Chapter 4
Cynthia
My heart hammers in my chest as my lungs seem to shrink in size.
Hard brick digs into my back, and I swear I can already feel a bump forming on the back of my head, but none of that feels important right now—not my injuries, not the terror I feel, and not the jackass who’s still using his weight to keep me trapped.
The only thing that matters right now is the giant of a man in a bloody skull mask who’s stalking towards the other two men with a large knife in his hand.
“Let me go,” I cry, trying to get the guy who’s holding me to see reason. “He’s going to kill us. Let me go!”
He ignores me, so I look over his shoulder at the Doberman. I swear he’s the same one I gave a treat to a few nights ago, and even though he looks dangerous, I’m fairly certain he won’t kill me. I quickly decide I’d rather take my chances with Chort than the guy with a knife.
When I start to struggle, he slams me against the brick again, making me wince and hiss out a breath. A low, threatening growl fills the air, and the guy looks over his shoulder at the angry dog.
“Let me go,” I say again. “I won’t tell anyone you came after me. Just let me go before we’re both murdered by this guy.”
Right after the words are out of my mouth, I hear a sound that makes every hair on the back of my neck rise in unison. As I look over, I hear the wet, sickening sound again as the masked man slams the long blade of the knife back into the other guy’s stomach.
“Jesus fuck, man!” The guy holding me squeals the words, too terrified to move.
We both watch in stunned, horrified silence as the guy in the skull mask moves faster than I thought possible, lashing out in a perfectly timed move that has him slicing through the other guy’s neck before he can even think to turn and run.
I hear a choked whimper, and some part of my brain knows the noise is coming from me, but there’s no way I can control it.
The noise only grows louder when I see the creepy mask turn so it’s now looking straight at me.
The once-steel-tight grip that was around me loosens as the last remaining guy lets me go so he can try and run and save himself.
He doesn’t make it far. Before he’s even fully turned around, there’s another loud squelching sound right before I feel something warm hit my face.
The man lets out a pained groan, and then he’s sinking to the ground before me.
I’m shaking so badly I can hardly stand.
Sobbing, I let myself sink to the ground as my teeth chatter and my breathing turns wheezy.
I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die right here under the bike path after leaving a stupid fucking frat party that I didn’t even want to go to.
I’d thought I was in trouble before when the three guys jumped out and surrounded me on my way back to the dorm, but that was nothing compared to this.
They were like obnoxious bullies on the playground, but this guy?
This guy is the crazy that hides in your closet waiting for you to go to sleep so he can murder you.
I’m already in the midst of my panic attack, so it takes a second for me to notice the wet nose nudging my cheek.
Opening my eyes, I see Chort, and his warm brown eyes are enough to make me start sobbing again.
Without thinking, I cling to his fur, wrapping my arms around him and burying my head against his neck, only dimly aware of the heavy thud of boots on concrete and a loud scraping noise as bodies are dragged into the bushes so they’re hidden from view.
I don’t even think about running. Paralyzing fear, the fact that my lungs are cinched up from asthma and anxiety, and the deep awareness that I wouldn’t make it five steps before a blade was stabbed into me make it impossible for me to move.
When the bodies are hidden, I keep a firm grip on Chort and watch as the masked man pulls out his phone.
He makes a call, and then surprises me by speaking Russian to whoever is on the other end of it.
I’m not nearly far enough in my studies to understand anything beyond a word or two, but I recognize the sound of the language, the cadence of it, and when he pockets his phone, he turns to look over at me.
“Don’t leave, Chort,” I whisper as I hug him tighter, trying to make myself invisible, even while I know it’s pointless.
Without a word, he walks over until he’s standing right in front of me.
I’ve never been around anyone as big as him.
Even when I was standing, he towered over me, and there are enough outside lights on campus for me to see how wide his shoulders are and how solid every inch of him is.
My wheezing grows louder, and when I start to whisper to myself, “Cement beneath my butt, bricks at my back, soft fur under my fingers, Chort’s breath on my cheek,” he tilts his head in that creepy way, like he’s trying to figure me out.
“Where’s your inhaler?”
His voice is deep, and there’s no trace of an accent. I stare up at him like an idiot. The question confuses me. It’s the last thing I’d been expecting, and when I continue to stare at him, he asks again, “I can hear you wheezing. Where’s your inhaler? Do you have it on you?”
I nod and make a clumsy attempt to reach my pocket.
When it’s obvious that’s not going to get us anywhere, he reaches out and hooks his hands under my armpits, lifting me up like I weigh nothing.
With his creepy mask only inches from my face, I can’t help but let out another whimper and shut my eyes.
The thing is covered in blood spatter, and not all of it is from tonight.
Some of it looks really old and really stuck on there.
While I keep acting like a toddler who doesn’t want to face the monster under the bed, he lowers one hand and starts to pat me down. He finds it in the pocket of my jacket, pulls the cap off, shakes it, and holds it to my lips.
When I don’t do anything, he says, “On the count of three take a breath.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond.
“One, two, three.” As soon as he’s finished, he pushes down on the cartridge, and I suck in a big breath, taking the medicine into my lungs.
I keep it inside me, giving it every possible chance to work while I slowly lift my eyes to face the terrifying mask.
I slowly let out the breath I’ve been holding when my eyes find his through the deep holes in the mask.
They’re light blue and intense in a way I hadn’t been expecting.
I assumed I’d see a crazy sort of rage, or wide and unhinged, but his are calm as they hold my stare.
“Again,” he says, and when he counts to three, I take in another lungful of medicine before he caps my inhaler and slips it back into my pocket.
Instead of letting me go, he steps in closer, forcing me back against the brick as he looks down at me.
Reaching up, he lightly drags his fingers over my cheek, smearing the blood that I’d forgotten about.
I hear his breath catch before he brings his bloody fingers to my hair and slowly curls a long strand around them.
Before I can think better of it, I open my mouth and ask, “Do you want to kill me?” I don’t know why I ask it. I don’t know why I didn’t ask if he was going to instead of if he wanted to, but the words are already out, hanging in the air between us, and there’s no taking them back.
His eyes find mine again, but he doesn’t speak for several seconds. When he finally does, I wish I could unhear the three words.
“I’m not sure.”
Another whimper escapes my lips at the thought of that giant blade sinking into my stomach. The sound of it makes him tilt his head again as he scrutinizes my every move, my every reaction to him.
“That’s not comforting at all,” I tell him, frantically looking around for any sign of someone else, any clue that help might be out there somewhere, but there’s nothing but darkness and silence. Everyone is either inside or at the Alpha party.
“You have no idea how rare it is,” he says, pulling my eyes back to his.
“What?”
“To not know,” he says, and before I can ask him what in the hell he’s talking about, he looks down at his dog. Chort is still sitting by my feet, looking up at the two of us while his tongue lolls out the side of his mouth. “You fed my dog the other night.”
“How do you know that?”
“Very little gets by me.” Stepping back, he puts a few inches between us, but he keeps a tight enough grip on my upper arm to ensure I won’t be going anywhere. “Come on.”
My knees lock as I try to resist moving. “What? Where are you taking me?”
“Your dorm.” When I try to fight him by remaining still, a laughable attempt at overpowering him if there ever was one, he looks down at me and says, “You can’t stay out here all night. I’m walking you back. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I let out a very unhinged-sounding laugh and look at the spray of blood on the concrete footpath. “I just saw you kill three people, and you’re just going to let me go?”
I swear the corners of his eyes lift up like he’s smiling beneath the mask. “Are you trying to convince me to kill you?”
“No,” I quickly say. “I just mean I don’t believe that’s where you’re taking me.”
“Well, I am. You haven’t seen my face, and I only killed those assholes because they were attacking you and my dog was involved.”
“I could’ve handled them,” I try to tell him as he starts to pull me down the path.
“Oh yeah? How do you figure that? Three men against one woman. The odds are not in your favor. My guess is they followed you from the party and were probably going to attack you and rape you. Maybe they wouldn’t have killed you, but they would’ve beaten you up to scare you or to get you to stop screaming.
I did you a favor by ending their lives.
You’re incredibly naive if you think they were just going to let you walk past.”