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Deva
My lungs feltlike they were on fire. A stitch had formed in my side, making each footstep on the forest floor feel like a knife slicing into me, but I didn’t stop running. I couldn’t. Leaves crunched beneath my feet and each snap of a twig made me flinch, the noise seeming freakishly loud, giving away my location.
“Deva!” Mathias’s voice carried through the trees, sounding like it was coming from every direction. The boy who’d usually spoken to me in a soft, reassuring cadence was long gone. The man chasing me through the woods sounded deranged, and I knew if he caught me, it was over. “Get back here, you bitch! You belong tome!”
I stumbled over a root, crying out at the sudden burst of pain in my right ankle as I fell to my hands and knees.
“Deva!”
I shot a panicked look over my shoulder. He was getting closer. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him. I scrambled back up, my ankle throbbing with each step, slowing me down considerably.
My vision blurred with tears as I realized I wasn’t going to be able to outrun him.Think, Deva. Think.
My eyes darted all around, frantically looking for somewhere to hide. If I couldn’t run, my only hope was to find somewhere to stay hidden while I tried to call for help.
I spotted a large tree a few yards ahead, it’s trunk wide enough to hide behind. I managed to hobble to it, pressing myback hard against the rough bark as I lifted my phone with shaky hands.
I pressed the button on the side to bring the screen to light. A whimper tried to escape whenNo Signalappeared on the screen. I curled my lips between my teeth to tamp down the sound as tears flooded my eyes. My only hope, and there was nofuckingsignal! I couldn’t call for help. I was alone in the woods, on the run from a psychopath, and I had no signal.
My head fell back, my eyes closed, sending a fresh wave of tears spilling down my cheeks as hopelessness started to close in.
The sound of a twig snapping echoed like a shotgun blast to my left, pulling me out of my misery. I inched around the tree in the opposite direction, bracing myself to start running again when a hand lashed out and wrapped around my hair.
“Got you, bitch.”
I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I could as I reached back and raked my nails down Mathias’s arm, hoping to draw blood.
He let out a bellow of pain and released my hair, but before I could take a step away, he backhanded me across the face so hard I fell to the ground.
“You’ll pay for that,” he seethed, standing over me as I tried to scramble backward. He kicked, the toe of his boot bashing into my ribs.
I cried out, pain exploding in bright, white bursts behind my eyes.
“You think you can just walk away from me?” His weight came down on me, straddling me, pinning me to the ground and making it hard to breathe.
I kicked with my legs, digging my heels into the earth, trying to push myself from beneath him as I screamed for help until my ears rang. I flailed my arms, going for his eyes, his nose,anywhere that could cause pain enough to get him off me, but he was too strong.
Grabbing hold of the collar of my shirt in both hands, he ripped it down the center and licked his lips at the view of my breasts encased in light pink silk.
“No! Don’t touch me!” I screamed, my whole body flailing beneath his as he grabbed one of my breasts and squeezed to the point of pain. Reaching up, I tried to claw at his face, but he landed a punch to my ribs that had blackness seeping into the edges of my vision.
He grabbed my wrists, pinning them down above my head with one hand, while he used the other to trace a line from the hollow of my neck, down between the valley of my breasts, and farther. Icy cold fingers clutched at my heart, my eyes flaring with realization of what he had in mind. “You think you can waltz around, dressed like a whore, spreading your slut legs for that man, giving him what belongs to me?” He smiled in a way that had everything inside of me shrinking back. It wasn’t human; it was pure malice and hate. “We’ll see how you feel once I use you up and bleed you dry.”
As I felt his hand on the button of my jeans, a renewed sense of power washed through me. I wouldn’t let this happen, not without a fight. He’d have to kill me before I let him take something he had no right to.
A blood curdling scream wrenched from deep within my chest, my legs kicked and thrashed, and I yanked so hard at my wrists, he lost purchase. I slapped and punched and scratched at whatever I could reach.
“You don’t get to touch me!” I shouted as I dug my nails into his face and ripped them downward. “You willnevertouch me!”
Rage unlike anything I’d witnessed filled his eyes as he dropped all of his weight down on my stomach and forcing all the air from my lungs.
“You stupid cunt!” he bellowed as he pulled a knife from the waistband of his pants. The sunlight glinted off the shiny blade, as he thrust his arm into the air. I closed my eyes and twisted my head away as I waited for the knife to sink into my skin, but it didn’t come. Instead, a loud crack blasted through the air, and a moment later, Mathias toppled over, collapsing on the ground beside me.
“Deva!”
At the sound of Laeth’s voice, my head whipped around. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a more beautiful sight as him running out of the trees in my direction.
“Laeth,” I breathed as I scrabbled away from the body beside me.
