Page 9 of Caesar DeLuca
“Are you done?” I snap, holding up the baseball bat like I’m at the mound about to swing. “If you want to go, then go! But leave the keys and close the door. You’re letting the heat out.”
His eyes flick over to me—the first time he’s really looked at me.
My reaction is beyond my control. My body has a visceral response despite the way I’m clinging to the baseball bat like he’s my enemy.
His gaze is hard and intimidating. His eyes are such a dark blue, they’re almost black. They’re as cold as the blizzard outside, so unnerving and callous that I take another precautionary step back. He holds the kind of intensity in that stare down that I can’t imagine he ever needs anything more to scare the hell out of grown men.
His glare is more than enough.
My heart flips, my stomach pitting. I feel my hands go clammy wrapped around the baseball bat, and I swallow against a sudden lump in my throat.
What have I done? This man is dangerous. And I’m here alone with him…
He steps out of the doorway, almost at a limp. The door swings shut in an ominously slow fashion, like it’s confirming what I’ve realized—I’m trapped inside these four walls with this man.
I take yet another step back and tighten my grip on the bat. “Stay where you are.”
“You afraid of me?” His head tilts to the side. He takes a step toward me.
“I said stay where you are!”
“You wanted me here. You brought me here. Now you’re afraid?”
“That’s… that’s because I don’t know what you’re about to do!”
“What does it matter? Who’s going to stop me? You?”
Another limping step of his forward. Another of mine backward.
I can’t even put up a tough act. When I speak, my voice shakes. “I said stay where you are!”
“You think I’m a bad man, is that it? You think I’m about to do something, right? I’m a dangerous man, right?”
“Stop it!”
“Guess what, princess?” he growls. His face hardens in menacing fashion. “You’re right. You should be scared!”
He snaps forward as if to wrest the baseball bat out of my hold. I scream, clench my eyes shut, and swing the bat blind. It connects with the glass lamp on my end table and shatters it into a hundred little pieces.
The man never makes it far—a fresh bout of pain in his abdomen strikes him. He howls as if he’s the one that’s been struck by the baseball bat and collapses all on his own. He crashes to the ground amid the shards of my broken lamp.
Another second passes where I don’t move and neither does he. I’m breathing in terrified shock while he’s groaning in pain on the floor. I wait ’til my pulse has settled slightly before I edge forward to check on him.
He manages to roll himself over onto his back. Sweat gleams on his brow, his face even paler than earlier. He’s clutching his stomach. Bloodspots soak through the shirt I’ve given him to wear.
I was right—he’s busted open some of his stitches.
The baseball bat slips out of my hands, and I hurry over to help him up. “I told you you’d hurt yourself. Why couldn’t you listen?”
He’s got one eye squeezed shut, the other half open to watch me. His teeth are bared like an animal, and he doesn’t shy away from his sounds of pain.
It finally seems to dawn on him he’s stuck here. There’s no escaping and he’d be foolish to try again. He’s in worse shape than he assumed he was.
I peel back his t-shirt for a look at his wound and hiss as if I’ve been burned. It’s fixable—I just need to stitch him from where the wound’s started to reopen—but it’ll only mean more pain for him.
“Are you going to let me help you?” I ask.
He’s sweating, shaking on the floor. His teeth go from bared to chattering. But he doesn’t answer me at first. He merely stares up at me with the same uneasy glare.
