AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hear a low, slow exhale. Shaking, I slowly peer around the corner. The man with the sword still has his back to me. And I swear, itstilllooks like he’s wearing a hood or something, but I can’t quite tell in the shadows.
He squats down, and I watch him clean his blade off on the dead Russian’s jacket lapels before he stands and slides it back into a sheath of some kind under his jacket. My pulse is still racing, my eyes bulging wide and the small of my back slick with sweat as I watch the man casually step over the bodies and lean over thereceptionist desk. He turns on the computer and starts typing away.
My eyes snap across the room to the slightly open door into the corner office. There was a fire escape out one of the windows when I poked my head in there before.
Shaking, I let my eyes snap back to the man with his back to me.
No, not a man.
Abeast. A psychopath. A monster who just murdered four men right in front of me without a second’s hesitation.
…It doesn’t take a genius to know what he’d do to the one person whowitnessedall that.
I glance back at the door to the corner office, my breath coming fast and shallow.
I can make it.
I shoulder my laptop bag, take a breath, and try and slow my racing, panicky heartbeat. My throat bobs heavily as I tremble and glance around the side of the desk again.
The monster is still leaning over the receptionist desk, typing on the computer.
Go.
Every nerve in my body explodes with energy as I spring silently to my feet and bolt for the corner office.
I make it three steps before the laptop bag catches a coffee mug on the next desk over.
My heart wrenches in slow motion, horrified adrenaline eviscerating me as I watch the mug sail off the corner of the desk and go crashing across the floor in a spray of coffee and shattered porcelain.
I freeze.
So does the monster.
And then slowly, languidly, as if he’s not at all surprised to hear something, he turns.
My heart turns to ice.
He’s not wearing a hood.
It’s amask: an all-black, almost wet-looking vinyl mask with two white X’s where the eyes should be, and a line of smaller X’s in a horrifying jagged line, like a nightmare smile.
As he looks at me, the neon lights from outside catch the mask edge on, making it glint monstrously as he half-tilts his head, looking directly into my soul.
He rolls his shoulders.
He cracks his knuckles slowly, and time freezes in the space between us.
His head slowly tilts to the other side, and I swear, that neon smile seems to grow even more sinister.
It’s me who breaks the showdown first, whirling and bolting as fast as I can for the door into the office. I go crashing into it, skidding across the floor to the window leading to the fire escape.
It’s locked. And bolted.
Holy fucking?—
Pure, naked fear explodes through me like an atomic bomb as I’m grabbed from behind. The scream curdles, lodges, withers and dies in my throat as an almost inhuman strength yanks me around and slams me back against the second window, so hard I hear the glass crack.
A dark, malevolent presence invades my every sense, bleeding over my skin like crude oil spilling into the ocean. A tattooed hand wraps like iron around my throat.
