Page 197 of Midnights
The rain pounds harder, but the sound barely registers over the static filling my head. Did he saywe?
My pulse spikes, and every instinct screams for me torun, to put as much distance as possible between me and whatever the hell this is. Instead, I do what I always do.
I dig my heels in, meeting his gaze with every ounce of defiance I can muster. “Seriously, wrong girl. So why don’t you just…” I wave a dismissive hand. “Go back home and turn on some Netflix, try a different series man. Maybe Supernatural? It’s really good. You’d love it.”
He doesn’t laugh, or even have any type of reaction at all, except for the slow drop of his eyes right back to my chest. “You talk too much.”
A blade appears in his hand before I even register the movement. Ice floods my veins and my body locks up.
Fuck.
It’s instinct that saves me. The second his arm jerks, I move. My feet stumble back, my arm flies up, enough to keep it from sinking into something vital. The burn is instant. It feels like fire licking across my forearm as I bite down on a scream.
My grandpa’s voice whispers through the chaos, a memory pressing against the pain.
“The first hit will tell you everything you need to know about your enemy. If they hesitate after they hurt you, they’re inexperienced. If they smile? They'll enjoy it. But if they don’t react at all? Then you’re already in trouble.”
I lift my chin, ignoring the blood dripping down my arm.
He’s not smiling. He’s waiting.Lovely.
The rain slashes against my skin, and my breath comes faster. Alright. I’m not going down without a fight though.
His eyes widen, not with satisfaction, but with pain? His body locks up and a raw, choked gasp rips from his throat, and then he screams.
His fingers dig into his chest, and he throws his head back just as the streetlights blow. Glass showers down on us in sharp little sparks, like the universe thought we needed special effects. I flinch, raising an arm to shield my face, and the moment I lower it, the world is black. Darkness swallows the street whole.
He collapses to his knees and his body convulses.
What. The.Fuck.
My chest rises and falls in frantic, shallow gasps. My ribs ache, my arm throbs, but my mind is moving too fast to care. But it's my hands that freak me out. Theyburn.
I stagger back a step as he chokes out something I can’t understand before his body slumps onto the pavement, unmoving.
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe.
I just stare at him.
What just happened?
The street is unnervingly silent except for the rain hammering the pavement and the distant growl of thunder rolling through the hills. My chest rises and falls in sharp, uneven breaths, and the ache in my body is an afterthought compared to what just happened. I need to get out of here.
I turn and see headlights slice through the storm, flooding the street with artificial light.
Relief surges through me as I whip my head around toward the approaching car ready to flag them down, but they turn going in a different direction.
When I look back, the man is gone.
I blink hard, but my heart lurches into my throat. I scan the shadows, searching for the silhouette that had been right there, but there’s nothing. Just the empty street. The storm swallows the space where he should be.You’ve got to be kidding me.
A shaky breath escapes me, but my pulse is still pounding against my ribs. How is he just gone?
Every hair on my body stands on end, and my senses are screaming at me to move, but my legs won’t cooperate.
I exhale sharply, forcing my muscles to unfreeze, to function. I need to get out of here. I stagger forward, and my heels slip against the wet pavement as I push into the downpour. Every drop of rain feels like needles on my skin and every breath feels like a knife to the ribs. My arm throbs and the blood mixes with the rain as it drips down my fingers, but the physical pain barely registers over the chaos still wreaking havoc through my mind.
