Page 124 of Inked Adonis

Even with all my years of dog training and exposure therapy, I’m suddenly seven years old again. I’m frozen on the step. My pulse is thunder in my ears.

There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

Time slows down as the dog snarls closer, cornering us on the porch.

Berry barks, but the noise is high-pitched, terrified. Useless.

Leonid’s warning echoes in my head. And he’s right. This dog isn’t ferocious enough to protect me from what’s coming.

Hannibal pauses at the base of the stairs. I know that moment of stillness. I’ve survived it before. It’s not hesitation—it’s a hunter selecting the perfect angle of attack. He looks over my shoulder at poor, helpless Berry, and all he sees is red.

Then he moves.

The world narrows to teeth and terror as he launches himself up the steps. Without thinking, I hurl myself between the two canines.

Berry is safe.

I’m not.

Hannibal’s jaws lock around my forearm, crushing through leather jacket and flesh alike. The pain explodes white-hot through my body as he drags me down the stairs.

I lose Berry’s leash. Lose my footing. Lose everything except the relentless grip of teeth tearing into my arm, my leg, anywhere they can reach. Each bite feels like a punishment for thinking I could survive in Samuil’s world.

I hold out a bloody hand, and the dog tears into it again.

This time, there’s a sickening crunch.

I stop hearing anything else after that.

Distantly, beyond the fur and blood, I see people gathering on the sidewalk. I think they’re here to help, but that’s too little, too late.

With the last of my fading strength, I whip around to try to free myself. All I succeed in doing is cracking my head against the stone corner of the banister.

Pain detonates behind my eyes. For a split second, I think I see Samuil—tall and fierce and furious—striding toward me through the gathering crowd.

Then darkness swallows me whole, and I can’t tell if it’s a dream or a memory or just another lie I’m telling myself about being saved.

43

NOVA

I wake up moaning, pain splintering up my thigh and hip. Stars burst behind my eyes as I try to reach down to ease the cramp in my calf, only to find my arm in a splint.

I need a doctor. A nurse. A fucking executioner.

“Ow,” I groan, rolling onto my good side to find some kind of call button for any or all of the above options.

But instead of the plastic sides of a hospital bed, I’m facing a window. A sickeningly familiar window.

My heart kicks into an unsteady rhythm as my eyes spin around for something else—some other touchpoint to prove to me that I can’t possibly be where I think I am.

Instead, they land on a familiar, sunny yellow bookshelf. The middle shelf is bending under the weight of too many chapter books I stayed up way too late reading way too many times.

“No,” I whisper into the empty room. “No, no, no.”

This is the same room where I’d spend lonely nights listening to Morrie howl at the moon.

The same room where I’d camp out under my comforter, hiding from the sound of raucous poker games happening one floor below.

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