Page 48 of Little Deaths

It made her want to cry.

“You’re breathing pretty hard, Donni.” His hands drifted down her sides harmlessly. “Are you fucking with me?” he whispered. “Or do you just want to be fucked?”

“I don’t know what to do,” she blurted, badly shaken now. “I’ve had this fear inside me for so long that it just feels like it’s a part of me.” She drew in a sharp, knifing breath. “When everything in my life felt like it was falling apart—that’s when I started scaring myself. I became obsessed with horror because I wanted to feel things that would scare me, but wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Rafe let his hands fall from her, sliding one into his pocket. When he pulled out a switchblade, Donni felt her pulse rate kick up. He handled it deftly, she couldn’t help noticing, even though this one had a tricky spring. The sharp point of it sliding out made her flinch.

Watching her, he said, softly, “I could scare you, though.”

She had had knives pointed at her before—most of them prop knives, rigorously tested, and very much safe. When she felt the lethal kiss of this one at her throat, her vision blurred.

This man could kill someone, she thought.

Perhaps he had already had.

She glanced at his face, which was alive with tension; it was as if he had electricity running through his veins instead of blood, lighting him up with a dark, stormy light. There was a warning in there somewhere; she chose not to heed it.

“I want—to be fucked,” she said shakily, answering his question from before. But before he could speak, she added, “I don’t want to do it on a bed if you’re going to be rough.”

“Anything you want,” he said. “As long as I get you.”

She felt like she was holding on to the knob of a door that was leading to somewhere she knew she shouldn’t be going. He let her push his hand from her throat, but he didn’t let go of the knife.

“D-don’t cover my mouth, either.” Her hands shook as she gripped her knees. “You can hold me down but don’t cover my mouth and don’t—” She glanced at the knife and shuddered. “Don’t cut me.”

Rafe made an animal sound. And then he dragged her from the table and kissed her again, forcing her to arch into him to reach his mouth. There was nothing soft about this kiss—it was scorchingly carnivorous and left her without the will to stand.

“Run,” he said, in a low, rasping voice.

“W-what?”

“I’m giving you ten seconds. That’s how long you have to run. After that, I’m coming after you. And I suggest you make me work for it. Ten years is a long time to wait, after all.” He took a slow step closer that made her jump away “You might want to wear me down first.”

When he made a threatening lunge for her, she shrieked and ran, and his low, satisfied laugh made goosebumps crawl over her skin.

“Run.”

Oh fuck, she thought, before dizzily turning towards the stairs.

He didn’t bother counting down. She supposed he didn’t need to. With this sudden rush of blood in her ears, she had her own personal metronome.

She dragged herself up the stairs. Her legs felt as if they had been filled with ice water and she could feel the prickle of pins and needles zipping from her ankles all the way to her thighs. She ran past the open door to the master bedroom, which was still decorated according to Marco’s tastes, like most of the house. Like the tansu chest in the hall that she had liked until he had inexplicably painted it agave green. Her husband’s touch was splattered all over this house, and Donni was starting to realize that she had never truly belonged.

Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs, rattling the bannisters. Donni shook off her depressing thoughts and ducked into the first room she encountered, breathing in a musty, yet strangely familiar smell as the door quietly closed behind her, plunging her into darkness.

“You’re not getting away from me, Donni,” said Rafe, his low voice echoing in the empty hall. “I hope you picked a good hiding place because that’s where I’m going to fuck you when I find you.”

She nearly fell back against the closed door. Her pulse was throbbing in her neck as if it were a separate, living creature.

She was in Rafe’s old room. She hadn’t dared come in here, not even to redecorate, so it was virtually unchanged from how it had been ten years ago. Maybe because, subconsciously, she had been afraid of finding the one sign she had missed. There were still band posters on the wall, a dusty game system on a bookshelf crammed full of science-fiction and horror. Marco had started using it for storage after Rafe left, as if in an attempt to bury his son’s personality.

Hearing his footsteps come closer, Donni got to her knees and rolled herself beneath his bed, jostling aside the old sticky magazines and balled up socks. Clouds of dust rose from the carpet as she shifted and despite covering her mouth and nose, she sneezed.

The doors burst open.

Oh God.

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