Page 7 of Shadowed With Fear

Knight in shining armor, my ass. More like a prick in a cardboard box. I snorted.

Glancing at my phone, I realized it was almost one in the morning. Sighing, I hauled myself up to start the walk home.

Maybe we can leave for school later since she won’t need to pick me up?

Twigs snapping from behind the jungle gym ripped me from my thoughts. Looking from left to the right, I didn’t see anything around the park.

“Hello?” My voice was shaking. It wasn’t uncommon for animals to roam through the park at night, but I really didn’t want to fight off a raccoon or a rabid squirrel.

My only response, however, was silence. It rang through the air in the middle of the courtyard.

From the corner of my eye, a shadow by the trees moved. My eyes sliced in that direction. The tree limbs waved in the late October breeze.

A bush by the swings rustled loudly, harshly. My neck snapped toward it. My breathing quickened. My pulse raced. Adrenaline coursed down my spine. Tingles shot down to my toes and fingertips. It was difficult to swallow.

“H-hello?”

The rustling stopped. My body screamed for me to run back to town. To Lizzie’s house. Call Kody. Call Grayson. But my feet dragged me to the bush.

With a slow, shaky hand, I knelt forward, fingers barely grazing the leaves. I sucked in a breath.

Thump.

Thump thump.

Thump.

“Who’s there?” I tentatively pushed a branch away. My fingers hit something. Something hard. A scream burst through my lungs. I jumped back. Falling on my back. Scrambling away.

“No.” The word escapes me on an exhale.

No. No. No. No. No.

The rustling began again. I covered my face with my arm as a squirrel jumped from the bush. It ran a few feet away from me and turned nibbling at a fallen acorn.

Relief flooded me. I laughed nervously, getting back to my feet, and turning around.

“For fuck’s sake, I thought you were someone trying to kill me—”

The breath was snatched from my lungs as a hand shot out to grip my throat, throwing me back to the ground. My spine cracked against the grassy soil, my head bouncing once, twice. I stared up unblinking, my eyes blurry, seeing double, as the world flipped upside down. The motion rolled in my stomach. The flood of saliva following the rush of nausea.

“We aren’t going to kill you, sweetheart. For you, it will be much, much worse.” A sick feeling of dread settled deep inside me. My head pounded, my ears rang, but the voice sounded so familiar. I just couldn’t place it. The figure stood above me clouded in a deep shadow.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” I choked out, swallowing the bike threatening to escape.

Three more figures surrounded me. Their shapes disrupt the clear darkness of the night sky.

“Because…” one said, grabbing my cheeks. I jerked my head away causing the dizziness to worsen. I blinked slowly, opening my eyes to see another figure in the distance. It was moving. With each blink it drew nearer.

“We have a job…” another said, trailing a hand down my throat to grasp my breast hard. I grimaced. The one to grab me cocked his head.

“And you, you are just too easy.”

A heavy weight crashed into the side of my head. My body heaved, through the crunching noise. I couldn’t move. Everything throbbed and ached. Vomit poured from between my parted lips, pooling around the side of my face forced into the grass. Something warm and wet trickled down my cheek. I wasn’t sure if it was tears or blood. I tried to open my eyes, but the world spun too fast. Thudding sounded across the vacant courtyard. Was it my heartbeat? Was it the guys that attacked me? Was it the figure in the shadows? I couldn’t hear much more than the constant thuds of heavy weight crashing into something immovable and the deep heavy breaths I tried to gulp down. But soon the thuds quieted, and it was only shallow gasps filling the air.

The grass rustled near my head. I painstakingly cracked one eye open, and then the other. Trying to focus on the boots in front of me. I turned my head slightly, trying to look up, but a sharp pain at the side of my temple shot through me. Hot and cold and slicing like a razor blade through every neuron. I clenched my eyes shut.

The figure crouched down, taking a tender hand across my cheek. The firm gentleness of their touch hurt but eased the fear itching beneath my skin.