Page 38 of Love Bleeds Red
“Fucking bastard,” she says, rubbing her throat and scrambling back a step.
“Didn’t know you wanted to join the party.” He steps toward me, his eyes narrowing. “I knew you weren’t just some newbie. Time to find out what you’re really about.”
“No.” My voice shakes, but only at first. “No,” I repeat louder. And then I turn and sprint out the door.
“Bitch,” he spits under his breath as Cat yells for me to run. I pass Lydia and Elise, frozen in their doorway, watching.
“Come on,” I plead, urging them to follow, but I can’t spare a second to stop and wait. He’s right behind me.
His voice is at my back. Too calm, like he’s practiced it before.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. Ask Catalina. We’ve been having fun together.” He grabs me by the hair as I reach the top of the stairs. Stinging pain explodes across my scalp and I scream, reaching up to grab his wrist on instinct.
“Please,” I cry. “Let me go, I won’t run.”
“You’re making me hurt you, newbie. He put me in charge…Me. I can’t let anything go wrong.”
He starts dragging me back toward our bedroom, my feet scrambling for traction against the smooth floor. I pry at his fist but he only tightens his grip, twisting his fingers in my hair. Each step sends fresh waves of agony through my scalp.
“Stop, please!” Tears blur my vision as I claw uselessly at his hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Through my sobs, I make out Lydia’s voice begging him to stop, to let me go.
“Should’ve thought about that before you tried to run.” His grip tightens, pulling harder. “Now I have to?—”
His words are cut off by a choked gasp.
What the?—
His hand goes slack in my hair and I stumble forward, falling to my knees as he releases me. When I turn around, Cat is standing behind him, her chest heaving, and a kitchen knife buried deep between his shoulder blades. His eyes are wide with shock as one hand waves through air, desperately trying to grab the handle.
“That’s for all thefunwe had,” Cat says in a voice cold as ice.
Erik staggers toward me, but I slide back, narrowly avoiding his body as he collapses face first onto the hardwood.
“Oh my holy fuck,” Lydia says as she hurries into the hallway.
I ignore her though, focusing on the pool of blood soaking through Erik’s T-shirt and dripping onto the floor.
“What did you do? Shit, shit, shit!” The words pour out of me. I crawl toward him, my hands landing in his warm blood, and check for a pulse. It’s there but it’s weak.
“Is he dead?” Lydia asks.
I shake my head. “He’s still alive.”
Elise makes her way into the hallway, quietly sobbing. “We’re so fucked.”
“He was gonna kill Bailey,” Cat says. “I had no choice.”
My eyes fix on the knife sticking out of his back. “Where did you get the knife?”
“At breakfast, but that doesn’t matter. We gotta get the fuck out of here.” She rushes back into the bedroom and I want to follow her. I know I should. But my legs won’t move.
“We can’t let him die,” Lydia says quietly. “They’ll kill us.”
She’s right. Letting him bleed out on the floor in front of me is wrong. But what he did to Cat was wrong too, what he did to me. His phone sticks out of his back pocket, it would only take a second to call 911. I could leave an anonymous tip, considering I have no clue where we are. The paramedics will come, the cops… We can tell them what happened to us. We’ll be saved.
Lydia spots the phone at the same time and grabs it. “I’m calling my kids.”
