“What the fuck?” she spits, a string of disbelief and protests.
The knife flashes as I shift my grip, the lamplight accentuating the serrated edge. Realization slams into her then. She knows now. There is no parsing it away.
I move. My steps are measured, patient—every motion designed to close the distance without giving her time to find logic. She’s frozen in fear, and I take the opportunity and lunge.
My blade whistles through the air in a clean arc. She twists, and the steel bites into the couch where her shoulder was a breath before. The sound of fabric swallowing metal with a muffled thud—and it snaps something in me. The miss is a little thrill—frustration braided with joy.
The chase is its own intoxication.
She scrambles, her bare foot coming down hard on a shard of porcelain hidden in the rug. The scream that rips out of her is sharp and unfiltered, a burst of pain and panic that fills the room. She collapses to her knees, one hand clutching the floor for balance while the other presses against her heel. Blood wells up fast, a dark streak crawling down her skin and spreading across the fibers beneath her.
For a split second, everything narrows—her pain, her breathing, the ragged sound of it tearing through the air. It’s all I hear. I rip the knife free from the couch, the fabric sighing as the blade slides loose. The sight of her struggling to stand sharpens everything.
I can almost feel her pulse in the room, wild and erratic.
She pushes herself up, trembling but desperate. Her body jerks into motion, fueled by instinct more than thought. She bolts toward the hallway, each step slapping against the runner, the trail of her blood marking every footprint she leaves behind.The sound is chaos—her gasping breaths, the wet drag of her feet, the squeak of the boards beneath us.
I lunge again. My hand snags the sleeve of her shirt, fingers curling into the soft cotton. She twists hard, the fabric tearing as she wrenches herself free with a strength born of panic.
I don’t hesitate. I move with her. The knife comes down, fast and certain.
The blade bites into her side, slicing through fabric and skin in one motion.
She jerks mid-stride, her cry breaking apart before it becomes a scream. Blood wells and darkens the cotton, a spreading stain that slicks her fingers when she presses them uselessly against the wound. She staggers, her breath coming in broken gasps.
Her scream finally comes, then—high, shrill, and raw. It bounces off the narrow walls in jagged echoes.
She runs anyway, limping, the hand at her side trying to staunch what she can as she claws for the next inch of distance. Every footprint she leaves is a red thumbprint on the runner, a messy breadcrumb trail that tells me exactly where she’s been and where she’s going.
I follow, staying close enough to hear the hitch in her breath, the way her sobs tear into words that never form. Her palm smears blood along the wall as she scrabbles by; the print gleams, bright and impossible against the pale paint. She flings herself at the nearest door, fingers scrabbling at the knob like a drowning woman at a lifeline.
I am at the door in two strides and meet the frame with my shoulder just as she secures the lock. The impact is solid; the grain groans.
She braces the other side, her body pressed against the panels. I slam into the door again before driving my knife through the splintered wood. She screams and loses leverage. Iyank the blade free, then drive my boot into the edge, ripping the lock from the frame. The panel snaps with a hard, obscene crack, and the door bursts inward, timber exploding into the room in a scatter of splinters. The door ricochets off the wall; pieces of wood rain across the threshold like broken teeth.
The bathroom is small and bright, its innocence almost laughable. The shower curtain still ripples from the burst of air when I broke the door open, a faint tremor lingering in the room like it already knows what’s coming. I am very much looking forward to redecorating with the spray of her blood.
Fear has her backed into the corner, trapped by the walls and by me. One hand clings to the sink for balance, the other pressed tightly to her side in a futile attempt to slow the bleeding. The blood slips through her fingers anyway, trickling down her arm in a steady line, dripping onto the tile and spreading in uneven streaks that pool near her feet. The tremor running through her body rattles the bottles on the edge of the sink, a nervous percussion that fills the room.
Her eyes flick between me and the doorway, wild with desperation, searching for an escape that doesn’t exist. The panic in her gaze is electric, thrumming through the space, feeding something deep and primal inside me.
It’s almost beautiful, the way terror transforms a room.
Almost enough to make me take my time.
“What do you want?” she gasps, voice breaking, eyes darting wildly for anything she can turn into a weapon.
Her hands scramble over the counter, closing around whatever she can reach—a bottle of mouthwash, a ceramic soap dish, the plunger. Her fingers shake so violently that the bottle slips, sloshing blue liquid across the sink before she hurls it. It bursts against my chest, soaking through my jacket, splattering across the mirror behind me. The soap dish follows, cracking against my shoulder and exploding into pieces that scatteraround her feet. She’s screaming again, a hoarse, panicked sound that tears at the edges. The plunger comes last, swinging wide, clumsy, and desperate. I sidestep it easily, a scowl of disgust forming under my mask, and watch it bounce uselessly down the hallway.
Rage warms me in a different place than the plan. Her flinging hands are volatility—improvisation—and for a breath I appreciate the sound of her trying.
But I’ve had enough.
Her breathing breaks apart, uneven and sharp, every inhale a fight. The sound wavers between a sob and a gasp, filling the small room until it drowns everything else out. She presses her back against the cold tile, eyes wild, searching for an escape that doesn’t exist. Her bare feet slip on the wet floor as she tries to keep her balance, one hand clamped tight over the wound at her side. Blood seeps through her fingers and runs down her arm, dripping to the tile in thin, uneven streaks. The other hand gropes backward, feeling along the wall as if she could somehow make it open, as if sheer panic might force it to give her a way out.
I take a step closer. The space between us closes fast.
Her eyes find mine—wide and frantic as they dart between the knife and the exit. “Please,” she manages, voice small and shaking. “Please, don’t?—”
