Page 50 of Behind the Shadows
My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out everything but the frantic rasp of my breath. Tears burned, hot and useless, blurring my vision as panic clawed up my throat. His weight pinned me, my ribs straining, the same helpless pressure I’d felt in that filthy cell years ago. The stink of sweat, the rasp of astranger’s laugh—it all bled together, past and present twisting into one nightmare.
I kicked, writhed, fought like a cornered animal, but the harder I thrashed, the deeper he pressed me to the floor. Terror surged, colliding with white-hot rage. I wasn’t that broken girl anymore. I would not let him take this from me again. I’d tear his eyes out with my bare hands before I'd let him break me.
An odd sound stilled me as my hallway closet opened and the man in the devil mask appeared behind Cooper.
“You don’t get to touch what’s mine, motherfucker.” He growled, edged with danger. He leaned down and wrapped an arm around Cooper’s neck and hauled him to his feet.
I yanked my shorts up and pushed to my feet, every muscle screaming in protest. My knees buckled, trembling beneath me, and my body shook so violently I had to slam a hand against the wall to stay upright. My vision swam, blood seeping into my eye and stinging as I swiped it away with a shaky hand. My chest heaved, lungs burning for air, and still I forced myself to focus—because the devil was standing in my living room.
Cooper fought against the devil’s hold, but there was no use. A chilling laugh filled my house, and in one swift cut, the glinting blade sliced across Cooper's neck, leaving a scarlet trail in its wake. Blood gushed from the ragged wound in his throat, pooling fast across my floor, snaking into the cracks of the wood in a macabre river. His eyes stared wide and empty, his lips parted as if frozen mid-curse. The torn flesh along his neck flapped grotesquely, peeling open like the skin of a split grape.
I couldn’t look away. Horror rooted me to the spot, but beneath it—God help me—something else flickered. A dark, morbid fascination. I’d seen this before. The way life bled out in a hot, endless spill. The way death took its time. My stomach heaved, but still my gaze clung to the scene, riveted, as if my body remembered something my mind refused to name.
I gasped in horror, watching as his lifeless body crumpled to the floor like a lead ball.
“Shit. You killed him!” I sputtered, not realizing I was speaking out loud. Even though I was disoriented from the attack, I was still clearheaded enough to understand that Cooper had been murdered in my living room …Jesus!
The devil stalked toward me still holding the knife, his moves cold and calculated.
“What do you want? I know you were here the other night. I remember the mask.” I stepped back, but only managed to bump into the wall. I quickly turned to the side, giving myself enough room to run.
The man in the devil mask cocked his head, a slow, judicious movement, as though studying a new exhibit. “Good. You’re smarter than you look.” His gloved hand was still slick from Cooper’s blood, and a single drop of blood poised on his thumb like a garnet. “It’s better if you don’t scream. There’s only you and me left now, so don’t waste your energy. You’ll need it.”
The light glinted off his blade, and my legs threatened to collapse, but I forced them to work, to slide against the wall to move further from him and away from Cooper. The devil kept coming, relentless and silent, until we were at the mouth of the hallway.
How the hell had I landed in this situation? I knew the answer though. My fucking heart was a damn fisherman’s net—tattered and always catching the wrong thing.
He knelt and assessed the pool of blood forming under Cooper’s corpse. The devil ran his fingers through the dark substance before he stood and laughed.
Every cell inside me fucking froze as the top quarter of a silver cross peeked out of his shirt.
“I want answers,” he demanded.
“It was you and …” I pointed at the piece of jewelry hanging from his neck. “You fucked me with your cross,” I stammered. “I’m not crazy. It really happened.”
A cruel smile eased into place. “You were so beautiful the other night. Waiting for me to touch you… taste you. Your tight cunt wrapped around my cross like a good girl, letting me fuck you. I can’t wait for more, and the way you were moaning and how hard you came for me, you wanted it.”
I gawked at his words as my thighs clenched with the memory, along with his dark and sultry voice. I shook my head, realizing I’d lost my damn mind.
He lunged for me, and I sidestepped him, edging toward the kitchen. Bottles, knives, boiling water, the back door—despite all the horror, I scrolled through options, a sick game of survival. I’d played it before and won. I could do it again. But he was close now, dangerously close, and the bright overhead light revealed the mask’s features.
I grabbed the nearest thing—a loaf of bread, ridiculous—and threw it at his head. It bounced off harmlessly, and he laughed as he closed the gap. I grabbed the butcher knife next, swung hard, but he caught my wrist and twisted until the blade clattered to the wood floor. In the same motion, he yanked me up by the hair and pressed my face into the fridge.
He chuckled at my feeble attempts to escape him. The devil released my hair and slid his weapon to the front of my neck, his warm breath grazing the shell of my ear. “I’m impressed that you held your own with Cooper.”
That scent again. Burnt amber and sin. My brain screamed at me to run. My body begged to stay. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t pinpoint his voice. He was using a disguiser, which made it nearly impossible. There was something that nudged me, though. Something familiar about him.
“I tried. I would have managed it on my own. You didn’t have to kill him,” I snapped.
“Oh, I definitely did.” He trailed his free hand down my back and over the right cheek of my ass, lingering there for a moment.
“I like a woman that puts up a good fight. It makes my cock so fucking hard.” He pressed his hips into my back, and I gulped at his size. I should have been alarmed that he was holding a weapon to my throat, but strangely, I didn't care. If he killed me, I would finally be free—free from Draco and the relentless shadows of the past that haunted me both in my nightmares and in my waking hours. Each memory was torment, a never-ending torture, and I was already spiraling out of control. It would only be a matter of time before my parents would be forced to seek help for me, perhaps committing me to find some relief. In a twisted sense, the devil would be doing me a favor.
“Good for you.” My tone was snarky as hell, but for some stupid reason the level of smartass I was capable of when scared was crazy.
He jerked me away from the refrigerator and marched me over to the back door. “If you scream, you die. If you run like a good girl and I don’t catch you, I’ll leave you alone.” His hand slid over my breast and cupped it, tugging on my hard nipple through my thin pajama tank.
My breath hitched, a traitorous gasp slipping past my lips. Heat pulsed low in my belly, sharp and wrong, colliding with the terror clawing at my throat. I hated the way my body responded to him—hated that the devil’s touch could make my knees weak even as my mind screamed to fight.
