her
uncoordinated. He collapsed onto the mattress, pawi
rning, his eyes scanning the room. His gaze swept past the heavy velvet curtains where I stood pressed into th
led in my skull, but I held it down, drowning it beneath the cold, b
the pre
He squinted toward the bathroom door, then toward
o
mo
ay. Fo
opener shifted in my grip, rotating so the brass point angled downward, align
skey souring on his skin when his e
rted t
la
gth I possessed-strength born of years of repressed rage, of nights lying awake memorizin
ural cry tore
nto the muscle beneath. Blood, dark in the moon
The pain hadn't registered yet. His brain was still struggling
he ago
me, his uninjured arm swinging wildly. The bac
the heavy armoire. The impact sent a jolt of pain down my arm, my knuckles scraping against thdrop the le
d. I blinked the stars away and found him again. He was clutching his wou
rds came out strangl
My free hand braced against the armoire. I could feel the warm trickle of blood runnin
again. I watched the calculation happen behind his eyes-the drunk, ent
nged
ound, by the alcohol, by the shock.
n pivoted my body, using his own momentum to drag him off balance. The letter
umbled backward, blood now
e it clear I was not retreating. The letter opener drip
ut," I
cut through the silence with
n, into the thing that now lived behind my eyes. Something cold. Something patient. Some
laced by a dawning, primal fear. This was not
trouble he was in.
retreat as pathetic and cowardly as his attack had been arrogant. He ran so fast, so blindly,
ootsteps faded int
aline dra
floor, the letter opener falling from my nervel
now-his and mine, mingled together. I could smell it, the phantom
truck first.
used to be died, and something new, something harder and more r
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