I am ashamed to admit it takes a couple of seconds for my survivor instincts to kick in, and even then, they’re slow off the mark. Instead of releasing Max to do what he’s been trained to do, I attempt to drag him away from the masked intruder. He is brave, but I don’t want to test his heroism against a man wielding a knife.
The decision is taken out of my hands when the man sneers a vicious grin before he pushes off his feet to chase us down. Max is so frantic to get to him, he slips out of his collar before he leaps through the air, fangs first. My panic that he’s about to be injured subsides when his teeth shredding through the man’s forearm sees his knife falling to the floor with a clatter.
After scooping up the blade to ensure the masked intruder can’t regain control of the situation, I snatch my cell phone off the coffee table where Caidyn must have placed it before sprinting into my room. My bare feet struggle to gain traction on the slippery wooden material. I more skid into my room than enter it with a smooth sprint.
My hands shake a million miles an hour when I dump the knife onto my dresser before latching into place the locks my father fixed on my door when I was thirteen. At the time, I didn’t understand why I needed so much protection. Now, I’m so very grateful for his somewhat obsessive traits.
Once the third deadlock is bolted, I log into my phone then attempt to dial 911. I say attempt because before I can hit the second ‘one,’ an orange canister on the dresser next to the discarded knife gains my attention. It’s Justine’s prescription—the canister I threw into the bin. It’s back sitting on my dresser like I never disposed of it—like it was returned to its unrightful place by someone who shouldn’t be in my room.
Oh, shit!
Before I can push the last digit on my phone, a baseball bat is swung through the air. I call out when its connection with the back of my head causes a horrifying crack to boom through my room. The pain is so intense, my phone slips from my grasp and crashes to the ground when I raise my hands to my head to protect my skull from a second hit.
When nothing but ringing sounds through my ears for the next several seconds, in desperation, I stretch out for the knife. My unseen attacker foils my endeavor to protect myself by swinging a bat through the air for a second time. This time, it cracks into my dresser instead of my head. His swing is so powerful, it cracks the varnished top and shatters my trinkets. It also assures me I’ll never reach the knife without broken limbs, so instead, I work on undoing the deadbolts I just locked.
The second latch springs free a mere second before my torso is flattened to the warped wood by a man I’d guess to be six foot three or four. He breathes heavily into my neck while jabbing the pointy end of a knife into my right ribcage.
“Is this what you fantasized about?” he questions in a heavy accent before he licks the bead of sweat careening down my nape. “Or should I be rougher?”
Before a single syllable can escape my mouth, he flings me across the room. I crash into the hanging rack with a thud, hurling both my minimalist wardrobe and my backside to the floor. I’m tempted to act fatally wounded, but the movement of black boots in my peripheral vision declares that I can’t. He doesn’t want me down for the count. He wants to hear me sob.
There’s no chance of that happening.
After weaponing up with a bent coat hanger, I stand on a shaky pair of knees. The man wearing a similar balaclava to the one Max is wrestling grins when he takes in my aggressive stance.
“Much better,” he murmurs on a moan before he charges me.
I slice the rigid end of the coat hanger across his midsection before raising it to his face. The sharp end of the coat hanger shreds a hole into his balaclava when it gouges his cheek. I see the inch-long gash dribble three droplets of blood before a backhanded slap hazes my vision. His hit is so brutal, I begin to wonder if he struck me with his fist or the bat. It dazes me so much I have to aim my swings in the direction his excited breaths are coming from. If I didn’t, I’d be swinging wildly.
I get in two solid whacks before he retaliates to my jab of his ribs with more than fists. He slices me with his knife. Air hisses between my clenched teeth when he skims the sharp blade across my hand before he backs up his slash with a deeper cut to my forearm.
With one of my arms out of action, it doesn’t take my attacker long to get the advantage. He beats into me like my body is a boxing bag before he sends me sailing onto my bed with an uppercut punch to my chin. I try to regain my footing, but within a second of me landing on my bed with the lifelessness of a ragdoll, he squashes me into the mattress with his large frame, then compresses my jugular with his knife.
I can’t breathe under the pressure of his weight.
I can’t scream for the fear he will slit my throat.
I’m motionless and in shock, which seems to agitate my attacker more.
“Fight me!” the deranged maniac screams in my face before he rips apart my thighs, trying to make me balk.
When his roar doesn’t revive my fighter instincts, he bites a chunk of my skin high on my thigh. I kick out, the pain both extreme and heartbreaking. The digging of my feet into his shoulders pushes him off me enough I can secure a full breath, but the relief it gives my screaming lungs is short-lived. All the air I sucked in is forced back out when the hand he isn’t using to hold his knife to my throat shreds my panties from my body.
“No!” I scream in fear when his rough removal of the cotton material is quickly chased by his hand fumbling with the opening of my vagina.
I thought he was here to kill me.
I didn’t factor rape into the equation.
When my survival instincts activate for the second time, I bite him on the shoulder, momentarily stopping his fingernails from jabbing through the folds of my pussy. It pisses him off, but I don’t care. I’d rather die than be touched by any man who isn’t Maddox.
I taste more of my blood than the rapist’s when he hits me for the second time.
This time, he uses his fist.
It stuns me so much, he works his belt through the loops of his trousers without protest before he lowers his zipper. When he pulls his erection out of his pants, I slant my head to the side, confident I’m about to be sick. The change in position pulls my brows together. A fluorescent pink object is peeking out from beneath my pillow like a beacon of hope in a very dark and demented world.
My chin wobbles when it dawns on me what it is. It’s my ticket out of this mess. A torch capable of guiding me out of the dark, but only if I’m willing to take the life of another to save my own.
