Chapter 40 | Kate
FORTY | KATE
“Walk,” Alexander shouts.
My eyes slam shut, tears falling from my lashes as I turn toward the exit. Xander digs the barrel into the middle of my spine, as if he’s walking me to my execution. He pretty much is when he leads me down the long, bleak hallway.
The silence is overtaken by my thundering heartbeat, pulsating in my ears and masking my tattered and uneven breaths.
Shakily, I open the door. Not even the rush of the end-of-summer air blowing through the central area of the park can soothe me.
I frantically peer around, my heart squeezing through my throat, hoping someone will see me.
Save me. But if he’s in this uniform, it means he has authority and is an employee on the night shift, and I’m not sure how many they have on staff tonight.
Usually, it's two or three; however, he said he was the one making the rounds. To anyone else on shift watching the security footage, it would look like he caught me doing something and is escorting me out of the park. I feel his chest so close to my body that I’m sure the gun would be hidden between us unless someone is looking closely.
I’d say I’m surprised Xander went through all the trouble to secure a job here, but I’m not. It’s another challenge that adds to his high.
His obsession.
I could scream. Run.
Then I remember the cold tip of the barrel digging into my back, a constant reminder that he’s in control and I’m not.
“Xander, you need to let me go.” I slow my pace leisurely, hoping the extra seconds will buy me some time. “There are people here who you shouldn’t underestimate.”
“Shut the fuck up, Kate. Your excuses won’t change this. I’m putting an end to this game. You won’t be able to run from me anymore, sweetheart.”
That nickname is a bucket of ice water over my head, making me tremble as I hook onto something he said. “What do you mean I won't be able to run anymore?”
His maniacal tone grinds through my ears. “Before I got that lead that gave me your whereabouts, I had time to plan our future. There’s a nice, renovated basement in the bottom of the house I bought with your name on it.” Nausea slams through me. “A place where you’ll be safe.”
Safe.
I know safe. This isn’t it. And I would give everything for Preston to find me.
The thought of him has the straps on my thigh burning into my flesh like a reminder.
My blade.
My breath hitches.
I can’t rely on someone else to save me.
That’s what Preston’s been teaching me, though I know if he were here, Xander’s heart would already be a smattering behind his ribs from a bullet.
Xander continues his unhinged rambling. “It’s a place where you can’t escape. A place where I can play with you all I want, and nobody will hear your screams. Fuck!” I jump at the belted curse. “I love it when you scream for me. We’ll be so happy there, Kate.”
Needing to strip him of some of his control, I pause, hearing him growl in protest.
The words are bitter on my tongue, but I make them sound sweet. Innocent. “That sounds nice.” Inhaling deeply, I turn to face him, my heart hammering wildly, trying to ignore the gun now aimed directly at my breastplate.
His eyes thin into slits, his head slanting hesitantly.
I nod, cautiously reaching for the uniform button-down hugging his chest. Touching him makes me want to cut off my hands. “You’re right, I just forgot. Now you’re here, and I need you to remind me why we were so good.”
“Yeah?” He watches me inquisitively. The way his dark glare falls on my mouth makes me cringe, turning my blood sour. I’m damn near close to breaking down completely, but my determination to distract him straightens my spine.
Slowly, deliberately, I weave an arm around his neck, pulling my body closer to his while my other hand slowly snakes down to my skirt. It’s like the universe was telling me to order a dress with a slit on the opposite side of where my knife is strapped to my leg so he wouldn’t be able to see it.
“I’ve missed you,” I lie with a whisper, letting my fingers dance across the hilt of my blade while my other hand glides across his neck.
I nearly give away my genuine fear of him when total nightfall envelopes us. All of Lachlan Park goes dark, but the panic that’s flowing through my veins is white. Hot. Burning.
His forehead falls against mine, and I choke back my emotions, wanting to spill all over him. Tears drip down my chin and onto my chest as I slowly start to raise my elbow. “I’m sorry, Xander.”
His alcohol-laced breath drifts across my face. “For running?”
“No,” my voice shakes. His head lifts from being braced against mine, regarding me skeptically. “For this.” My hand whips forward.
His choked gasp slices between us. He stumbles backward, his gaze locking on the scarlet liquid blooming in the side of his stomach, the dark gray shirt soaking into black before my eyes. Xander grits his teeth as a horrific roar tears through the quiet, slicing straight into my bones.
I don’t waste another second, spinning with my blade, my legs carry me to the closest dark structure for cover. Gunshots hectically whip through the air, whizzing past me as Xander aims in my direction—his eyes failing to adjust to the new darkness that blankets the park.
I can barely see, but I don’t stop.
My panic is so intoxicating that the agonizing, blistering pain in my leg starts splitting through the haze. I cry in pain, climbing onto the dark carousel, hoping someone will hear the shots and come running if the stab wound doesn’t drop Xander to his knees first.
Sobs drift from my lips as I limp further onto the platform, ducking under one of the horses.
I may be blanketed in the darkness now, but the stain soaking into my dress is somehow darker.
With unsteady fingers, I part the slit in my dress open.
A rogue bullet tore through the side of my thigh—streaks of crimson drenching my garters.
The blood must have glided down my leg and calf while I was running, soaking into the straps of my heels and pooling below my foot to leave a sticky wet warmth.
My name is a curse. “Kate!”
I slap a hand over my mouth, attempting to keep my cries from alerting him to where I am.
Tears fall heavily now, wetting my fingers before an onslaught of rainbow lights has my eyes squinting.
The repetitive carousel tune fills my ears over the roar of my heartbeat.
The platform is spinning, the motion combining with the pain and fear, causing acid to swirl vehemently in my stomach.
No. No. No!
His voice is closer now. Lethal. “How do you think it made me feel to watch you shove your tongue down another man’s throat, Kate?”
I try to train my ears, but I can’t hear his footsteps on the metal platform over the music.
His growl penetrates the air. “That you let him taste what’s mine!”
I’m quivering so badly, worried he’ll sense the vibrations and find his way to me like a spider knows its prey is near.
“Did you let him touch you? Fuck you? Fall in love with you?”
The bombardment of questions has my heart shattering, thinking of leaving Preston, whether it's by Xander dragging me out by my hair or my heartbeat ceasing in the very park that ripped his family from him. It’s a shame it took me this long, but there is too much I need to fight for now.
The life I’d never thought I’d have.
My peace.
Preston’s peace.
“I know what it feels like to kill a man now,” he adds when I don’t speak.
A weep escapes through my tightened fingers, but I keep both hands clutched to my mouth.
“It gives me the same high I get when you’re squirming beneath me, pretending you don’t like it when I make you bleed for me.
Well, now I’m bleeding for you,” he shouts through clenched teeth, sounding like a horror movie coming to life. “Is that what you wanted?”
Another gunshot reverberates in the air, the proximity making me jump and slam my head against the underside of the metal horse I’m crouched under. In an instant, my blade, my security, falls from my fingers as black and white dots pepper my vision.
The bile in my stomach crawls up my throat, my heartbeat now thrashing against my skull, buzzing in my ears. He’s a blur in my vision, but his uniform is unmistakable.
Xander’s fingers wrap around my ankles, pulling me out from my hiding place. When he forcefully drags my back to be flush with the floor, my head bounces off the metal plate below me, the endless void trying to pull me under.
Xander swings a leg over my body, straddling my thighs. He tightens his knees around my legs to try and keep me still, the searing pain in my thigh shooting through my muscles. I surely have a concussion now, combined with being shot, but I’m not giving in to him.
I won't make it easy for him.
That Kate is long gone.
The rainbow lights reflect off the body of the gun in his hand. “You know the only solution for this, don’t you?”
I scream, my hands pounding at his chest, his stomach, my brain forcing my exhausted, hysterical physique to relinquish any energy I have left, trying to keep myself alive.
I try to use a variety of self-defense moves Preston taught me if I ever find myself with a heavy mass on top of me.
My legs kick to try and gain any purchase, but my body is surrendering to the pain, to the throbbing in my head.
I force another scream from my lungs before a bloodied fist whips out, clenching my throat to rob the air from my lungs. “God, we would’ve had so much more fun if you had always put up a fight like this.”
My arms slap at his forearms as he draws painful whimpers up my throat as he clutches harder. My vision continues to blur. I fight for breath, but it's no use.
“If I can’t have you, Kate, nobody’s going to. You understand that, don’t you? Such a shame to waste a pretty thing like you, but you’re giving me no choice, sweetheart.” His hard, bulky body folds over mine to keep me from smashing his sternum with my fists.
Tears pour from my eyes, my lungs an inferno raging for the oxygen he’s denying me of. His nails dig into my skin, my hands flailing to the side, frantically searching on the floor for the thing that’s marked me permanently forever.
Now, it’s the only thing that can save me.
Our lives are on the line.
It’s him or me.
The brief flash of a cool object brushing my thumb has my fingers dancing with the edge of the hilt.
I choose mine.
Something animalistic floods through my veins and chases back the panic as I grip onto the handle and slice the blade through the air without remorse. Hot spray peppers my face, and onto my lips, at the same time, a gunshot obliterates my ears.