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All she can tell is that whoever Blood Hood is, he’s a man.
His towering height, the width of his shoulders bulked up even more with the thick layers of black he wears like armor.
And she’s nowhere closer to knowing who lurks behind the blood-stained mask facing her.
But Billie doesn’t repeat the same mistake as she did the first night. There’s no long pause of a moment where they just stare at each other, her foggy brain chugging into delayed action like an old car’s engine choking to life.
This time, Billie doesn’t hesitate.
And neither does he.
Her body twists around in a blink, legs ready to sprint for the bathroom door—
But she doesn’t manage a single step before the hunting knife comes spearing through the air. It cuts between her and the door, close enough to prick the upturned tip of her nose. It’s all she can do to throw herself back onto the mattress.
She lands with a bounce, and the cellphone slips out of her hand. Just as she hears the smack of the hunting knife hitting the wall, she flips onto her belly and makes to scramble over the bed.
Bounding footsteps come after her, each one more thunderous than her pounding heartbeat. The icy touch of leather gloves snatches her ankle before she can make it off the bed.
A cry catches in her throat at the touch.
Eyes wild, her head flips around, and she sees him—the hood with browned blood smeared all over it—leaning over the mattress, her ankle in his grip.
“Fuck you!” Billie hikes her free leg and kicks him square on the head. The crunch of the kick vibrates through the bone of her heel and up the nerves of her leg—but it’s enough that his grip loosens, and his head is knocked back.
She steals the moment and scrambles off the mattress.
She lands on the carpet with a thump.
Billie doesn’t pause to look back at him as she races around the foot of the bed. But she’s so fast and frantic that she barrels right into the door. Her arms flail, hands desperately snatching at the polished wood to rip it wide open.
And just as she yanks it open and spills out into the corridor, she hears it—
The song of a knife being wiped, thatzingggin the air. Heart caught in her throat, she whips her head around to look, wide-eyed, over her shoulder.
A squeak jolts through her, coming out only as a whimper.
Blood Hood rises up from a crouch. The hunting blade is firm in his leather grip. And as he stands, he gets taller and taller, impossibly so, until Billie’s heart is punching against her ribs as if trying to break free.
He’s the first to move.
One moment, he’s adjusting his grip on the hunting knife—the next, the full weight of his body is propelled forward and he’s barreling towards her.
No more whimpers, squeaks or any feeble mousey sound escape her. No, this time, it’s a full on, blood-curdling scream that rips free, a scream so pitched and terrified that anyone conscious in the house definitely would’ve heard it.
Billie’s feet seem to catch on each other. Her legs twist and she spills over herself. Balance lost, she collides with the barrier. But her hands snatch onto the smooth, polished wood and, just as she rights herself, she throws herself towards the stairs.
Hot on her heels, Blood Hood comes thundering out of the room. Each bounding sound of his bootsteps coming after her sends chills up the back of her legs, anxieties tangled with the floor’s vibrations.
Her breaths grate out from her tight throat, the pounding beats of her heart throb in her head and dizzy her—but worse are the strands of hair that whip against her tear-streaked face and blind her from the stairs she stumbles down to the landing.
Only one sock-clad foot flattens on the landing’s floor when Blood Hood catches up to her—
And shoves his hard fist into her back.
Pain like she’s never felt before shoots up the bones and nerves of her back, like liquid ice. A silent cry strangles her. She’s thrown across the landing from the force; she hits the wall, hard, her head knocking off the wainscotting. But she doesn’t fall.
Vision blurry and littered with white spots, she slaps her hands against the wall and, legs trembling beneath her, holds herself steady. She blinks a mixture of tears and blood, blood like the smear on the wall, dripping from the cut skin on her forehead down to her eyelashes, where a droplet hangs.
