Page 23

I push it open.

* * *

The streetlight’s coming through my blinds in stripes. My lamp’s off. There’s something silver on my desk, and it takes me a second to realize it’s a laptop. A brand-new one.

My bed’s made. Perfect. Hotel corners. My stuffed bear sitting on my pillow, all neat, like a little guard.

Nobody’s in here.

I let my breath out. My shoulders come down. I take one step inside.

The door shuts behind me.

I spin around.

He’s right there. Between me and the door. All black. Black hoodie, black gloves, black pants. A black mask over his whole face, nothing but holes for his eyes, and in the dark his eyes are just shadows.

I scream.

I throw my phone at him. It bounces off his chest. I grab the lamp off my dresser and swing it at his head, and he catches it in one hand and rips it out of my grip and drops it on the floor like it’s nothing.

I run for the window. Three floors up. I don’t care. I get one hand on the blinds before an arm comes around my waist from behind and lifts me clean off my feet.

“No! Get off me! Let me go!”

I kick. I fight. I claw at his arm, and my nails just slide on the hoodie. I throw my head back trying to bust his nose, and he turns his face so I miss. He doesn’t say a word. He just holds me, both my arms pinned at my sides, my feet kicking in the air, while I scream my throat raw.

Nobody’s coming. Mrs. Gutierrez downstairs can’t hear her TV. Tasha’s at Marcus’s.

He carries me to my bed like I’m a sack of laundry and throws me down on it face first.

The air goes out of me. Before I can get up, he’s on me. His knee between my thighs. His weight on my back pinning me to my comforter. He grabs my wrists and drags them over my head and holds them there with one hand.

“Please.” I’m crying now. “Please, please, I’ll do whatever you want, please don’t hurt me…”

He leans down. Puts his masked face right by my ear.

And I smell him.

Cedar. Clean soap. Something warm and dark under it. The same smell that was all over my skin this morning. All over that hotel bed. All over me in class while I sat there squeezing my thighs together.

I go still.

I turn my head on the pillow. His hand’s right there by my face, holding my wrists. Black glove. But between the glove and the sleeve, there’s one inch of bare wrist.

And there’s ink on it.

“…Sasha?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Sasha. I know that’s you. I can smell you, you crazy-ass, psycho, stalking…”

He pushes my skirt up over my hips.

I fight harder. Way harder. Not scared anymore. Mad. I’m bucking under him, twisting, trying to throw his big ass off me, and I’m cussing him out the whole time. Psycho. Stalker. Crazy motherfucker. Some stuff Mama would snatch me bald-headed for.

He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t say a word. He just peels my panties down my thighs, slow, while I fight.