19. Anna
ANNA
LAST DECEMBER
“Have you tried Mcanally’s?”
“Yes,” I groan for the umpteenth time.
“What about the diner on the corner of Fifth and—”
“Yes, Matty. I’ve already submitted my application to every restaurant, fast food joint, and department store in the entire goddamn city!” I don’t mean to be taking my frustration out on my temporary roommate, but I’m at wit’s end.
When I confronted Francesca, she didn’t even blink at the accusation.
This bitch had slashed my tires and then played all sweet and innocent, going so far as to sit in the police station with me to file the report.
I know it was stupid to ask her why she would do this, but I’m apparently a glutton for punishment because darling little Franny didn’t hold back, actually laughing in my face.
“ I ’ m not about to put a target on my back just because you couldn ’ t keep some fuckboy happy. Either I ’ d have to side with the losing team and get screwed over in the process, or I could make some money and gain favor. Not exactly a tough decision.”
And that seemed to be the running theme of my life for the past month and a half.
Since I couldn’t trust staying in the same room as Francesca, I’ve been crashing at my friends’ apartment on their pullout couch.
The space would be small for a couple, so it’s damn near suffocating being the fifth occupant, but unlike everybody else, I don’t have anywhere to go where I can breathe.
Seeing as how Sebastian’s uncle was a major donor to the university, it came as no surprise that the board of trustees fast-tracked my case. I had already lost my scholarship, and if I wanted to avoid an expulsion being on my permanent record, I had no choice but to drop out.
My only current option is to see if I can get accepted at another school, but that would require grants, loans, and financial aid, none of which I could get before the start of next semester.
Oh, and Officer Williams was right. Well, kind of. The sheriff’s department didn’t serve me with a restraining order. No, they had a process server do that.
I’m not allowed within a hundred yards of Sebastian, I’m not allowed to be near his apartment or even the college, I’m not allowed to contact him by phone, text, or email, and I’m not allowed to possess a firearm for at least the next sixteen months.
The fucker.
I have no interest in being anywhere near that cretin, but wouldn’t you know it?
Everywhere I seem to go, Sebastian just so happens to show up.
Usually, the rule after a nasty breakup is that the person who arrives at the location first gets to stay, but not in this case.
He just has to wave his little piece of paper, and I have to leave.
Every party, every restaurant, the grocery store, and even the public fucking library. The asshole has never stepped into the building a day in his life, yet he comes sauntering through the front door before I can even make it to the fiction section.
All I can do now is focus on finding a job, but again, word from Sebastian has evidently gotten out.
After he got me fired from my last job, I was able to find another one within a week, but the same antics started up.
I barely earned my first paycheck before I was let go.
For the next few weeks, I had a number of solid interviews in which the hiring managers indicated the job was pretty much guaranteed to be mine…
But then I’d be ghosted by every last one.
Everything since then has only gotten worse.
Anytime I speak to someone looking to hire, the conversation starts off well, until they learn my name. Suddenly, the position I was inquiring about is “no longer available” or “has since been filled.”
Huh.
That’s funny, seeing as how every last business that’s told me this still has the job positions listed online and in the classifieds.
I’ve been working since I was fifteen, gotten impeccable letters of recommendation, and never had a problem securing a job before. I find it hard to believe that only now am I suddenly unemployable.
I get my answer when I try for a more direct approach and drop off my application in person at a hole-in-the-wall pub across town. I get a chance to talk to the manager, only to be told, “We’re not looking for trouble,” after he asks me my name.
I walk out of the pub in a daze, unable to process the interaction.
Hell, I barely notice the cold rain pelting my head and face.
It’s one thing to think you’re being targeted, but getting confirmation?
To know with absolute certainty that there’s no escaping his wrath?
I break out into a cold sweat that has nothing to do with the weather or being ill.
Although, I may throw up. In fact, it’s a certainty.
Trying to avoid vomiting on the sidewalk, I dart over to the alley beside the restaurant.
I hate the winter, how it gets so dark so early.
It’s barely five o’clock, and the alleyway is already shrouded in enough shadows that I can barely see the outlines of dumpsters and boxes.
And I’m so concerned about what’s in the dark that I don’t heed what’s behind me.
Two steps into the alleyway, I’m doubled over, heaving, and when I straighten, pain radiates across the side and back of my head.
I can only assume it’s from someone’s fist, but it may as well be a brick with the amount of force that comes with it.
I yelp and stagger forward, deeper into the alley, too dazed and stunned to process what’s really happening.
I let my purse fall off my shoulder and instinctively hold it out behind me, begging whoever it is to just take it and leave.
My wallet and Prada aren’t worth getting killed over.
But the person doesn’t grab it.
I go to turn around, only for something to slam into my back.
It hits me right in the lungs, knocking the air clear out of me and sending my body careening forward to the ground.
I try to move. I try to scramble to my feet.
I try to scream. But all that escapes is a pitiful rasp of air as what is unmistakably a boot presses into my spine, pinning me face-down onto the pavement.
The pressure only steals what little oxygen I have left in my lungs, and hands grab the hood of my jacket, dragging me further into the alleyway, no doubt out of sight.
Surely, someone saw what happened. They’ve already called the police. Someone will intervene…
But they don’t.
The damp pavement bleeds into my clothes as I’m hauled through trash and muck until it’s so dark that I can’t even see what’s in front of my face.
I’m still holding my purse, so I try to dig inside it for my phone, but the handbag is ripped away.
I try to look over my shoulder, hoping that there’s still enough light behind me to get a look at my attacker, but as soon as I turn my head, the fist strikes me in the side of my cheek.
Again and again and again. Only once my head has collapsed back onto the pavement does it stop, but it’s just to focus the assault elsewhere.
The front of a steel toe boot repeatedly strikes my sides, and even after I hear a crack, it doesn’t stop.
My lungs instinctively expand, desperate to reclaim air to cry out, but it hurts too much.
Multiple ribs are fractured, if not shattered, a broken bit scraping against my lung, threatening to puncture it.
Fingers grab my hair, and I register his thumb graze against the back of my neck.
It’s not skin I feel. It’s latex. Like hospital gloves. Or what they use at crime scenes.
My head is pried off the pavement, just to be slammed back down onto it, and the impact does something to me. Both ears begin ringing, and a flash of white invades my vision.
“ What are you going to do now, Anna?” The voice sounds distant, but it’s unmistakable.
Weight comes down on top of my upper thighs as he straddles me, and he begins tugging at the fabric around my waist, his erection pressing into my ass.
No, no, no, no, no!
I’m uselessly flailing, slapping and clawing my hands behind me, but all I can reach is the heavy denim of his sleeves.
“Don’t worry, dear. That’s not what I’m interested in,” Sebastian laughs, pulling the hems of my shirt and jacket up to expose the bare skin of my back.
The icy air licks over it, but it’s quickly replaced when something else slams into my back.
At first, I think I’ve been punched again, but blinding, white-hot pain radiates all the way through me, and as I try to move, I feel the blade.
It scrapes along my insides, and though it’s removed as quickly as it was plunged in, the pain only intensifies when I feel the blade slide back out.
The cold against my skin is quickly coated by warm liquid, and all I can do is brace for the knife to sink into me again.
I wait and wait and wait, but it never comes. He climbs off of me, and though I can’t be sure, it sounds like he’s walking deeper into the alley. I pray he’s going to the other end that opens up on Liberty Street, leaving me alone, but I don’t allow myself to hope.
The pressure inside my chest continues building, so utterly desperate for a deep breath that I’m sure I’m going to suffocate.
I attempt to pull myself up to my feet but only get an inch off the ground before the searing pain from my back into my abdomen sends me dropping back down onto the ground.
Pathetic, strangled whimpers tear out of me as I dig my nails into the cracked pavement, slowly pulling my body sideways.
I keep doing this until I manage to spin myself around so that I’m facing the side of the alley I came from. And I begin army crawling.
The street up ahead goes in and out of focus and begins dimming with every inch I drag myself. Metallic liquid mixes with my saliva, coating my throat as I instinctively swallow the combination. It leaves me gagging, unable to breathe through the thickness of it.
All I can feel is blood, in my mouth, dripping from my lips, running down the side of my head, pooling across my back.
The few pedestrians I see walking past the mouth of the alleyway don’t so much as look in my direction, even when I try to call out for help. The sound that escapes me comes out more as a cough, smothered easily by the rush of traffic.
There are still twenty feet between me and the sidewalk, but my movements become slower, my heart palpitating in my chest as a cold unlike anything I’ve ever felt seeps into every inch of me.
But then I feel it.
Amid the waterlogged newspapers and sludge plastered to the ground, my hand brushes against leather. It’s familiar, and as my fingers trace the emblem, my vision grows even more blurry. This time with tears. Because it’s my Prada bag, the phone inside vibrating with an incoming text message.