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She only takes a heartbeat’s moment to right herself, to stop the landing from squeezing and stretching and bending all around her; to let the dizziness pass. But that single heartbeat in time is more than she can afford, and just enough forhim.
Blood Hood has no ceremony when he catches up to Billie.
He wastes no time at all.
Her lips wrap around a cry just as sharp needles of pain prick through her scalp—Blood Hood snatches her up by a fistful of her hair, and he yanks her away from the wall.
The heels of her socks slip and snag on the thick, plush carpet as she’s pulled back. Her hands snatch against the gloves buried in her hair, ripping and tearing at them, but it’s useless.
He spins her around and releases—let’s go of her hair, throwing her right into the hard wooden door of the stairwell’s closet. Her body smacks loudly against the door, so hard that the wall shudders in protest.
And she crumples to the floor with a weak moan that sounds something like ‘Kate’.
Blood Hood turns on her.
His movements are fluid; slow but deliberate. He’s a predator who has already maimed and cornered his prey, he doesn’t need to rush anymore. He doesn’t need to try.
Blood Hood is taking his time.
Savoring this.
Savoring her pain, her tears, her cries, her blood.
She, Billie realizes,is his endgame.
Her hands shoot up. Palms aimed at the killer, as if to shield herself from him, Billie’s face twists with a grim knowing of what’s coming.
Still, she holds her hands up and pleads all the same; ‘No, no, no, no, no—please!’
That last word curls into a cry as he brings the sharp glint of the knife down on her. The tip of the serrated blade sinks into the meat of her thigh. It dives all the way until—as she feels with a squeaky vibration no one should ever have to feel—it hits bone.
Billie turns wild. A scream that rattles the walls; her hands hitting out at the burlap mask just out of arm’s reach; her unharmed leg flailing on the floor; her face twisting with pain as her head thrashes side-to-side.
Blood Hood rips the knife out of her thigh—
A sickeningslirppsound as the serrated blade exits her flesh.
And her scream cuts off, morphing into a groaned retch.
Pinned between the closet door and the killer crouched beside her, Billie uses her good leg to push herself over the carpet, trapping herself in the corner.
Slowly, Blood Hood stands until he’s towering over her. The hunting knife, still firm in his leathery grip, drips blood onto the carpet. Her blood, fresh from the seeping wound in her thigh.
Drip,
drip,
drip.
She squeezes her eyes shut on the memories that sweep over her, memories of that night, the sound of Henry Maxwell’s blood dripping from the hood of her car onto the road.
Her lashes, wet with blood and tears, flutter in her murky sight. She opens her eyes and looks up. Her lips tremble, parted, as though she’s about to whisper a plea—but no sound escapes her beyond a whimper.
And Blood Hood doesn’t wait for any words before he reaches down. A single leather-gloved hand snatches up her neck. His strength is enough to grip her neck so tight that her eyes near-bulge out of her head and he doesn’t so much as grunt as he hauls her up off the floor.
In a blink, her whole body is lifted, her toes barely grazing the carpet.
Blood Hood yanks her away from the wall, then smacks her back against it. If she could breathe through the constriction tightening on her neck, she would cry out at the crack she feels in her shoulder blade. Instead, her lips only quiver and her legs writhe between the wall and the killer.
