I looked up to catch Wolf just as he turned and walked out of the tent.
“Get off me. I said stop.”
“Nah uh,” he grunted, sweat dripping onto my face. “I say when it’s enough.” He launched his fist into my face, dazing me a tad but not enough to knock me out, just before he ran the knife down my leg again. Terror erupted over every inch of me.
Pure, undiluted terror.
“Please,” I begged. “Please stop.” His disgusting cock slowed inside of me and I went to move my leg, only it was numb. He raised the knife to his mouth and licked my blood off the blade. “I said—” I raised my hand, and in one fast movement, I gripped where his hand held onto the base of the knife, twisted it and then stabbed it through his throat. I let out an earth-shattering scream as his blood rained down over my face. Blood seeped into my eye sockets and leaked into my mouth. My retribution was now dancing on the tip of my tongue.
Everything after this went in slow motion. My scream cut out once I realized what I had done. I had killed someone. Oh my God, I killed someone. My chest began to rise and drop as an electrifying pulse of panic zapped through me, jolting me to consciousness. The undeniable pain in my thighs no longer mattered. I killed someone. Took a life, and now that would hover over my head until my days were over. I could never undo what I had done. Realizing that his body was still on top of me, I tried to push him off again but he didn’t budge, though it didn’t matter because the other guys were already there in a flash. The door flew open and Wolf barged back in, his eyes finding the body slumped over mine. One of the other guys pulled him off me and I shot off the bed, blood strewn through my hair and seeping into my pores as my own wept out of the two wounds on my thighs. Wounds that no doubt would need stitches. But none of that mattered. I had killed someone, taken a life. Collapsing to the floor with sobs wracking through my body, I let out the floodgates. Brooke dropped down beside me and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. “Everything will be okay, Isa,” she whispered into my ear, but it was no use. There was no use.
Wolf stood in front of me, looking down his nose in disgust.
I dropped my head between my shoulders. “Take me in.”
When he didn’t answer, I slowly looked up at him again, peering through my blurry vision.
“No,” he replied, his voice deep. A voice that would otherwise have no emotion, but I heard something then. He was affected, though could I blame him? I had killed his friend. “You can live with this for the rest of your life and just when you think you’re living again? I’ll be there to remind you, now, get the fuck out.” I didn’t move, though, not until Brooke started getting to her feet slowly with her hand wrapped under my armpit.
I killed someone.
“Now!” he roared, and my body immediately responded. I shot to my feet, wincing at the pain just as Brooke threw my arm over her shoulder and leaned. “Come on. I know someone who will be able to stitch that up.”
6
The door slamming brings me out of my dark thoughts, but it’s too late, I’m rocking in the corner, reliving my most horrific memories over and over again like a vivid live movie that won’t shut up in my head. Wrapping my arms around my knees protectively, I continue to rock softly in the corner while swiping the tears off of my cheeks. I’ve swiped so many tears off of me already that it now feels as though my cheeks have been scrubbed with sandpaper. How’d I not peg Bryant before? How’d I not notice those eyes. I mean, his body is visibly larger now, more muscular, more manly, and his hair is styled differently. Back then, he also kept his face clean of any scruff instead of the shadow he now has, but those eyes. They should have been the giveaway. Had I buried those memories so deep into my consciousness that I had forgotten those eyes?
“Do you regret it?” Bryant’s dominant growl sets off shivers down my spine, his body hidden in the shadows.
“Regret killing him?” I ask through a shaky voice. “Yes, because it was a life. I don’t regret what I’ve done, though. He should have stopped.”
Bryant walks closer into the room, out of the shadows slightly, and drops something into the bedside dresser. “Is that what you tell yourself when the nightmares get to be too much? Hmm?” He adds, pulling open a draw.