He takes off his glasses, shifts in his chair.
The ragged tear has healed into a thin pink seam, but it still bothers him.
It hurt like hell, getting impaled.
Weeks after, he was able to come up with a world of adjectives, revise and shape the details, describe it all in gory detail, but that night, when he came to and found himself skewered, the antler jutting between his hip and bottom rib, his favorite shirt torn and the pale bone slicked red, the only word Kenzo Gray could summon wasfuuuuuuck.
For a moment, he honestly couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. It was such a strange place to be. But then it came surging back. He’d gone to fetch the ax from the kitchen table, but it wasn’t there. He’d felt it then, from the top of his skull to the soles of his feet. The thing that washes over every character in a horror novel at some point.
Thebad feeling.
He should have gone looking for another weapon, but he heard voices, and pounding steps, and then his body was betraying his mind, carrying him back toward the stairs, and he was halfway up when he caught the flash of pale skin, dark hair, looked up in time to see Cate’s face, her hands rushing out to meet his chest. He’d felt that single hard shove, and then the landing dropped away beneath his heels.
He’d gone ass over heels, down the stairs, landing on his feet, which would have been impressive if the momentum hadn’t slammed him back into the foyer table.
And the antlers.
He’s done plenty of research over the years, both on how to cause wounds and on how to survive them, but it turns out there is a big fucking difference between real life and fiction, and the Reddit forums really don’t do a good enough job conveying the visceral truth, the heart-racing, nerve-singeing, in-the-moment horror.
He tried to move, and promptly blacked out.
When he came to—seconds? minutes?—later, he knew he had to do something.
He tried to drag himself free, and the pain was electric. It made his vision go red, and white, but at least he didn’t faint again. He bit back the urge to scream, but only because the last thing he needed was for Cate to come back and finish the job.
Cate. He’d never have cast her as the villain in one of his books. Not because it was far-fetched, but because it was obvious. Which of these things is not like the other? But then, she was. She was there for the same reason they all were.
Because she was hungry.
But there was no sign of her, or Priscilla, or Millie. The house was dark, and the front door hung open, cold wind blowing in. Kenzo had to do something, so he took a few shallow breaths, and put his hands behind his back, andpushedagainst the table.
At which point he discovered that the only thing that hurtmorethan being impaled by one of Arthur Fletch’s questionable design choices wasunimpaling himself.
He nearly blacked out again.
And he did scream—he couldn’t help it—but his voice rang through the house, and no one came. He didn’t know how long it took, but he’ll never forget the sucking drag of the antler withdrawing, the sound that tore out of him when he was free.
Kenzo stumbled, sank to his knees.
Blood was soaking through his shirt, front and back, too much, too fast, not a trickle but a stream. He knew he had to staunch the flow, but when he pressed his palm flat to the wound, his vision went wavy.
He looked around for something, anything, to use, and ended up grabbing Jaxon’s abandoned hoodie and pressing it to the wound. He desperately wanted to sit down, but he knew he’d never get back up. His mind cleared enough to remember he was still in danger, that he probably needed a weapon, but the only thing in reach was an umbrella in a nearby stand.
The front door hung open, cold air sweeping in, and Kenzo’s only thought wasout.
He had to get out.
Easier said than done. Every step pulled at the hole in his stomach. Even bracing himself against the nearest wall, he had to stop twice to catch his breath, once to keep from fainting, and once to throw up in a potted plant.
Which hurt. Funny, how pain worked. In books, it was something stoically endured, or else muted by adrenaline. Sometimes people didn’t even know how badly they were injured until they looked down and saw the blood.
Kenzo knew. He knew, as he shuffled to the open door, as he staggered down the last four steps, as the fresh air bit into his sweat-damp skin and his head spun and his blood soaked the hoodie against his stomach and ran down his back, and he realized, bleakly, there was nowhere to go.
The storm was finally letting up, the wind dying to a nervous rustle, but that wasn’t much comfort, because he was still on an isolated island off the coast of Scotland, in the middle of the night, without a way to call for help, or any form of medical assistance. And he was going to die.
Kenzo had never really been the quitting type, but his body was calling it, legs folding for him, and then he was on the ground, his cheek pressed against the cold pebble path, and it should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. It felt good, too good, and the pain was starting to fade, and that sent a warning pulse through his thoughts, because that kind of feeling was probably a bad sign when you were bleeding out in the dark.
He couldn’t believe that he’d somehow become the final girl, only to die out here on the driveway, which really ruined the trope.
