Chapter 27 #2
Once I finish with those, I move the heavy hot chocolate dispenser to the back before grabbing the disposable tablecloth and bundling it up tight. Realizing I need a new garbage bag, I hoist myself up to kneel on the kitchen counter so I can reach the box of them in the cupboard above me.
Warm hands grip my waist from behind, and I stretch up as I ask, “Can you help me?”
Suddenly I’m yanked backwards, and with a shriek I find myself over someone’s shoulder. Pain bubbles up from my stomach, where their shoulder digs into me, and it takes me a couple seconds too long to realize it’s not one of my three men.
It’s Scott.
“No! Let me go! Help—” My screams are cut off as he turns sharply, smacking my head against something sharp and hard, like the corner of a cabinet or wall.
My vision blurs, as I grip my head and hiss in pain.
I don’t have to look at my fingers to know the wetness I feel is my blood.
I try to remind myself of all the self-defense training I’ve done with Asher, but my head throbs, and I whimper as his hand lands on my ass, holding me against him as I bounce on his shoulder.
He must be running. Cold air touches my skin and terror fills me as I realize he’s taken me out the back.
I try to scream but my dizziness combined with being held in this position makes the only thing that comes up a garbled whimper. Scott laughs as he continues to jog, making me bounce up and down as pain shoots through my head and stomach.
“I warned you, Rosalie.” I whimper in fear, and his arm tightens around my legs. “You had to go and slut yourself out to those dickheads.” I try to focus on my surroundings, and all I see is snow and dots of red. Is that my blood?
“W-why?” I manage to croak out, still not understanding why he cared about me so much, why couldn’t he just let me go?
“Why? Because you belong to me. You thought you could just leave and humiliate me like that?” His fingers tighten on me in anger and I try to beat my fists into his back, but he barely notices.
“W-What do you want with me?”
“It’s time you learned that you’re either with me, or you’re with no one.”
“No one, I choose no one,” I blurt out, knowing I’d rather be alone than with him every day of the year.
He laughs as if he knows something I don't. “So be it then.” A moment later he stops, as if checking for something then runs even faster. I think we cross a road and soon the sound of cars disappears as I start to notice tree trunks pass by us.
Where is he taking me?
“Help!” I try to yell.
“Shut up, you fat little cunt!” Even in my dazed state I hear the contradiction in his insult. I guess he never was the smartest man—
“Ah!” I scream in pain as he manages to swing my head into what I think is a tree trunk. I grip my head with both hands to stop it from bouncing as I whimper in pain.
With every step he takes, pain shoots through my skull and I hiss, trying not to throw up. Maybe I should, it would serve him right, having my vomit down his back.
Suddenly, I feel airborne for a moment before I land hard on my back on something solid that immediately gives way beneath me, dropping me into ice cold water.
I gasp as I reach for something to grab into.
I see the dark form of Scott hovering nearby, watching me with a satisfied smirk.
“Help!” I scream as my legs flail underneath me. I try to swim towards where he is but I quickly realize he’s standing high up on a bridge.
He dropped me into the pond!
“Remember Rosalie, I gave you the choice and you chose this.”
I ignore him as I look around. There wasn’t any ice here last time I looked, so none of it can be very thick, which means as I try to pull myself up on it, it just crumbles beneath my arms.
I have to make it to the shore. I glance around, finding the closest point, which has to be over fifty feet away.
I can make it.
I splutter as my head dips a little too low and cold water gets in my mouth.
I hear Scott laugh as I try to make my way to the edge.
It’s extremely hard. If there was no ice, I could probably swim there before hypothermia takes over, but the ice is thick enough to provide a real nuisance without being thick enough to support me, making me have to work for every inch of freedom.
My legs start to slow down, and I panic, my hands trying desperately to find something to hold on to while I regain my strength. But my head is throbbing, and thinking is difficult. The ice continues to crumble at an agonizingly slow pace.
I’ve barely made it ten feet, and as my body starts to freeze up and slow, I realize with desperation that I’m not going to make it.
I turn to look up at Scott, hoping he’ll have mercy on me. He must care about me in some sick way, to have chased after me all this time. Was it really just so he could kill me?
“Please!” I beg, lifting a hand in his direction. His body doesn’t move, but even from down here, I see the smile grow on his face.
A whimper escapes me just before my mouth dips below the water. Suddenly, Scott is thrown off his feet when something collides with him right as my head drops under the surface.