Page 58 of Torn By Fate

NO.

I don’t know where the strength came from. Some desperate, adrenalized part of me that I didn’t know I possessed. My fist connected with the bridge of his nose, and I felt the sickening crunch of cartilage shattering.

A spray of hot blood hit my face.

It was in my eyes, my mouth, coating my lips, staining me with its filth.

He should have stopped.

Any normal person would have stopped. The pain of a broken nose was supposed to be debilitating; it was supposed to send a person reeling. He was supposed to clutch his face and give me the small seconds I needed to run.

But nothing… no amount of pain stopped him.

He didn’t even slow down.

This time, when his hands found my throat again, his grip was absolute. His fingers closed around my neck like a vise, thumbs pressing into the hollow of my throat.

He’d done this before.

My heart hammered at the realization.

He had done this before…

… many times, to many people.

My stomach twisted violently with cold, grotesque horror.

I was just one of those people on his list.

A thin wheeze escaped me, barely a breath as he strangled me with his bare hands.

I clawed at his wrists, desperately… hopelessly.

My nails raked through skin and muscle, but his hands only tightened.

My rib cage curved inward toward my lungs as I fought to breathe, but I couldn’t…

I… couldn’t…

My vision blurred.

I can’t… breathe.

Each slowed pulse sent a fresh wave of terror through my body. Each stuttering beat of my heart was a horrifying, cruel feeling in my chest.

And I did the last thing I could, the last thing my mind begged me to try…

My hands came up and I drove my thumbs into his eyes.

It was the only thing left.

The last desperate act of a body that had run out of options.

I pressed my thumbs deep into the soft tissue of his sockets, feeling the wet resistance of the eyeball beneath.

I pushed harder, twisting, trying to blind him, trying to make him feel something—anything—that would make him stop.

He. Didn’t. Stop.