Chapter 5 #2
Blood staining my face. Stuck in a cart wheel, with nowhere to go, much like now. People tied to the trail.
Blood. So much fucking blood.
I need to get out. I need to get out right fucking now before I pass out.
My breathing is choppy as I feel the oncoming panic attack crawling its way forward, and not even the breathing techniques my therapist taught me help. I can’t breathe, gulping for air and feeling my chest rising and falling. But I can’t fucking breathe, no matter how hard I try.
Finally, I make it to another room. It’s dark, with blood-stained walls and handprints littering the area.
Something brushes against my shoulder, and I scream out loud. The scare actor beside me, dressed like someone who’s been slaughtered, with a plastic knife sticking through their head in a tiara, jumps. Obviously not prepared for that loud a scream. They quickly disappear behind a wall.
I can’t force myself to walk. My legs feel like jelly, unreliable, unable to keep my weight any longer. The floors will swallow me whole soon.
And the smell. Gods, that awful odor.
The panic grips hold of my chest, constricting it like a boa snake out to strangle its prey.
I fight to remain standing, gaining my composure just in time for the lights to turn off, bringing with it the sensation of experiencing a tornado with no shelter in sight. There’s nowhere to run, even when I’m aware of the danger.
As the light flickers on once more, a figure suddenly appears right before me, further down the hall.
An ominous presence, sucking the oxygen in the room with him.
I swallow harshly, knowing it’s only yet another scare actor, but this one feels more ominous and eerie.
The lights turn off again, leaving me standing in the darkness.
With no idea what will come next, my breathing grows once again ragged, and I curse Eveline for ever bringing me to this fucking fair. The fair’s tactic is good—I’ll admit that—splitting up the groups to leave them vulnerable and alone.
When the lights flicker back on, he’s even closer than before. I gasp in a sharp intake of breath, freezing in place. As if doing so will prevent him from noticing me, even when we’re the only two people in this hallway.
I manage to take in more details of his appearance: dark and brooding.
Tall with broad shoulders stretching against dark clothes.
Staring at him, I wonder if he can see me, then realize I’m foolish for ever believing so.
Of course, he can see me—my black lace dress, now soaked with sweat and paranoia.
The lights sputter again, on and off. Each time brings him nearer, and every time, the sound of metal scraping against concrete gnaws at my ears, growing sharper with every heartbeat.
Eventually, I can’t even see him anymore.
“Stay away. Please,” I plead, my voice ragged, not caring about how pathetic I sound.
I squeeze my eyes shut and lean against the wall. Dizziness swirls through me from the lack of oxygen, the edges of my vision ultimately darkening, and I collapse onto the floor when my legs give way underneath me.
There’s a chill in the room, and my fingers have yet to return to normal body temperature. They’re just as numb and stiff as when I was outside, and it makes me stumble as I crawl backward on all fours. I’m desperate to get away from him.
Blood paints the room: it’s in the handprints on the walls; in the pool thick and dark ahead of me; in the trails I leave behind as I drag my way forward through the slickness.
The coppery stench creeps into my nostrils until that’s all I can feel.
I keep staring at the meat hooks tied to the ceiling, hanging in neat rows and swaying as though something had just been taken from them.
Then comes the sound, metal clawing at the walls.
I never thought I’d die inside a haunted fair.
Here I am.
I hear his intake of breath, the dragging of the blade growing louder. Then, a haunted, circus melody he’s humming.
He’s here.
“If you hear the butcher’s blade scraping against the floors, it’s already too late.”
The sentence echoes in my head like a curse cast upon me, and I imagine this all to be real. It feels too much like that night two years ago. No amount of therapy could have prepared me for feeling like this again, seeing blood.
I didn’t know this house would be this bad. This real.
I curl up on the floor when my back hits the furthest wall, my forehead supported by my knees, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Forcing them to stay closed.
Breathe, Nadia. Just fucking breathe. It’s not that hard.
But it is.
And then, the panic of it all turns into fear, forcing tears out of my eyes until I’m fucking sobbing. Water streaming down my cheeks in embarrassing rivulets.
I hear footsteps coming closer, but they’re so distant in my clouded mind, I barely register them.
“Calm down. Breathe, yeah?” A dark, husky voice envelops me. Soothing.
I feel a warm and comforting hand touching my cheek, and I open my eyes.
I can’t see him in the darkness, but I can feel him.
His presence, emanating through the small space we’re in, and I somehow know it’s him.
The stranger from the circus. The man from the forest who took me to the edge of the precipice.
His hand clamps around my wrist, circling my waist, preventing me from escaping him.
I try to speak, but the words are stuck in my throat. “Breathe with me,” he murmurs.
His words wrap around me until that’s all I can hear, and his touch is all I can feel upon me. Not the panic. He mimics breathing, his shoulders rising and falling at a steady pace that makes me stare at him.
“Come on,” he encourages, breathing in for four seconds and out for another four. I’m mimicking him, feeling myself finally calming down.
Just having him here is already making me feel safer. As if I have someone else to fight my inner demons for me.
“Good girl,” he whispers.
His words send a flush through me, heating something inside my chest. He must see the hesitation in my eyes, the embarrassment flaring.
“You can do anything you want to, so take your time, yeah? No need to be ashamed.”
His words empower me, filling my chest with an explosion that feels dangerously good and intimate.
He sits with me until my breathing comes back, and in the flickering light, I manage to see how he’s assessing me all over.
I realize one thing: he made me come back from my panic attack. No one’s ever been able to stop one. Not even myself. Not until I’m on the verge of fainting, needing pills to calm myself down.
My heart stutters. My stomach clenches with a fluttery sensation, bordering on the precipice of butterflies.
“Good fucking girl,” he whispers.
My legs involuntarily clench, but I ignore the sensation. I keep staring into his gorgeous, breathtaking eyes every time the neon light flickers on, still assessing me. Ensuring I’m okay.
He reaches out his hand, motioning for me to take it.
I hesitate for just a second, searching his face. I find the faint scar running down his forehead, the appeal of it, and how it barely glints in the light. It anchors me to the present.
“We all bear our scars. Some more visible than others,” he whispers.
His words flood through my senses, touching my soul in a way no man ever has, and it almost makes tears build in my lower lids. I blink them away.
“Now I don’t know what caused your panic attack, but you’re safe here. With me. They’re all terrifying, making you feel like you might die, but they always pass.”
Somehow, I believe him. I grab his hand, and he helps me to my feet, pressing me closer to the wall. His arm wraps around my waist, steadying me while his bright gray eyes lock on mine, as if looking away for even one second will risk my entire well-being.
There is something so undeniable about him that pulls me closer, calls to my wicked soul. This stranger makes me feel seen in ways no one ever has. Not even Eveline, with whom I experienced that horrible night.
His other hand crawls upward, reaching my mouth and covering it, ultimately forbidding me from speaking while cradling me in his hold.
There’s still fear lingering inside me, remembering this is, after all, a stranger. My heart pounds hard against my ribcage, and it’s no use trying to calm it down. I’m sure he can feel it pumping through the vibrations of my body.
His hand feels like a serrated blade, caressing my body as if he has the right to. But I’m not stopping him, for some reason, and I guess that makes me as complicit.
“You smell afraid,” he whispers against my ear, teeth grazing against my earlobe in a move so exhilarating, it makes me lose my breath.
He’s back in character, finally done assessing me.
The panic attack is lying dormant.
The hand he has around my waist digs its fingers into my skin, causing a low pinch to take root. I’m once again enchanted by him.
The axe’s blade scrapes against the concrete floor, waking me out of my reverie. An irrational fear takes over me, pulsing through me with incessant need, and I can’t get it to disappear. What if it’s real? What if he’s a real serial killer, just waiting to get me?
But again, he had me all to himself in the forest. He could have done anything he wanted there.
“Mmmm,” he breathes. “Your fear smells so fucking delicious.”
And then, I feel the brush of his mouth against my neck. Then the slickness of his wicked tongue, gliding against the side of my throat. Is he fucking tasting me?
But his grip, clamping around me and holding me as if he’s ultimately claiming me, and the scrape of his teeth against my throat, causes a low rumbling through my body I’ve never felt before. It makes me feel so fucking alive. Max never made me feel like this.
Though equally terrified, I’ve never felt as alive before.
“I can feel your fragile little heart beating,” he whispers menacingly. “It makes me want to steal it, savor it in a glass jar.”
I let out an involuntary whimper. His chuckle vibrates through his chest, guttural and low, pushing his heated body even closer to mine.
“By the way, I’m 6’4”.” I hear the smirk in his voice, and immediately recall how I asked him how tall he was in the circus. He’s a fucking giant compared to me.
It’s not long before I hear his footsteps retreating through the darkness, leaving me all alone in the chaos of the slaughterhouse. I take a collective breath, steadying my nerves.
Somehow, I don’t feel as terrified anymore.