Page 6 of Corrupted Heart

He stays rigid like that, his head still tilted at a slightly deranged angle, saying nothing. Finally, his hand drops from my neck, but not quickly. It’s more like a slow, almost sensual stroke of his gloved fingers over my soft skin and throbbing pulse as he releases me.

He steps back from me and his voice rumbles out again, like a boulder grinding a smaller rock to sand.

“Remember what you saw here tonight.”

“I didn’t see anything,” I whisper, shivering.

He’s motionless in the gloom of the alley.

“I’ll be watching you, prinkípissa.”

He steps backward into the shadows, sinking into them like black ink swallowing a white page.

Then he’s gone.

2

BIANCA

Hands reach for me out of the darkness. Footsteps pound behind—chasing, hunting, drawing closer. I can hear the rasp of his breath and the dark, cold chuckle signaling he already knows the outcome of this.

That I can run, but I can’t hide.

Not from him. Not from the nightmare I crave.

The promise of darkness and the fulfilment of sinister, deviant desires. Of the bite of rope and the gag of rubber. Of being used by him in whatever way he wants, with or without my consent…

The promise of utter submission. Of pain.

He draws closer and closer, his footsteps right behind me. His fingertips brush my skin before they suddenly catch and tangle in my hair. They yank. They grasp. I crash to the ground where he roughly pins my hands above my head and growls as he takes his pleasure from me as I writhe and scream?—

I wake with a start, a real-world gasp lodged in my throat as I sit bolt upright.

My pulse hammers in my ears. Sweat clings to my skin. I force myself to exhale as I slowly rub my face and push a hand through my long hair.

The dream isn’t new. It’s not even infrequent.

It happens all the time, as if I need to be reminded while I’m safe in my bed that I’m never safe from the fucked-up darkness that lives in my head. The kinks and desires you can’t tell anyone about…as if I even have people to tell my kinks to.

And even if I did, as if I ever would.

Fever dreams like these happen all the time. But there was a small difference in the one I just woke up from.

Usually he’s faceless, the man who chases me. Who catches me. Who pins me down and has me waking up sweaty, with a racing heart and slick, quivering thighs. I suppose the one last night was technically faceless, too. Except it was a faceless pursuer I know.

One I’ve met in the real world.

One with a mask.

Just now, in my twisted, fucked-up dreams, I was chased by the huge man in the neon mask. The very same one who melted out of the shadows and killed two men right in front of me in reality last night.

I shiver as the vivid red blood on black tarmac and the horrifying gurgling scream echo in my head.

I don’t feel bad about what happened to them. Not after what they were clearly about to do to me. But even so, I flinch as I replay the sickening sound of the man’s knife slicing their throats open.

My eyes squeeze shut. Even being part of the world I live in, I’ve never seen death happen like that before. I’ve never watched someone die. And even though I did, that’s not what I’m fixating about where last night is concerned.

I’m not thinking about the fact that Alicia dragged me to a massive drug deal. Or that two men tried to attack me last night.

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