Chapter 3 – Reese #2
“Don’t move, you’re gonna make it worse.” His hand came down on my knee, holding me still. He trailed it lower on my leg until he reached the wire, sliding his index finger around to the back of my calf.
“I can try to cut it off,” he said, glancing up at me. His voice was so rough and raspy, and the faint smell of cigarettes hung around him.
Wait, cut it…
Cut it off? With what?
“Can you just leave? Seriously. I can figure it out myself.”
He wrapped his hand around my ankle, just under the wire, and held my gaze with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
It was better than the hollow deadness that’d been there earlier, but was still unsettling.
“Can you?” he asked, and now his thumb was moving back and forth over the material of my pants.
His hand felt like a hot iron, even through my clothes, and I was tempted to kick him.
“Yeah, I can, so please go away.”
I wasn’t sure why I was even entertaining his weird bullshit; if he hadn’t crept up on me, I would’ve already gotten myself out of this and been on my way.
“I wonder why Louis put wire here, he’s probably gonna get in trouble for this.
He’s already on thin ice for putting out illegal snare traps last year.
” My stomach flipped as he smiled at me and said, “Looks like he caught himself a tiger. Or maybe I did.” He tilted his head and winked at me.
“Is finders keepers still a thing? ’Cause I found you first.”
…what in the fuck?
My heart pounded in my chest as my mind tried to keep up with this guy and all the different turns he kept taking in what was becoming the strangest conversation of my life.
“What? Who’s Louis?” I asked, licking the rain off my lips and ignoring his question. What the fuck was I even supposed to say to that?
The stranger’s eyes darted down to my mouth, then flashed back up to mine.
“The groundskeeper. Pretty sure he’s an alcoholic, too, which is sad.
He looks and sounds like the Crypt Keeper and lives in a small house just past the cemetery.
But I dunno how long he’ll be here, the dean doesn’t mess around and he already gave him a warning. ”
I just grunted because I didn’t know what to say to that—or to anything that came out of his mouth.
“Were you trying to go to the cemetery?”
I wanted him to go away, but he just kept talking to me. “Yes.”
“How come?” His eyes flickered briefly to my birthmark before returning to mine.
“That’s none of your business,” I said, holding his gaze and raising my eyebrows. “Just like this.” I gestured at my ankle. “None of your business. Can you—” All of a sudden there was a knife in his hand, and panic took over. “Whoa! What the fuck—”
His grip on my ankle tightened, and his eyes lost all traces of amusement. “You need to hold very, very still.”
“Are you insane?! Don’t do that!” I leaned forward and grabbed his forearm, trying to push it away—which was really stupid when he was holding a fucking knife.
I had no plan, I never did—I always acted first and thought later, which was exactly why I’d had to transfer to Ashbrook in the first place.
His eyes widened, and he tried to yank my hand off his arm. “What are you doing, you’re gonna get—”
He grunted when I kicked at his leg, then he flung the knife somewhere to his left in a weird flicking move. It landed in some weeds a few feet from him.
I growled in frustration when he rose over me, grabbed my wrists and forced me back down into the mud. I tried to kick him but he straddled my waist, easily pinning me.
“That was so fucking stupid and dangerous,” he gritted out. “You could’ve gotten seriously hurt. Fuck, I’m just trying to help you!”
“I don’t want your help! Get off me,” I snarled, jerking against his hold. His eyes searched mine for a moment, his fingers flexed on my wrists, and then he let go and shot to his feet.
“Fine, I’ll leave. Good luck getting out of that on your own.” He started walking away without a single glance back, but I heard him mutter, “What the fuck?” to himself.
That’s what I wanted to know.
I sagged back into the mud, staring up at the gray sky.
What in the ever-loving fuck was that?
I truly hoped I never had to see that guy again.
I sat up again and started tugging at the wire. I had no idea how it had gotten so tangled around my leg. Had I stepped into some weird loop? What the fuck.
Ten minutes later, my hands were raw and I had made zero progress in getting untangled or even pinpointing where I might even start. Why the fuck would someone put a random wire over a wall around a cemetery?
“You sure you don’t want some help?”
“Fuck!” I yelled as the stranger’s head popped up from the other side of the wall.
He rested his forearms on top and leaned over to look at me. “I thought you said you could get out of it on your own.”
“Go away.”
“No, it looks like you really need my help. Seriously.”
“Oh my god,” I muttered, lying back and throwing an arm over my eyes.
Something heavy hit the ground to my right, and I turned my head to see a pair of black boots near my shoulder. I closed my eyes as a sense of weary resignation took over.
I should just let him help me at this point. The sooner I was out of here, the sooner I could be away from him.
“Why are you here?” I asked. I moved my arm and sat up, not wanting to be in such a vulnerable position around him.
“I forgot my knife.” He reached into some weeds and grass at the base of the wall and plucked his knife from the ground. “I’d offer to get you out of that, but you’ll probably just attack me again.”
I stared at the wire around my leg, then let my head fall back and looked up at the sky. My clothes were starting to make me itch everywhere because of this uncomfortable wetness.
“I won’t attack you,” I mumbled.
I saw him move closer out of the corner of my eye, and then he was leaning back against the wall near my leg, watching me.
“What?” he asked. His fingers played over the handle of the knife, which must’ve been a pocket knife because the blade was gone. He turned it over and over in his hand, and I watched those long, lithe fingers move with a grace that made me wonder if he played an instrument.
They’d look pretty playing any instrument.
He crouched and caught my gaze in his, raising his brows in question.
“I won’t attack you,” I bit out.
“Your mouth is saying that, but your eyes are telling me a different story,” he mused.
I’d never wanted to punch someone in the face as badly as I did right then. That smug little smirk dug itself beneath my skin and started scraping along every raw nerve ending until my entire body was humming with irritation.
“Tell you what,” he said, his gaze drifting to my birthmark. “If you ask me nicely, I’ll help you.”
“Fuck you, dipstick,” I spat. I’d rather sit here forever.
The laugh that vibrated through his chest was quick and deep and filled with surprise. It made my face heat while my heart thumped hard in my chest. “Dipstick?”
“Dipshit.” Fucking whatever.
“You’ve got a mean little mouth on you,” he said, leaning closer. His dark eyes sparkled with interest as he studied me. His gaze settled on my black eye. “Where’d you get those bruises? Did someone hurt you?”
My stomach flipped at his question. I knew it wasn’t said with any kind of care, that he didn’t give a shit about my well-being or if someone had hurt me, but the flash of heat that shot down my spine told me I desperately wanted someone to care.
I balled my hands into fists.
“Can you help me?” Thunder sounded overhead as the storm moved on, a distant low rolling that reminded me of a tired, grumbling animal.
“Ask me nicely,” he said again, sitting at my feet. He was covered in mud, just like me, and didn’t seem to care a single bit.
We sat there staring at each other in silence.
I refused to relent. Not to this jackass. And as his gaze slowly trailed over every inch of my face, I studied him, too.
He had the most unique features I’d ever seen, and the freckles, though faint, softened his appearance.
But it was his eyes that unnerved me the most.
They were disturbing and I couldn’t quite place why. They reminded of the moment just before a tsunami hit, when the waters drew back from the shore, coalescing into the coming wave. Unavoidable, overwhelming, striking a primal fear in my very core that urged me to run without even knowing why.
He broke the silence, his low, scratchy voice raising goosebumps on my arms. “You new here? A freshman? Sophomore? I’ve never seen you before.”
I ripped my eyes from his and said, “If you’re not gonna help get me out of this, can I at least borrow your phone to call someone who will?”
Mine was charging back in my room.
He pursed his lips and pretended to think about it, which only ratcheted my annoyance even higher. “No, sorry. I don’t have my phone on me. I can go get someone for you…?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“You know what,” I said, exhausted with him. “I’m not doing this anymore.” I lay back in the mud, crossed my arms over my face, and closed my eyes, shutting the world out.
If I was lucky, he’d get bored and just leave and maybe someone else would come and find me…but I wasn’t sure there’d ever been a day in my life when I was lucky.
“There.” The stranger’s soft voice came a second after the tightness around my calf disappeared and my foot fell to the ground.
I moved my arms and lifted my head to look down my body. Two pieces of cut wire hung down the wall, and the asshole who’d cut it was pocketing his knife. He raised his gaze to mine, and I looked right back.
Two larger, darker freckles sat underneath his left eye.
Even with the scar, he was pretty.
Pretty and unpredictable and aggravating.
Everything about his face, his presence, was chaotic. There was something really off about him. Or maybe I was just feeling off-kilter and deeply unsettled by this entire exchange.