Chapter 25 Prey
PREY
KAT
My eyes fly open. No, Kat—you can’t go to sleep. If you do have a concussion, that’s the worst fucking thing you can do. But my weary eyelids feel so heavy now, too heavy.
My thoughts fall to Zayn again. God, if there is one person I would pray to, it would be him. Huge, warm, strong, and surveying me with those ocean eyes of his. My protector and my peace. Unexpected, and bursting into my life like he had always belonged there.
Fuck. Why had I let him walk away from me at the ruins?
Why didn’t I chase him down when I had the chance and wrap myself around him?
Why didn’t I nestle into his warm embrace one last time, when I could?
And why had it taken this—being abducted by the Demon—for me to realize that I don’t want to die after all.
I can almost feel his massive arms wrapping around me now.
Warm and safe, like two steel bands. My eyes slip closed again, and an image of Zayn striding towards me through a thicket of dark green trees fills my head.
He approaches and reaches out for me. I can almost hear his voice murmur, “Doc.” His low rumble is soft and far away, barely audible. Weakly, I smile at the memory.
He moves closer to me, speaking again. “Katherine.” My name whispered from his mouth is like a breath of life. I can feel it in my bones.
“Doc,” he says again. His voice carries that same deep richness, but with more power behind it now. I smile faintly as I remember the way he has called out my name, whispered it against my ear. In softer, safer moments. Warm in my bed, tangled up in my sheets...
“Katherine!” I hear his deep baritone bark echo off the stones around me, and my eyes crack open. That sounded real. And close, not like a memory.
“KATHERINE!” his voice repeats. “Fucking hell, baby, just hang on,” he calls out. And I frown now because Zayn has never said those words to me before. Shouted it, really.
I gently tilt my head and look to the mouth of the well far above me. It seems so far away. Through the cracks in my glasses, I can barely make out a dark figure looming over the edge. The figure is still, their body tense, and peering down at me.
“Z-Zayn?” I whisper, hardly daring to believe it. He had come for me.
“Zayn?” I choke out louder, but my voice is little more than a hoarse rasp from the cold and the pain.
“I’m here, Doc. Don’t you fucking move.”
Am I hallucinating? Perhaps I had slipped into a concussion dream and am imagining being rescued.
I press a sharp, ragged fingernail that had torn in my pathetic escape attempt into my forearm as hard as I can.
Ow. I look down and see the red crescent shape imprinted into my skin there. I’m not dreaming.
Painfully, I sit up and my head spins, but I ignore it. Zayn is here. Somehow, he had found me.
Before I can scramble fully upright, I hear a whipping sound cut through the air, and a thick, long rope unfurls onto the ground before me. There is a small loop secured at the end with an intricate knot connecting the two.
“Slide the loop over your shoulders and secure it around your middle, Katherine,” Zayn shouts down.
I scramble over to the rope, temporarily forgetting about my ankle, and my whole leg wobbles and gives way beneath me.
I lunge for the rope and grab onto it tightly, holding it taut.
Groaning with pain, I lift my leg gingerly now unable to put any weight on it at all.
I glance up again at Zayn, or rather, at the shadowy figure that I assume is Zayn, as it is now almost completely dark and he’s too far up for me to make out his face clearly anyway.
I slide the loop over one shoulder, and then the next, and painfully shimmy it down over my stomach, where the rough fibers of the rope pull and catch at my shirt.
“OK, I’m in!” I call up to him.
“Hang on tight and try to stay still. I’m going to lift you up. You can do this, baby. Come on,” Zayn instructs.
And seconds later, I am hoisted into the chilly night air. I gasp and cling to the rope, pressing my eyes tightly shut. Each foot I ascend is slow, tenuous, and painful. I wonder how Zayn is even doing this.
About halfway up, the rope jerks to a sudden stop and I am left frozen in midair.
Without warning, the rope drops several feet.
I pitch downward towards the bottom of the well, screaming and clinging to the rough length of rope in my iron grip.
The rope tightens again, and my fall is halted, but I swing painfully into the stone siding of the well.
My face hits the stones hard, and I choke out a groan. I hang there, limply for a moment.
Once certain I am not falling to my death, I crack my eyes open and chance a glance upwards. At first, I see nothing. Then, two blurry figures locked in an embrace at the edge of the well, clearly struggling, come into focus.
____________________
ZAYN
I secure the rope around my body in a tight bowline knot. Kat’s weight feels like nothing from the pure adrenaline coursing through my veins.
I turn to rifle through the sea bag at my feet for a carabiner when I hear a slight rustle in the grass from behind me. I turn just in time to dodge a tall, thin man swinging a heavy silver axe at my head.
I lunge for my gun in the holster at my side, but Eastman knocks my hand away, landing a brutal punch across my jaw.
Again, he raises the axe, and again I block him. The fucker is strong, and he has that additional element of surprise on me. But when I tracked her here, I knew that he would be lurking close by. A true predator would never leave his prey alone for long.
The next swing misses my head by inches. There is a manic gleam in his black eyes that makes my stomach drop. The axe whistles through the air and I don’t have time to breathe—he’s already swinging again.
I stumble backward, my boot catching on a rock. I go down, and my body slams hard onto the damp earth. He charges me once again, this time the blade dragging a bright arc toward my knees. I twist away at the last second, log rolling towards the well.
He roars in fury, and that millisecond of distraction is my opening. I throw myself upright, launching us both backward toward the mouth of the well.
We crash back to the ground, fighting for control.
Eastman brings the axe up between us, and I use what’s left of my strength to wrench it from his grip.
In one fluid movement, I raise it above my head and bring it down, sinking it deep into his forehead.
Blood sprays out in a hot mist, splattering across my face.
I still over him for just a moment, heaving, and spit out the blood that got in my mouth. Standing, I slip a toe under his body and kick him forward into the dark abyss before me.
____________________
KAT
I hear the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting skin and the resulting grunts and curses. I just dangle there, feeling utterly useless. Literal dead weight.
My head gives a painful thrum and I wish and pray with everything in me that Zayn can take this motherfucker and somehow get us out of here.
He must survive. We must survive. Please get us out of this mess.
I think that Zayn may actually be the love of my life, and our story can’t end here with me hanging suspended in a well. It’s too fucking tragic.
I hear more sounds of struggle and try to peer up again.
It is so dark now that I can’t see anything.
I hear more skin hitting skin and a distinct, grunted curse.
Then, a man’s voice yells out—an oddly high-pitched and piercing sound in the otherwise quiet night.
With a sickening crunch, the night suddenly falls still of their battle sounds. I gasp and look up.
A body falls from the mouth of the well and plummets downward through the darkness towards me.
I cling to the rope, turning my body away.
It barrels past me, hitting the wet ground beneath me with a dull thump.
Looking down through the cracks of my glasses, I see the body splayed out in a broken and unnatural position. Pricks of dread ripple up my spine.
The rain clouds shift overhead, allowing a chink of moonlight to pour into the well. And it’s then that I can see his face, and his black, vacant eyes, open, unseeing.
A red and silver axe is buried in the center of his forehead. Dark, wet, crimson spurts of blood splatter out from either side of the silver bit.
Gary Eastman Jones lays dead at the bottom of the well.
And before I can truly process this fact, I feel a sudden lurch from the rope around my midsection.
I am being tugged and lifted upwards once again.
I try to use my good foot to help stabilize and support my ascent, knowing that the sheer effort of lifting me some thirty odd feet up and out of this well must be taking herculean strength on Zayn’s part.
I look up and can see that I am close, so close to the top now, the night sky pitch-black, with a thick cover of clouds once again marring any stars from view.
I hear Zayn’s deep voice grunt out with a superhuman effort as I finally crest and come up over the top of the narrow ring of stones at the well’s mouth. As my body hits the solid ground, I use both of my arms to drag myself away from the edge of the well.
I am immediately seized into a bone-crushing hold by Zayn. His skin is slick with sweat or blood, or rain. I’m not sure. Greedily, I breathe him in; he smells like rain and redwood trees, and himself. I cling onto him with everything I’ve got as a dry sob escapes from my lips.
“Jesus fuck, baby, I thought I’d lost you,” he grinds out, his voice breaking on the last syllable.
I kiss desperately at his neck where my face is buried under his jaw again and again, tasting his exhaustion and his relief. His arms are like two vices around me as he squeezes me even closer to his body. Zayn kisses my forehead and the crown of my head and then pulls back to peer into my eyes.
“Fucker snuck up on me with an axe,” Zayn breathes out. And I smile and then chuff out a laugh.
It feels surreal to be able to laugh at a time like this, but I do. Zayn laughs alongside me, and relief and elation seem to wash over us both.
Zayn is here. He had come for me.
Zayn beams down at me, and I feel a strong hand lift my chin gently upwards.
“Fucking hell, Doc. I am so sorry. I’m so sorry that I walked away from you. Are you okay?” And his smile fades into a hard line as he takes stock of my face and head, inventorying my injuries.
“It’s okay, I’m okay,” I reassure him. “Though, I might have a concussion and I think my ankle and finger are broken.” Without another word, Zayn gently squeezes my thigh and then stands, gingerly scooping me up into his arms into a bridal carry.
He marches us towards the woods, a nearby tree line that I didn’t know was there.
The temperature outside is frigid now, and our breaths come out in misty puffs that dissipate on the breeze.
I burrow my head into his chest and breathe him in as he carries me.
I notice he wears a shoulder holster with a sleek black gun tucked into it.
A few moments pass, and I ask hoarsely, “How did you find me?”
“The charm I gave you,” Zayn answers simply, not missing a beat.
I lift my wrist up in a daze to inspect my bracelet. I see the little charm hanging there; a golden square with a tiny ruby encrusted in the center.
“There’s a small but powerful military grade tracker embedded behind the center stone,” he explains.
My eyes shift downward. The minute ruby in the center of the square charm glints up innocently at me.
Jesus, I think. That is why he had been so insistent that I put the damn thing on my bracelet.
He knew that I never took it off. And I can’t even be mad about the invasion of privacy—not when it just saved my life.
Not when I know his intentions are rooted in love.
“I am so sorry it took me so long to find you, baby. When you left so late to head into town, I knew something was off. And when you didn't come home…” he trails off. Then he adds quietly, “I was ready to set the world on fucking fire.”
“It's ok, I’m ok,” I say again. He kisses my forehead as he carries me, and we break through a small clearing in the woods.
“Your tracker led me to the edge of this property, but once I was close, I lost your signal. That must have been when he threw you into the well.”
I wince as my ankle gives a painful throb. But it doesn’t matter. Broken bones… none of it matters anymore. I had survived and more importantly—I had realized that I wanted to survive. What matters now is that Zayn had come for me, and I need to tell him how I feel.
“Zayn…I’m so sorry,” I whisper to him as I peer up at him through the mist that surrounds us. “I am so sorry about what I said to you.”
“Never apologize, Doc, you got that?” His voice is rough. He presses his lips hard against my temple as he continues to carry me. “You are everything. Fucking everything to me. You never have to apologize.”
My eyes sting as I blink back tears and allow the weight of his words to wash over us both.
We pass the clearing and finally reach his black BMW, which is parked on an inlet of a dark gravel road. My head spins as I try to lift it up, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more depleted. Gently, Zayn places me into the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” I ask blearily, leaning my head back on the headrest as he buckles me in.
“To the hospital, baby.”
I nod faintly and close my eyes. The intoxicating scent of Zayn and his car envelop me as I float away on a wave of exhaustion and repose.
“Je t'aime jusqu'à la mort,” Zayn breathes out, his voice just above a whisper.
The last thing I feel are his warm lips pressing against my cheek.