I move slower but more intentionally than she does, quieter than the breeze. I let her think she has a chance. Counting each heartbeat in my head until she breaks, until the weight of my unseen presence becomes too much and robs her of her senses.
“Sara, you can’t hide from me.” I howl out with a hide and seek playful voice that would make anyone’s hair stand up. Her silhouette is barely visible against the tree trunks.
A twig snaps sharp beneath her weight. Her head jerks up, tears in her eyes, and I see the moment she realizes she’s given herself away. A delicious sight of fear mixed with somber curiosity I know she won’t admit even to herself. She stumbles forward as if the ground is collapsing under her, straight past the chapel, straight into the tangle of trees that spills down the far slope.
I don’t chase. She’ll realize soon enough her only choice is to run back to me, that facing her fears is by going through them. Throughme.
Although for someone born here, she sure doesn’t have a good sense of direction for leading herself up here. The abandoned house that everyone in the village can’t shut up about.
It crouches at the edge of the path, its yard a sprawl of weeds and unkempt walls. Ivy strangles the shutters, half the windows shattered, and the gate sags open. Sara shoves through them, vanishing into the yard until the front door swallows her, and for a heartbeat I almost let it end there. Let her choke on the stench of dust and rot. Maybe that would teach her something, but my feet move after her.Fuck.
The inside of the house is in ruins. A velvet chair sags in the corner, the chandelier above halfway hanging, ready to kill someone. Sunlight knives through broken windows, cutting the dark into stripes of sunlight with specks of dust dancing around in a gloomy quietness, even quieter since I’ve been here; nothing had changed.
Five years ago, a cry for help had diverted my jog into this abandoned house. Finding a young girl, beaten and God knows what else they did to her. She had said her father had done that to her and deserted her. The rage I felt was indescribable. I knew what it was like to be haunted by the one person who should keep you safe, and the look in her eyes as I led her to safety, stayed with me. Ultimately defining my life’s purpose.
Now Sara is here, stumbling, moving like a ghost, skin pale under the light, another body the house has swallowed.
She darts left, and I cringe at the eerie children's drawings on the small wooden table half molded into the surface. She bolts again when I enter the room, desperately opening another door behind her to escape me, and it occurs to me she fearsmemore than these actual walls, a fear that even I find debatable.I swear she has a death wish.
I step closer, feeling the pulse in my neck heightening, strands of her hair disappearing after her, when her scream cracksthrough the house. I round the doorway in time to see her slip and catch herself hard against the floor as her foot splashes into something wet.
As my haunting figure prowls closer to her every inch, she moves backward, shaking like a leaf, but the air changes.
Bewildered, she looks at her hands, a puzzled stare mixed with anguished pain, slick, shining wet… her clothes are damp at the hems where she splashed through the puddle, little dark stains spreading like ink. She’s terrified. As she should be.
“Liam, please don’t hurt me!” Her voice is sharp, frantic.
I move closer, inspecting her, and I freeze. I grab the first piece of cloth I see on the floor and grab her hands and wipe them clean.
“Take them off.” I hiss, as I rub her hands.
She blinks, confused. “What?”
“Your clothes,” I snap, now towering over her. “Take them off. Now.”
Her chest heaves, shaking her head as if I’ve lost my mind. “No! Why—what are you—Get away from me, Liam, please. Stop!”
My eyes lock onto the sheen coating on her skin. I know that smell, faint but an unmistakable metallic and acrid scent, and my gut tightens. The fabric at her hip hisses, a faint curl of smoke rising where the liquid has soaked through.
I grab the hem of her shirt, yank it off her, and the shock on her face is downright poetic.
“It’s acid, Sara.” My tone turns rough. “You fell into acid. Do you want it eating through your skin next?”
The color drains from her face. Her mouth opens to argue, to deny, but the fiber at her strap gives a brief twitch, and I don’t wait for her approval. All I can see is the slow spread of chemical burns, licking closer to her skin. I might be a bastard, but I’m not evil enough for her flesh to get eaten alive.
Her breath saws in and out, hot against my chest as I yank the soaked jeans down her legs and I rip them apart, throwing them as far away from her. She’s trembling, arms crossing over herself, but her body is right there in my grip. Her bare thighs shaking, the curve of her small waist exposed under my hands. Then my gaze falls on what remains between us.
Fuck.
Her thong. Black lace, nearly transparent, the thin strip clinging to her hips, damp from the spill.
“Liam —” she gasps through labored breaths.
I don’t give her time because there isn’t any. My fingers hook under the band, tugging once and it’s gone. Both of her hands flying down to my shoulders to balance herself as her eyes burn into mine, wide and wet with humiliation, but I avoid looking at her nakedness. That’s crossing a line I am not comfortable with.
“And what the fuck.” I tear down a strap of her bra, the sound sharp of arip.
“Were you doing in my garage?”
