The lapse in my attention is just enough time for him to catch up with me. I run down a dark alley, hoping I can lose him in the shadows—
He grabs my arm and flings me into the wall. My head slams into the brick. It knocks my brain, my vision. Lights glimmer behind my eyes. I have to blink over and over just to grasp reality again.
A hand crushes over my mouth.
The force shoves my cheek into the jagged wall. I squirm and kick. He’s ripping at the tears in my jeans. I thrust my hand to his face and push him back, making him yell as I wriggle and fight and cry out.
The cold of an actual knife hits my stomach, and I freeze.
Adam yanks the mask off and hovers in front of me, his free hand over my mouth, the other now using his knife to tear through the fabric from the top of my thigh, across my stomach, to my waist.
It pierces my skin, and I yelp behind his hand.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he hisses at me. “What you alwaysbeggedme for?”
I want to speak.
I want to scream.
A tear stretches down my numb face. I’m trembling, trying to figure out any way to get out of his grasp without the knife cutting clear into my hip. Thread by thread, the jeans rip.
I lose a little more of myself with every fiber that comes undone.
And then I remember…
Carefully, I reach into Maddox’s pocket. My jeans fall open. Adam grins and holds up the knife to my face. The silver glimmers in the light at the end of the street, yards away from where we are—
I can just make out my blood on the tip.
“What else should I carve on you when I’m done?” he asks.
I unclip the safety on the pepper spray and pull it out fast. He sees my movement and starts to swat my hand down. His hand grabs my wrist. The knife flails in the air. I hit the button on the spray, not caring that it isn’t in front of his face.
Some still hits his eyes.
He yells and staggers back. The knife clatters to the ground.
“You fuckingwhore!”
“Andi!”
Maddox is a whirl in my vision as he tackles down the alley. I stumble off the wall and throw myself into his arms. He’s calling my name and touching my face.
Yet in a blink, Maddox launches himself at Adam.
I sway and catch on my knees. My palms and knees land in a wet puddle of asphalt and grime. I hear the pair topple onto the ground behind me, hear a punch strike one of their faces.
“Maddox, he has a knife!” I yell.
It’s all I can get out. I’m faltering, blood trickling down my face and hip.
Maddox looks twice at me over his shoulder, and upon seeing me, he slams Adam into the ground once more, then bolts to his feet.
“Andi—Andi, look at me—”
He grabs my face and pulls me to look at him, and when our eyes meet, a fury beyond anything I’ve ever seen swells within his black pupils.
“Mother fucker.” Maddox looks back at Adam, yet before he can launch again and throttle Adam into the next existence, Adam is on his feet. The bastard scrambles into a run, footsteps pounding on the damp alley street.
