Page 37 of Corrupted Heart

“Try me.”

The words tumble from my mouth before I can shove them back in.

Slowly, the man stops and half turns, the glow of his neon eyes mingling with the flickering of the candlelight in the stone church.

“What did you say?” he murmurs darkly.

I swallow, drumming up whatever courage I have inside.

“I said try me.”

A second ticks by. Then another.

“You’ve swum out far past your depth, little girl.”

He turns his back on me again and calmly walks up the center of the nave back to his throne.

“Maybe you’ve just lost your nerve.”

I can’t believe I just said that.

He stops cold, his broad shoulders tensing. His head cocks to the side.

“What did you say?”

I swallow nervously.

Just go, I think to myself. Just drop it and get out while you can.

Because he’s right. I am way out of my depth here. There’s having fantasies, and daydreaming about things you’ve seen in dirty videos.

…And then there’s this. And whatever “this” is, we’re a mile past the line of sanity. Honestly, it’s a miracle that I haven’t been murdered and cut into pieces yet.

But my mouth has never been great at knowing when it’s time to call it quits. The tequila shots still coursing through my bloodstream aren’t exactly helping, either.

“I said maybe you’ve lost your nerve. You know, all bark, no bite? Big talk online, but then the whole thing falls apart in real?—”

My words choke to a strangled silence when I hear the sharp metallic shnick of a switchblade. The knife clenched in his big, veined hand gleams in the candlelight as his head twists toward me a little more, giving me a glimpse of one neon X.

“For the record, babygirl…”

He turns to face me fully in all his dark, malicious wrath. Fear stabs my heart as he tosses the blade casually from one hand to the other, then back again.

“I did give you a chance to leave.”

One instant, he’s standing thirty feet away holding a knife. The next, he’s bolting toward me.

I scream, whirling and flinging myself at the huge wooden doors on their rusty hinges behind me. I grab the heavy iron ring and pull…

And pull.

And pull.

Holy fuck.

When it finally registers in my terrified brain that the door is locked, I spin away and bolt to the side. A snarl echoes in my ear, and another scream tears from my throat as I feel his thick fingertips brush my arm.

Pure survival instinct and adrenaline explode like napalm through my veins as I fling myself across the church, hurdling a broken-down pew and dodging around a pile of mossy bricks.

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