Chapter 13 #2
Great. Of course, you don’t answer your phone.
I was so busy tapping at my screen and trying to get Thallor to answer that I didn’t realise I’d taken several wrong turns.
Several wrong turns had taken me further away from my home.
I could still hear the footsteps following after me.
Steady. Unhurried. Predatory. I couldn’t keep walking in the same direction, but I also didn’t want to turn around.
Fuck. What do I do? What do I do?
I stopped dead in my tracks. I was hit with a wall of cool air that prickled at my cheeks.
And behind me, the footsteps stopped too.
The momentary silence stretched between us.
And with every second, I saw all the possible outcomes to this scenario, including the one where I was left stranded and naked in a ditch somewhere outside of town.
I took off running before I could process what I was doing or where I was going.
I just needed to put as much distance between me and the owner of the footsteps as possible.
It was clear that the momentary loss of momentum from me stopping had been just enough for them to fall behind, and I took full advantage of it.
As I rounded the next corner, I swerved down the first alley that came up ahead and ducked behind a large dumpster.
I pressed my back against the cold metal and tried to take as many deep, quiet breaths as possible.
As much as I tried, I could not control the frantic rise and fall of my chest. My hands were white knuckled around my phone, and I kept a firm grip on it in an attempt to stop myself from shaking so badly.
I held my breath, trying to stay as quiet as possible, my body pressed against the dumpster like it might somehow swallow me whole. I waited as the minutes stretched on, and after about ten minutes of sitting there and hearing nothing but the dripping of a pipe, I figured it was okay to stand up.
There weren’t enough words in the dictionary to describe what it was like to come face to face with fear itself. The Boardroom Butcher stood at the mouth of the alley with the most terrifying smile, cut across his face.
Everything in my body screamed Danger! Get away! Don’t let him near you! Whilst Thallor’s demon form, I had come to decide, was terrifying in a beautiful, hypnotic, I ’m-too-scared-to-look-away way, this man was just plain horrifying.
They say that the most terrifying monsters are the ones that hide in plain sight.
But that isn’t really true. The ones that are truly horrifying are the ones that do not hide at all.
They are the ones who will walk right up to you with a smile on their face and venom in their hearts.
The ones that let their putrid intentions leak from their porcelain veneer because they can.
The ones with an air of defiance and an arrogance–one born of knowing that it’s easier to let them get close than call out for help.
I’d told myself–convinced myself–his odd behaviour was unconventional.
Odd. But in my gut, I’d always known there was something off about this man.
His gelled hair wasn’t gelled, but greasy.
His ill-fitting suit hung limply about his body as if he were wearing someone else’s skin.
His eyes that always watched a little too closely were now devoid of anything other than sheer malevolence.
“I didn’t peg you for the dumpster diving type, Quincey,” he said, letting each letter of my name pool out of his mouth.
Slow. Like molasses in January. I didn’t want to know how he knew my fucking name.
Or why he knew my fucking name. I stood beside the dumpster, not daring to take a step forward, whilst knowing that the only way out of this situation alive was forward.
“What do you want?” I snapped, trying to hide the trembling in my own voice.
He made a high-pitched humming sound. “Just to talk.”
Oh fuck no. I would rather have Thallor impale me with one of his curvy horns than ever have to speak or talk to this man ever again.
“You should have talked to me at the bar. I’m going home now.” I push as much aggression and assertion into the words that I can. Getting nice would get me nowhere but an early grave with a man like this.
“I like you, Quincey,” he started. “I like you a lot.”
Well, that was deeply upsetting. Calling all freaks, murderers, and psychos alike, Quincey Sterling is a free woman.
“I don’t care,” I growled at him. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get home.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice was floaty and lilting. Like a soft whisper. But it crept up my spine and tickled the back of my neck before wrapping around my throat like a noose. “I won’t be able to do that.”
Everything in my body screamed at me to run. This is trouble. This is danger. These are the last fleeting moments of your life.
“Why not?” I bit out.
“I want to keep you, Quincey. All for myself.”
My heart was in my throat. Any second longer, I would be puking up the gummy snakes and handfuls of maraschino cherries I had been stuffing my mouth with in a red regurgitated frenzy.
“No thanks, not interested,” I spat before taking a step toward him.
Fight it is. Don’t show him you are weak.
Don’t show him you are scared. Do not cower.
The words played through my mind again and again.
Men like this only preyed on the weak. They think they can push people, bend them to their will, and treat them like they’re disposable. Scum. Filthy fucking parasitic scum.
“I thought you might say that,” he said as he pulled a little syringe from his pocket.
Bile threatened to spill out of me in waves.
My body seized up completely in a fury of terror and adrenaline as I desperately tried to work out whether fight or flight would give me my best chance of escaping.
It was so easy, too fucking easy, to separate ourselves from danger.
I heard it as many as a hundred times over after Esme had finished one of her True Crime podcasts.
“That could never happen to me. That would never happen to me…”
But what happens when it does?
The thoughts leaked into my head in a highlight reel of missing persons cases and news station announcements and cordoned off alleys as the terrifying report of a girl who should have known better than to walk around late at night by herself rang through my brain.
I took a breath to still my beating heart, although I knew the action was futile.
Please…
And then my mind went to him. “Thallor,” I whispered, barely choking out the word.
But the Boardroom Butcher was already hurtling toward me with a syringe angled directly for my legs. I stumbled backward for a moment, stepping into a puddle and losing balance, tripping and hitting my head on the cobbled floor.
I could feel warm liquid seep down the side of my head before I could process the crazed man lunging on top of me. His eyes were stretched wide, and he smiled maniacally from ear to ear, enjoying the way I screamed below him. I fought for my life, hitting and scratching at his face.
“THALLOR!” I called out again as the man shoved a hand over my mouth to muffle my screams.
I wiggled below him, managing to get enough room to bring my leg up, kneeing him in the testicles as hard as I could, which sent him tumbling off me in pain.
I could barely see straight, eyes still unfocused from where I’d hit my head as I crawled through the wet dirt and loose bits of trash.
I pulled myself up, staggering a little before standing.
I stumbled for the syringe, grabbing before he was on top of me again, yanking my leg backward.
“You don’t have to be breathing for the next part.”
He tugged me back more forcefully, but I managed to keep my balance as the final scream escaped my lips. “THALLOR!”
Before he could tear at my shirt, I plunged the syringe into his neck. His eyes went beady as he collapsed headfirst into the corner of the dumpster. I heard an earth-shattering cracking noise before watching the man fall to the floor.
I wasn't sure how long I stood there staring at him. I blinked once. I blinked twice. I blinked a thousand times as if I could somehow end the nightmare that I found myself caught up in. My hands shook violently as I dropped the syringe and stumbled backward again.
“No—no—I…” Words evaded me as I moved a shaky hand to the back of my head, looking down at the sanguine liquid that covered it.
“Self-defen—you did—you—I didn’t mean,” I stuttered as I looked down at the man that remained unflinching and unmoving at my feet.
I squeezed my eyes tight and counted to ten, hoping that when I opened them, I’d be back in my bed, maybe sweaty and a little worse for wear but safe in the confines of my duvet and my apartment.
But the sight before me when I opened them had me hurling the little contents of my stomach onto the floor.
The vomit came in waves and waves before I dropped to my knees.
“This—your—this was your fault,” I choked out as I looked at him.
And then, before I knew it, I was on top of him.
Immediately trying to shake him awake as his head lulled back and forth in a way it shouldn’t before I let his body drop to the floor.
The sounds that escaped me after that were broken and scared.
I wanted to yell and scream and shout at the man.
But he didn’t groan. Didn’t stir. Didn’t move.
I scrambled backward, unable to take my eyes off the blood on my hands and skirt and the growing pool of blood beneath the unmoving man in front of me.
And then I closed my eyes again, no longer sure if he was unconscious or dead.