I don’t answer. I just mumble something incoherent as he observes me for a moment longer before closing the distance between us. His smell assaults me, not because it’s offensive or necessarily bad, but because he’s not mine. Not Roman.
He’s an intruder. My enemy is someone who will never earn the title of my tormentor. He will not break me, but I will kill him. I continue to sway a little bit more, trying to shake his hand off my tit as it slips inside my dress and plays with my ring.
“Don’t let Tokyo know, but you are my favorite.” His free hand cups my pussy, and I nearly snarl at the contact. “A pussy worth dying for, who would have thought? I think I want to keep you, Xena Bean.”
My body tenses, every fiber of my being screaming at how wrong it feels to hear Roman’s nickname for me spill from this asshole’s lips. “Ahh, that’s what he calls you, his Xena Bean. I think I like Alec’s Doll.” He leans closer, running his nose up the length of my neck. “Or maybe Alec’s Whore.”
I still don’t move. Not even as his hand slips beneath my skirt and his finger parts my pussy. “He’s here, you know. I want him to see how pretty you sing for me.” That’s all it takes for whatever restraint that kept me in place to snap.
I lunge.
My knee connects with his groin first—a dirty and desperate shot that fucking works. Alec stumbles back, his hand instinctively flying downward. I hope it fucking hurts.
Then I fucking run.
I slip past him, running straight down the stairs and into the sea of people, unaware of their fates. My heart hammers inside my chest, my head swinging left to right before deciding to go out towards the corn stalks. I’m sure I can lose him there. The last thing I want to do is corner myself in this fucking barn.
“Watch it, bitch,” a girl dressed in a slutty maid outfit shouts at me as I dart past the door.
The smell of sulfur from the machines fills the air alongside gasoline and… the metallic tang of blood. A masked man dressed just like Alec steps from the field—just as I duck into it. The sounds of screams fill the night air, only to be silenced by the sound of a chainsaw.
My stomach lurches as my feet thud against the ground. My lungs burn from the lack of hydration and expansion. Suddenly, my foot skids against the ground, and the smell of iron punches my senses as I fall. My hand lands on something sticky —maybe mud because of the texture —but it’s too thin.
Too sticky.
I swallow the bile clawing its way up my throat when I recognize the familiar scent of blood that now coats my hands. Slowly, I turn to the source and find a figure split down the middle. Blood is pooling beneath the corpse, running a river of crimson towards me. I quickly stagger back, using the small patches of ground to wipe my hands.
So much blood.
Then my stomach knots… It’s a man.
A man.
I scurry on all fours, biting down on the inside of my cheek to check the body. Praying that it’s not my Ro. Thankfully, the lights give me just enough brightness to see that whoever this poor soul is, it’s not Roman.
He’s alive, and I need to find him.
Footsteps catch my attention, and my hands move against the ground trying to find anything, but I only find a vape and a used condom. Disgust rolls through me when I realize my fingers touched the slimy, sticky cum leaking from it. Using my dress, I wipe my hands and then scurry to my feet.
Hiding behind a stalk, I watch more masked men walk down the trail. Then, I hear giggles before the piercing sound of a scream is drowned out by the sound of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Using my hand to cover my mouth, I hold back my scream—fuck, even my breathing. I wait until the screams and laughter finally stop and then watch as a new trail of blood connects with the smaller one from the man lying on the ground, before I take off running in the opposite way, right back to where I came from.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I keep muttering as my fingers glide through my thick hair. I pull off my mask, breathing in a full lung of air, and yet, sitting still feels like I can’t get enough. Blood rushes through my ears as my heart keeps ricocheting inside my chest. “Ro. Ro. Ro,” I chant, already noticing the shake in my head, the feeling that begins to slowly creep up on me.
The addiction claws its way through my determination, begging to be felt. To be sated.
“No!” I shout as I pace in a circle, my fingers digging into my scalp to stop the feeling of ants crawling inside my head. Suddenly, dead cornstalks snap beneath the weight of something. I twirl my entire body around, tense and waiting as a figure emerges from the shadows.
“You!” I hiss…
Chapter Sixteen
Kai
“We don’t have to keep fighting, man,” I mutter into Roman’s ear as he continues to writhe in my hold like a god damn bull, my arms straining to keep him on the ground.
“Fuck you,” he spits, lifting me from the ground and smashing my body into the wooden wall. The boards give, our bodies go right through it. The red and orange lights flicker as the thick smoke from the machine chokes me with each breath. And Roman, now out of my grasp, is standing before me. His boot is coming towards me, and I barely have a chance to move out of the way.
