My hand flew into my pocket, tugging out my phone and my fingers trembled as I punched in my lock screen code. He let out a guttural, angry cry as he charged at me, and I pivoted to the side to dodge him, desperately trying to navigate to my keypad so I could call for help. He charged at me again, this time knocking the phone out of my hand so it clattered to the floor, and shoving me into one of the glass walls.
The side of my skull smacked it, just hard enough to daze me for a second. He had me pinned, his larger body keeping me from wiggling free. But when his hands moved down to his belt, the scrape and clack of the buckle ringing out and echoing in my head like an alarm as he tugged it open, adrenaline ramped up toclear my brain. I was small, but I wasn’t a frightened little mouse that would freeze at the sight of a predator diving toward it.
Wrenching my arm out from between his body and the wall, I reached over to the bookshelf next us. My fingers closed over the closest thing I could grab, a metal paperweight. It was heavy, the weight lending it some momentum as I slammed it down onto his face.
I winced, turning away as blood sprayed out from his busted nose, hoping none of it had landed on me. He backed up several steps, howling as his hands flew up to his face to grasp at the source of the pain.
“Fuck!” He spit the word out through his fingers, his voice bubbling with anger, his eyes looking even more unhinged than before, like a raging bull with just one target in mind. Me.
I didn’t hesitate to kick out with all the power I could muster, the sole of my shoe landing squarely on his crotch and sinking in for a moment before I pulled it back. I had strong legs from running track. He folded in half like a napkin, sinking down a bit as he shifted his hands to clutch between his legs.Open your belt buckle now, I thought, slightly hysterical with the idea that he’d even tried to do that.
With my thoughts racing frenetic circles in my brain, I tried to focus on the room in front of me. Andrew was hurting, incapacitated for the moment, but his body was still blocking the direction of the door. If I ran around the desk I could avoid passing by him, but that was the long way around, and if he realized what I was doing, he could definitely beat me there.
The phone he’d knocked out of my hand was only a foot or so to our left, so I dashed toward it. Dropping the paperweight, I had to scramble to get down low enough to the floor to scoop it up. My breath tore out in small panting gasps as I fumbled with it, somehow managing to bring up the keypad. Before I could dial anything, Andrew reached out and closed his fingersover my wrist, squeezing so hard I yelped and my hand spasmed, releasing the death grip I had on my phone.
He snatched it away, slamming it onto an edge of Sandy’s desk, like a drunk guy in a bar would shatter the top off a beer bottle to create a makeshift knife. My phone didn’t turn into a makeshift weapon, it only cracked through the middle with a sickening crunch of plastic, the light of my screen blinking a few times before going black.
“You’re not calling anybody,” he said, a nauseating mix of hate and excitement rumbling through the words. His words came out stuffy and nasally, because of his busted nose. Thick streams of blood oozed down from his nostrils, over his lips, to drip off his chin. Despite everything, I was slightly worried I might have broken it. The bridge looked crooked and swollen already.
When my eyes darted toward the door again, he picked up on it and shook his head, smirking a bit sadistically, before shoving me back against one of the walls again. There was nothing in reach for me to grab to defend myself, and my body was already too restricted to be able to rear back for a good punch or kick. Shrinking back against the glass, I squeezed my eyes closed and waited for what he would do to me.
KIERAN
“YEAH, THE BOTTOMright cabinet,” I said, guiding Barbie to the extra supply of little ink cups I kept in my work room. “See them?”
“Yep, got them. I’ll replace these when I get inventory at the end of the week.”
“Okay,” I said. “Anything else?”
“That’s it,” she said, then scoffed. “You too busy to talk to me, or what?”
“Ah, no… It’s just… I’m with Jordy.”
“Oh,” she responded, and I could visually see the cheeky little look she’d give me if she’d been standing in front of me. “Am I interrupting a date or something?”
“No,” I said, and felt heat rushing up to the surface of my skin as I considered whether I really wanted to voice my next words. “I think I might… Take that advice. That thing we talked about.”
“For future reference, you don’t have to take my call if you have your dick out, Kieran. I’ll just leave a voicemail.”
Coughing into a choking fit, I winced. “We’re not doing it yet.”
She chuckled. “I’m just screwing with you, kid. I’m happy for you.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”
“I’ll let you get back to it, then. See you soon.”
“Yep.”
Sticking my phone back in my pocket, I tapped my foot for another few seconds before heading down the hall Jordy had disappeared down. Not that I was rushing him or anything, but… The incessantly rampaging butterflies in my stomach were starting to make me feel sick. I couldn’t shake the intense fear that I’d bite into his omega gland and the bite wouldn’t take, but at least if it happened, I would know the truth. I couldn’t take much more of the anticipation.
The building was large, but luckily the path was pretty linear. I passed a bunch of rooms that weren’t offices, and then when I got a little further down the hall, I heard a man’s strangled scream. Freezing for a split second in shock, my muscles tensed. It wasn’t Jordy’s voice but… Weren’t we the only ones here?
My steps became faster and faster until I was practically sprinting, and then a glass cube of an office came into my sight. In the room, Jordy was pinned against a wall by the fucker I thought I’d just finished dealing with only the day before.
Adrenaline, fear, and rage exploded in my veins, but before I could even move closer, I watched Jordy crash something into Andrew’s face. He staggered back, a mini-explosion of blood spraying from his nose. When Jordy kicked his leg out, punting right into his dick and balls, a strange little swirl of appreciation flashed through the other torrent of emotions crashing around in my nervous system. Gutsy little angel.
Flying down the rest of the hall, I watched them grapple a bit more before I made it to the room. I fumbled with the handle for half a second before yanking the door open, feeling like I could rip it off its hinges. The sound of my arrival seemed to alert them, as Jordy’s terrified face whipped over to my direction. When Andrew also turned to see me, I watched the sadistic, gleeful power shining in his eyes flicker and fade into apprehension and alarm, all in the span of a single second.
