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The nearest house is still a half of a mile down the road. I’ll never make it with him chasing me. I don’t think I can outrun him.No, I refuse to die here at the mercy of this man.FIGHT STELLA!My mind screams at me. I grab onto the large vase I have at my front door and launch it back at him, grabbing the table lamp on the console and doing the same thing. I scramble with opening the door, the locks still in place. As I turn the deadlock and pull on the knob, I can hear his heavy breathing as he’s coming towards me.
Finally, the door opens, and I try to dash out, but just as I do, he gets a gloved fist in my hair and pulls me roughly back, my body jarring and hitting his with a pained grunt, and I lose my grip on the knife, it goes skidding across the floor. A scream escapes my lips as I kick back, trying to hit him in the crotch and using my elbows to ram his face. My attempts to dislodge his precarious hold on me have him loosening his grip slightly. I take the opportunity to tear out of grasp, ripping strands of my hair from my scalp as I run in the opposite direction towards the stairs. A grunt leaves his lips, and he tries once again to grasp onto me and fails.
“Whatever they are paying you, I will triple it!” I scream as I lunge up the first step.
I make it up to the landing, pushing benches, art, and anything I can get my hands on at him as obstacles to prevent him from reaching me. If I can make it up to the main bedroom, I have a gun in there to defend myself. I can lock myself in the room and call for help. The panic room is in the other direction and further away, and I am not sure I can make it in there without him tackling me.
He lets out a panic-inducing chuckle. “They want you dead cunt. I don’t bargain with dead whores.”
Who is this man? Is he still the same person that tried to hurt me before? Fear and dread skate up my spine. Tears rush down my face as I climb the stairs two at a time, stumbling in my attempt to escape from him and to safety. I let down my guard, thinking I was safe here with no security. That no one knew where I was, but I was wrong. Deadly wrong, and I am about to pay the consequences if this man gets his hands on me.
“I’M COMING FOR YOU BITCH!” He shouts behind me.
I race down the hallway towards my room, pushing through the door and slamming it shut. I manage to just turn the lock as he slams into the frame, making the door vibrate loudly. It’s a thick solid wood door, but it will only hold him off for so long. I scramble across the floor to my dresser and reach for the gun, taking the safety off and pointing it at the door with a shaking hand as I reach for the phone on the nightstand. He’s slamming his immense body against the door repeatedly, trying to break it down. I can hear wood splintering; in moments, he will be inside.Jesus! Fuck! What should I do?
I press the numbers, nine-one-one, but there’s no dial tone. The phone is dead in my tight, desperate grip. He cut the phone lines. Tears cascade down my cheeks, and my arm throbs from the knife wound, blood dripping down my side, soaking my shirt and abdomen and hitting the floor. My breath is coming in ragged pants, so quickly that I’m wheezing. I bite down hard on my bottom lip to try to contain the scream that wants to leave me.I’m going to die.This man is going to get in here and stab me to death.
He thuds against the door again, and I see it buckling inwards. One or two more shoves, and he will be inside the room. I should have headed straight for the panic room. I should have run in that direction instead of here; that door was made of reinforced fire-proof steel. I could have locked myself inside the small room and been safe. For how long, though, he cut the phone lines, and no one knows you’re here but Tyson and your mother.You would have eventually died inside, there. He wouldn’t have left.
No! Fight!This is not the end of us!My brain demands, filling me with strength and adrenaline. If we die, we die here, standing our ground, not as a coward hiding. I point the gun at the door, steadying it with both my hands and wait for him to come through the broken door.
I don’t have long to wait; with one more hard slam against the door, it gives splinters allowing him entry into the room. He moves quickly into the space, his arm raised with the large blade and coming at me menacingly. I don’t hesitate, pulling the trigger once and then again. The bullets make an impact with his body, one in his shoulder and the other in his abdomen, causing him to stagger back. A cry of pain leaves his muffled lips, and he reaches down to place his hand over the wound in his stomach.
Blood is pouring from the wounds and making wet splotches against the dark material of the black shirt he is wearing. He looks down momentarily, stunned at the fact that I shot him, but then recovers and continues moving forward toward me with the knife. “You fucking bitch! You’re going to die slowly for that!” He slashes once again in my direction, making contact with my side and forcing me to take a step backward, giving up ground. My hand is shaking and sweating, and I’m losing my grip on the gun. He moves to knock the gun from my hand, but I pull the trigger at the last minute, and the shot goes wide, grazing him as it embeds in the wall plaster.
“You’re… going… to die… cunt!” He breathes heavily into the mask, his steps and movement slower. Blood is pouring quickly from his wounds, and he can’t seem to catch his breath.NOW STELLA!My mind screams at me to shoot him again. I lift the gun again and press the trigger, watching as the bullet leaves the gun in a blur and embeds itself in his chest, forcing him to take a step back and then collapse on the ground.
I watch in petrified horror as he tries to get back up to his feet and come at me again.END IT STELLA!My mind screams over and over until it’s the only sound I can hear. Turning my face away from the sight, I pull the trigger again and again until the gun clicks empty. My breaths are loud exhales coming from my mouth, as my blood rushes in my ears. Tears trail down my face like little rivers, and my body releases a shudder with all the adrenaline still running through me. My whole body is shaking, my teeth rattling in my mouth. I force myself to turn my gaze back to the attacker. He’s lying there, a rattling noise leaving his body and his limbs jostling against the once-cream carpet.
My knees give out on me, and I fall to the plush ground, the sound muffled as I hit it hard. A deep red blood stain is soaking it and making its way towards my shaking limbs. A cry leaves my lips, and I drop the empty gun at my side. A horrific noise leaves him, and then the only sound in the room is my whimpers, harsh breathing, and cries.
Tears continue to slide down my face rapidly and soak the neckline of my shirt. A sharp pain catches my attention, and I glance down to see that blood has soaked my shirt in a sizable pattern. I lift the hem up to see a significant, deep slash across my abdomen, one that is streaming blood out in thick trickles. My vision blurs, and my head feels dizzy. I shake my head to try to clear my vision, and it helps for a brief moment.
I need to get out of here, I need to put pressure on the wound, or I’m going to bleed to death. I sluggishly rip the shirt off my body and push it as hard as I can against the wound. The minute I apply pressure, I feel the injury on my arm, which is slowly dripping blood down my bicep and creating a trickle down the other side of my abdomen. The pain makes me flinch and cry out. I try to get my feet under me to stand up, but my legs tremble and give in, refusing to hold my weight.I’m going to die here.I’m going to bleed to death, and no one is going to even know for days. The thoughts race through my mind on a loop.
I’m going to die here alone, without Jaxon. The only man I have ever loved. Now all the games I have played, all the moves I made, and the petty ways I hurt him, seem ridiculous and childish. I loved him, and then I left him, and now I will never even get the chance to tell him how much he means to me. How much I desired our life to work. That I wished to one day be the mother to his children. That all I wanted was for him to love me back and to build a life with me, an empire we could rule together. All my dreams are crumbling before me, brought crashing down by a lie and a blade.
It’s too late now. I won’t survive, but maybe I can still tell him. Let him know that my final thoughts were about him. I release my hold on the shirt and slide my fingers through the thick blood coating my stomach and dripping down my waist and hips. I reach out to the carpet at my side and press my bloody fingerprints into the carpet. I drag my fingers through the thick fibers and back to coat them over again through my blood until words form before me like grotesque red smears. Once the final letter is spread across the carpet, I pull the shirt back hard against my wound and lay down in my own cooling blood and wait for death to take me.
Maybe in my next life, I won’t be so headstrong and willful, and I will get to tell him those words in person.Jaxon, my love. I’ll meet you in the next life.My eyes flutter close and darkness takes me into its heady embrace.
34
Jaxon
“With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings.” Ezra Taft Benson
I’mspeedinglikeafucking lunatic through the hills, a feeling of impatience and fear coating my whole body. The need to see Stella and wrap my arms around her is all I can think about; it’s an urgency in my veins. “Jaxon, you need to slow down! We are going to crash in this tin can, and you’ll never reach Stella!”
Jake holds on tight to the inside handle of the doorframe and braces for the next curve I take at over a hundred miles an hour. I’ve ignored his complaints for the last hour. I’m determined to make the trip that would usually take over two hours in just over one. My need to get to Stella is all-consuming and frightening. She has to hear me out; she has to forgive me. I will fucking tie her ass down until she listens to my side of what happened.Are you ready to be bludgeoned when you attempt to tie her down?My mind snickers.
“What are you even going to tell her once you get there?” Jake grits through his clenched teeth.
“I don’t fucking know. I’ll think of something when I get there!” I take the next curve and feel the back wheels come off the asphalt for a moment and then slam back down, making the car skid across the two-lane highway and causing me to bite my own tongue. The coppery taste of blood fills my mouth as a sniggling feeling of dread skates across my neck, causing the hairs to stand on end.
“You don’t know? Boss, I think you should slow down a bit. Maybe even stop and get your thoughts together before you go storming in there and Mrs. Stratford hands you your ass, no offense meant.”
I chuckle at his words; he’s probably right. Stella will hand me my ass, one way or another, regardless of whether my words are practiced or spur of the moment. I wouldn’t even put it past her to react with violence. She craves it as much as I do. I know it turns her on when I’m forceful with her, and I make her submit to me. Maybe I’ll go in there and wrap my fist around her neck and force my cock into her tight pussy until she mellows out a bit and then agrees to listen to what I have to say.
