Page 52 of Save Me Enemy

Chapter21

Cricket

Terror like I’ve never known has my body paralyzed. I’m trying to move, trying to swim, but my body is frozen in fear. Somehow I rise to the surface, shifting as I float, and I gasp for air and scream for Jax. The water is pulling on me, tugging me under and over as I flail wildly for breath. I can feel Corey behind me, feel him getting closer, even if I can’t see or hear him.

For what seems like hours I’m pulled by the raging current far from the forests I know and the town I came from. If I survive the waters, I know I’ll never find my way back on my own. But I never stop fighting. Even as my skin goes numb. As my muscles scream for a break. Even as my lungs alternate between screaming for air and flooding with cold water.

Finally, by some miracle, the raging river slows and I crash into a downed tree. I cling to it for dear life, sputtering and gasping for my first solid breath of air since I fell off the bridge. Somehow, I find the strength to pull myself to shore. I collapse on the bank, body drained from fighting for so long, and try to slow my heartbeat with deep grounding breaths. I know I don’t have long before Corey finds me, so I hope and pray that he drowns while I try to gather myself and prepare to run.

“Little bug, you survived the water!”

I freeze, trembling, as footsteps crunch to my right. I look up slowly to see him naked and fully dry. My stomach drops out, sucked down by its own current of terror.

“I pulled myself from the water a while ago.” He smiles, the action as heinous as he is. “I’ve been waiting to see if you made it out. I’m so glad you did.”

The gaping wound where his cock used to be twitches. It’s nearly healed, but the scar is jagged and brutal. For some reason I start to laugh, manically, and point at it.

“What’s it like to be a eunuch?” My mind is crazed as I pull myself to my feet, and I’m laughing so hard my ribs are starting to hurt and tears are spilling from my eyes. I can't seem to stop, even though nothing about this is funny. I must be delirious.

Corey is trembling with rage, his fists clenched. “I don’t need a cock to fuck the life out of you, little bug!”

That makes me laugh harder. “I think that’s kind of a prerequisite, Corey!”

He lunges, and by some miracle I dodge him. I feel oddly strong, giddy even, and when he crashes to the ground after he misses me, I laugh so hard I snort. Something wild and crazy inside me tells me to kick him, so I do. I pull my leg back and jam him hard in the ribs with my heel as he tries to get up.

“Down boy!” I cackle. “Bad monster, bad!”

Corey growls, a sound that stops my laughter instantly. He begins to shift, his hollow gaze capturing me. I gag as his body struggles through the transformation, an odor like rancid meat wafting off him. When he faces me as the hairless black monster again, the fear comes roaring back into my mind.

What was I thinking? Taunting him? Why didn’t I run?

Because you didn’t want to give him the thrill of a chase…My own subconscious answers, and I swallow hard. Corey rises on his hind legs, grotesque wolflike jaw hung open with his tongue lolling out.

“Run…” he says, words monstrously garbled.

I step back warily. Every instinct tells me to do just that, but my subconscious knows what that will lead to. He’ll catch me, thrilled by the chase, and do things to me like I could have never imagined.

Attack him….

No, no I can’t! That would be worse! I’ll be within his reach!

You must…

My subconscious has lost its mind.

Obey!

I lash out against my will, nails clawing his face, and I watch in sheer shock as I rip his eyeball right out of the socket. Corey falls to the ground, wailing, half blind, and I stare in surprise at his destroyed eye in my hand.

Now! Run! Go now!

My subconscious clearly knows what I should do! I shift, obeying instantly this time, and turn to run blindly into the forest. There’s a presence in my mind, growing stronger the more I listen to it, and every time it speaks I get full body chills.

Maybe it’s not my subconscious at all.

Hollow tree, on the right, hide!

I turn blindly, letting my body lead me, and crash into a downed and hollow tree just as a gust of wind blows and hides my path with fallen leaves and debris of the forest. I’m trembling so hard in fear that the tree around me is rattling, but then strong invisible arms are surrounding me, hugging me tightly. I lean into the feeling, watching in sheer awe as ferns seem to sprout instantly from the ground and cover the entrance to the tree.

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