how to get the fuck out of here. I go after the other, knowing he hasn't gotten as big a lead on me.
I practically skip through the warehouse, ignoring the fallen bodies and the blood-soaked hand that reaches out to try and wrap around my ankle as Knuckles fights for his last breath. I want to stay and watch the life slip out of his eyes... it shouldn’t take long.
But I'm a predator right now, and my prey is on the run.
“Why'd you run?” I call after him, stalking into the next room.
The music is quiet in here, and the darkness is deep, unfolding out of my vision. I'm confident he ran toward the exit, back the way he came, rather than trying to hide in the shadows like a child.
But then again, he did bring a teddy bear to a gang rape, so who's to say what kind of fucking monster I'm hunting right now?
“Was this teddy bear for me?” I call. The music switches to something slow and jaunty, haunting.
“Run, rabbit, run rabbit.” The speakers call out as I move to the next room, the volume louder from the speaker concealed in the corner.
I sing a few lines. It's not lost on me that I'm letting him know exactly where I am. That's the point.
I want him to feel hunted, stalked, and out of his mind with terror.
I want him to feel like this can't possibly happen to him, like it's a nightmare he just hasn't yet woken up from.
I want to fracture his soul before I carve it out of him.
As I move to the next room, the quiet deepens, stretching between the darkness.
“You brought me a present?” I call, picking my way carefully through the room. I didn't have the foresight to put my shoes on when Cal handed me the dress. “I have a present for you, too.”
A sob from the darkness makes me freeze. I turn toward the vast emptiness of the warehouse shell, my eyes scanning the space for any indication of a person hiding there.
“Marco…” I venture, stepping gingerly into the shadows that conceal my victim from me. The silence stretches between us, but I know he’s there, waiting, hiding.
“Where is that pesky rabbit?” I call, moving slowly forward.
He rushes at me from the darkness; he’s upon me before I see him rise from the shadows. He growls as he tackles me to the ground in darkness so obsolete, I can see nothing other than flashes of skin, teeth, and gleaming eyes.
I slash blindly with the knife, refusing to let him disarm me.
A howl assures me I hit my mark at least once, but then a hand closes around my wrist, squeezing so tightly that I drop the knife as I attempt to wrench free.
It falls with a clatter that's swallowed by the music switching to a loud, pulsing rock song.
He gets his other hand around my neck, pinning me beneath him so that he can crawl over my body to pin me in place.
I feel the bite of steel as he presses it against my neck, like that will make me stop trying to squirm out from under him.
It doesn't.
He's as blind as I am in the dark... maybe more so, given his age.
He has to be well into his sixties, given the sallow skin and silver hair I witnessed before he ran from me.
He's trying to choke me into submission, but I get the sense he's not a man used to fighting for anything he wants.
.. and another sense that he's not used to taking what he wants from grown women.
“Stop fucking fighting.” He growls, pressing the blade deeper into my skin. I feel the sharp sting as it breaks skin, my blood mixing with the air as his other hand moves up my skirt, throwing it over my hips so he can get the access he wants.
But if he wants to fuck me, he'll have to settle for my corpse, because I'm not going to give it to him.
He has to release my thigh to be able to free himself from his pants, and it gives me the leverage I needed. I roll like an alligator, throwing all of my energy into the motion so that he's knocked off my legs as I barrel out from under him.
But I'm not fucking running. As soon as my feet are on the ground, I kick blindly, hard...
A satisfying crunch fills the air, followed by his excruciating groan.
I imagine I just got him square in the face, but there's no time to enjoy my victory.
I dive for the place I heard the knife drop and nearly laugh in relief when my fingers close around the sharp part of the blade.
I correct it in my grip and move toward the entrance, luring my victim into the little bit of moonlight that filters in from above our heads.
He comes willingly, angry that he's been shown up by a woman wearing a ridiculous doll's dress.
Pride damns even the most vile of men.
He proves that as he comes for me, even knowing I have the knife again.
It doesn't stop him from lunging at me, pulling me to the ground.
And I don't stop him from doing it, letting him tackle me so that I can get close enough to drive the knife into him.
I'll settle for any part of him, anything that bleeds.
The moonlight behind him makes it hard to see much of his face, but I can see where I already got him with the knife before, right across the cheek.
This time, I wait just a single second as he plants his hands on either side of me, his thighs locking me in place.
“I don't usually like a fight…” he rasps. “But fuck, babydoll, if you didn't just take me back to my glory days with this little stunt. I'm gonna fucking keep you in my basement so I can do this every day. But unlike Cal,” He laughs. “I'm not gonna drug you. I want you to fucking hurt.”
A laugh bubbles out of me, so deep and foreign-sounding that I'm not entirely sure where it came from.
He grits his teeth, his anger growing at the fact that I didn't give him the reaction he wanted. I'd do it for that reason alone, but I don't have to. I can't stop laughing and grinning. The euphoria has me too fucking high to come back down, to feel anything less than fucking opulent.
“What's so fucking funny?”
“I was going to say the same thing.”