Page 4 of My Knight

Chapter Two

Saylor

All I felt was the weight. Not on my body, but in my head—like someone had stuffed it full of cotton and then wrapped it in fog. Thick. Slow. Heavy. Everything inside me felt like it was trying to float to the surface but couldn’t quite make it. I knew I was trying to wake up, but my body wasn’t on the same page.

I drifted in and out for what felt like forever. Time didn’t mean anything. I didn’t know if it had been minutes, hours, or days. But slowly, painfully, the fog started to lift.

My eyes cracked open, and light filtered in—too bright and too white. The kind of light that could only mean one place. Hospital.

I didn’t know how I got here at first. My brain was still lagging behind, clawing its way through the haze. But then—

I remembered.

All of it hit me at once, like a brick wall.

I had only stepped a few feet out the back door of my tiny house. I’d been heading toward Mac’s tiny house. I didn’t even hear him coming. One second, I glanced up at the night sky; the next—I was on the ground.

Something—no, someone—slammed into me from behind.

I hit the dirt hard, and my shoulder took the brunt of it. Before I could scream, he was on me.

Panic had surged through me like a shot of adrenaline. I bucked and thrashed, and my fingernails clawed at anything I could get to. I kicked my feet, flailed my arms, twisted my body like my life depended on it—because it did.

He was a big guy—heavy, built like a truck. I couldn’t make out much in the dark, but I could smell him—sweat, booze, and something sharp, like blood.

He grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked it, ripping it halfway down the middle.

I screamed.

I kicked.

I caught him in the thigh, maybe the stomach. Didn’t matter. He didn’t let go.

He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked my head back so hard I saw stars. Then he slammed my face into the ground. Pain exploded behind my eyes. My cheekbone scraped against the patio, and I felt it rip open. I tasted dirt and blood.

I was going to die.

But something in me didn’t give up.

The second he shifted his weight—just slightly—I wrenched myself sideways and scrambled forward. I dragged my body through the flowerbed like a goddamn animal.

My hand landed on something solid. Rough. A stone about the size of a softball.

I grabbed it.

He lunged.

I swung.

Missed.

He cursed and grabbed for me again.

I swung again—this time, I connected. Hard. Right into his shoulder.

He howled but didn’t stop.

He came at me again.

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