Page 2 of Need Him Like Oxygen

Along with my knife.

My mace.

Everything I had to defend myself with.

Now it was just me, my instincts, and my will to survive.

Against three men who wanted me dead.

But not before they made me wish and beg for it first.

I reached outward, hand pressing into the release bar on the door, cringing as it clicked as it pushed inward, praying that my attackers didn’t hear it, didn’t come running.

As it turned out, they didn’t need to run.

Because they were on the other side of the door.

Waiting.

The blow came too swiftly to deflect, a fist straight to the jaw, whipping my head to the side, making me stagger, but not fall.

The next blow, though, landed on my already aching ribs, driving all the air from my lungs, and causing me to crash to the ground, the impact making pain slice through my head, my arm, my side.

“Look at the mighty Cinna now,” a sneering voice taunted as I tried to rise up, getting onto all fours. Before a boot connected with my side, sending me sprawling again, this time on my back. “Hold her down,” he ordered.

Rough hands grabbed me from both sides, pinning my arms and legs to the cold, hard ground, as the ringleader towered over me, the moon casting half his face in shadow, making him look like a villain from a movie.

Not someone I knew.

And that was maybe the scariest part.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, leg rearing back to kick out again, colliding with the ribs on my other side, the pain a white-hot, blinding knife.

I fought the wave of panic as he leaned down, his lips bent in a sick smirk as his hand curled into a fist, the knuckles already broken open from the dozen or so times they had already collided with my face, with my body.

“That’s it,” one of his henchmen cheered as his fist cracked into my jaw, sending my head swinging to the other side as pain ratcheted up my face to pound in my temples. “Make her scream.”

I wouldn’t scream.

They could get my blood.

Break my bones.

But I would never give them the satisfaction of hearing my pain.

“Oh, I think I might make her scream alright,” my attacker said, the wicked gleam in his eyes making my heart lurch in my chest.

This was the risk, wasn’t it?

When you were a woman in a violent, male-dominated field.

When you went out alone at night.

When you dared to have a drink at a bar.

When you trusted the wrong man.

When you were a woman… period.

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