by Tijan
Shit.
“No, you fucker!”
I had to fight for that gun, or I was dead.
The knife too—I looked for it. He was holding it in his hand. I twisted my arm between us, and tried knocking the knife out of his hand with my elbow. He was distracted for a moment, pausing to see what I was doing. The gun or the knife? He decided for me.
He tossed the knife to the side and rolled, his shoulder jamming into my throat as he began tugging the gun from my hand.
It was now a fight for that, and I cried out, feeling him clawing at my wrist and hand. He was tearing my skin apart, literally pulling it off in a desperate way. He was trying to get under the gun, to get a better hold on it.
“Motherfucker!” someone grunted, right above us.
I looked up, but they tucked their shoulder down and slammed into the killer. He was tackled onto the ground, caught and lifted off me in one motion.
I scrambled up, or tried. I was bleeding, I could feel it, from my arm, hand, my face. I could even smell it.
“Mason!”
I looked up and Logan was airborne over me. He launched himself into the wrestling foray—that was Mason fighting the killer.
No, no, no. The knife.
They were where it was. The killer knew it. Mason didn’t.
It was two to one. I sat there, dazed, before I could think of what to do to help.
I still had the gun in my hand.
I began to raise it, saying, “Stop . . .”
It came out a croak. He had hit my throat, and I tried again. A second hoarse whisper. I coughed, feeling blood spitting up my throat, and I yelled, “Stop!”
This one worked.
They did, freezing in place.
Logan twisted around, his eyes wide. “Sam. The gun.”
I had it pointed at him, and I gasped, correcting myself. I over-corrected. It pointed at Mason.
The killer had a second, and he dove for the knife.
“Mason! Get ba—”
Too late.
The killer grabbed the knife and brought it up, slicing the back of Mason’s knees.
“NO!”
But I felt it too.
The knife cut Mason, and it cut me too. I could feel it behind my knee, and I crumpled, still holding the gun, or trying to. It was beginning to fall from my hand. “No.” Another croak. This couldn’t happen.
I couldn’t lose everyone. I couldn’t lose my family.
“NO!”
The killer wasn’t done. He brought his knife back, at the same time Logan ripped out “NO!” and jumped at him. The killer rotated swiftly, the knife sticking straight out. Logan impaled himself on it.
No, no, no.
I was whimpering those words.
A gurgled gasp came from Logan. He began spasming, his back and entire body twitching, and somehow he worked his way farther onto the knife.
Like with Mason, I felt the knife in me. It was like I was impaled on it, and my body was shaking and trembling. I was sinking farther onto the knife, past the part where I could come out of this at all.
I was dying.
If I felt I was dying, that meant Logan was dying.
No.
Ignoring all the pain, I raised the gun.
If I was dying, so was he.
He twisted back to me, weaponless, and it was my turn.
I undid the safety, my finger went to the trigger, and I pulled it.
The bullet slammed into him—
* * *
Gasping, I surged upright.
Everything was bright. It was too bright, and oh my God. The pain. It was everywhere. It was seeping from me, and I whimpered, my mouth muffled. I closed my eyes, wishing that brightness away. I wanted to go back where I was. I didn’t want to be here.
It hurt.
My insides were being pulled out, one scoop at a time. I could feel them, feel how they were raw and exposed, how they protested individually.
I couldn’t—please God. Take me away. Take me back. I’d take those woods again, not this.
Tears slipped down my face and they felt like scalding burns.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Samantha. Wakey, wakey.”
No, no, no.
I want to go back to where I was. Please.
“No, no.”
I could hear his enjoyment. It was sick and twisted. He was enjoying this, whoever he was. I didn’t recognize his voice.
“Come on. Wake up.” More of a clipped tone now. He snapped his fingers, nudging me with a knife that had something wet, something warm on it.
My stomach rolled over.
I knew what was on that knife, but I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to comprehend it.
“Come on!” He knelt in front of me.
He poked me—and I screamed, bucking under his touch.
I opened my eyes, and he pulled back a bloodied finger. It was mine, not his. My blood.
I began writhing around on the floor. I wasn’t consciously doing it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was flailing all over, like a fish on a hook.
“Come on. Stop that.” He kicked my side. “You were just doing that before too. Don’t know why. I didn’t cut your tendons or anything. Stop it. We’re about to move on to the second stage.”
A breath.
A second one.
A third.
I was able to stop, on my stomach now, with my head turned toward him.
He wore large black boots, but regular jeans, and a blue shirt. I angled my hand back, blinking against how bright it was. Blasts of sheer pain exploded in my head.
“Come on, come on.” He tapped his knife against the side of my skull. “You’ve been out of it since I got you. I don’t like to wait this long for some fun, and the best part is coming.”
God.
I opened my eyes wider to see better.
I was on a bathroom floor.
There was no killer in a black robe or white mask.
The white wasn’t him, it was the light behind him. The black had been the shadow of him as he bent over me. It had all blended together, and the pain—I gazed down.
I was covered in blood.
I was dressed in jeans and a shirt, but I didn’t remember putting them on.
Was it all a dream? A lie?
“Yeah. Yeah.” He knelt in front of me, the same knife from my hallucination in his hand. I couldn’t see his face. I could only see the knife. His face was blurred, and he was waving it back and forth. It was covered in almost-black blood. “Are you starting to get it? You’ve been whimpering and saying all sorts of weird shit. I finally had to muzzle you because I couldn’t get any sleep myself. Your friends aren’t dead. None of them are.” He grinned. I saw the whiteness of his teeth, how his lips pulled back, but I couldn’t see him.
He was still a blur to me.
Everything else was in stark detail.
He let out a deep sigh. “You’re not going to get it. I can see that. I don’t have time to wait another day. I’ve got a job to get back to, but we’ll have to finish this now. Okay, Samantha. No, I’ve not touched your friends. Heather, Taylor, whoever else you were saying. Channing? Nate? Logan? You were especially concerned about Mason, and Logan. He only got a knife wound in your dream. That babbling was entertaining at times. He got sliced, right? I heard that right? Sometimes it was hard, deciphering what you were mumbling. You weren’t the clearest. That was all in your head.” He tapped the knife against my temple again. “Your friends are fine. They aren’t the ones dying.”
I was.
I was dying.
And I couldn’t move. I was still on the bathroom floor. I tried to move my hands, but they were twisted behind me, soaked and covered in blood. I could even feel it between my fingers. I was even beginning to recognize the texture and weight of blood.
A mangled cry ripped from my throat.
I didn’t want to die, but I couldn’t move. My legs were tied together too. He was half-kneeling over t
hem now.
“You ready?” He sounded disappointed. “I thought you’d be a better fighter than that. You spent the whole time trapped in your head, but okay. I have a date. Gotta get another girl, so here you go.” He brought the knife up, his mouth twisting into an ugly smile. “See you on the other side.”
He brought the knife to my throat.
Chapter 16
I sat upright in bed, and déjà vu settled over me.
My third time in a row of suddenly waking. This time there were no woods, there was no bathroom. I was in bed—my bed.
I heard deep breathing next to me, and looked.
Mason was curled toward me, his hand on my thigh. He’d been holding me.
My heartbeat was stampeding inside of me, but I felt myself over.
No knife wounds.
No blood, just sweat.
I could move my hands around. I could move my legs.
I looked over Mason. He was peaceful, and he rolled to his back, his hand leaving my leg. The bed cover slipped down his chest, and I could see all his muscles were intact. He hadn’t been stabbed.
“Sam?” He opened one eye, squinting up at me. “What are you doing?”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Friday.”
“You came home last night.” I was breathless. The relief brought tears to my eyes.
He opened both eyes now and lifted his head up. “Are you okay?”
“You carried me from the bar, right?”
“Yeah. You drank too much. You were out of it.” He reached up and cupped the side of my face. “Heather said the girls’ night was a lot, but are you sure you’re okay?”
I patted myself down again, just once more, and flicked those tears away. “I had a nightmare.”
“A nightmare?” He curved an arm around my waist again, bringing me down to him. “I’m sorry.”
I started to melt back to his side, but a nagging feeling wouldn’t settle. I had to know. I had to make sure.
Reaching over, I grabbed my phone and texted Taylor, Heather, and Logan all the same text. Are you okay?
Mason’s hand rested just under my breast. I could feel him starting to fall asleep again, but I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep again, not until I knew.
I only had to wait a few seconds before the replies starting filtering in.
Taylor: Yeah. Why? Are you?
I pressed a hand over my chest and could breathe easier already. One down. One was fine.
Then Heather: Channing and I just had fight sex, so not really. What’s going on?
A second one. She was alive. Feeling tears in my eyes, I texted back, Nothing. Have sex again, then again. Keep having sex until you guys forget what you’re fighting about.
She replied again, but it was late. Whatever she had to say, I was more relieved that she was fine. She and Channing would be fine too. They always circled back to each other.
I was waiting for Logan still, and as if on command, my phone buzzed from his reply.
#logansdickisinsidehiswoman #thisisanautomatedtextreply #pleasereplyduringnormalwakinghours #justkiddinghisdickwillbeinsideheragain ;) All serious, you okay? You texted Taylor too.
I groaned out loud, feeling the boulder that’d been sitting on my stomach disappear. They were all fine.
“Sam?” Mason woke from my noise. His hand moved, and he tightened his hold on my breast. “Another nightmare?”
“No.” I laughed, more from relief than anything else. “I’m good. I’m fantastic actually.”
“Yeah?” He lifted his head, his eyes peering at me.
I grinned at him, but sent a quick text to Logan. Nightmare. Better now. Send my apologies to Logan’s dick. Then I tossed my phone on the floor and settled back, feeling Mason moving over me. I looped my arms around his neck. “I am. I could be better, you know?”
“Really?” He grinned, leaning down to nuzzle my neck.
Everything was fine. Everyone was fine.
With that last thought, I turned, seeking Mason’s mouth with mine. Now it was my turn to be fine, and as his mouth met mine, I knew I would be.
Later, much later, after we were both sated, I saw my phone blinking from the floor.
Rolling over, I grabbed it and began to turn it over, but then something caught my eye, and I looked.
A pile of clothes were on the floor.
Mason must’ve left them, but I saw what was on top. There were no holes or openings for the eyes, nose, or mouth.
I whipped back.
Mason had fallen asleep after we had sex, but he wasn’t asleep anymore. He was looking right at me, like he knew what I found.
It was all a dream.
Right . . .
Keep reading for a bonus scene from FALLEN CREST NIGHTMARE!
“Sam, what are we doing here?”
“Shh.” I squeezed Mason’s hand, leading him away from his Escalade. He hadn’t said a word when I told him I wanted to take him somewhere. He hadn’t questioned me when I told him to dress in all black, complete with ski mask. He hadn’t even raised his eyebrows when I was downloading sounds of women screaming, a chainsaw, and a little girl whispering, “I see you.” And he never balked when I gave him directions that took us out of town and into the hills that overlooked a haunted maze.
Glancing over my shoulder, I gave him a small grin. “Just ignore the sounds of people screaming below us.”
His eyes locked on me before he gave a slight shake of his head. “Okay.”
I led him to a perch. “I found this spot the other day when I was running. They were shaping the field into a maze. I didn’t put two and two together until a guy in class mentioned it, said he was manning it with a bunch of his fraternity brothers.”
Whoever owned the field below had sculpted the cornfields to show three major images. The bottom, where people entered the maze, was a giant pumpkin. They went in through the bottom of the pumpkin, and there were rows already started through its teeth, mouth, nose, and two eyes, and then the stem of the pumpkin joined with the rest of the maze. From there, the path split into two main directions people could take. They could either go to the right, which led to a bunch of rows of corn that had been formed into the shape of a werewolf. The path that led them to the left would bring them into a witch riding a broom, and that path was the one that led the way out of the maze. But the people had to go through some wind machines, which were decorated to look like a bunch of ghosts, then the broom itself, and upward through the witch. She was pointing a hand in the air, and that was the exit point.
Some rows were dark, but others were lit up.
There were sections within the maze where my classmate and his fraternity were set up to scare people. Those sections were dark until suddenly, light would shine for a second. People screamed, and it would go dark again. That was happening often enough to show that there were a ton of people going through the maze.
“This is huge.” Mason was studying the maze.
I nodded. “They started it last year but finished this summer.” I glanced up at him.
It felt wrong to bring him there, to have him see it for the first time while I’d been hearing about it in my class since August. It was Halloween weekend. He’d come after a game to see me, holding me while I woke from one of the worst nightmares I could ever imagine having, so tonight, I wanted to have a little fun with just him.
I murmured, “I’ve seen you almost every single day since high school.”
He tore his gaze from the field and looked to me.
I held his eyes, looking into them as he was searching mine. This was how we were. We weren’t just holding hands. We weren’t just standing next to each other. We knew each other inside and out. Heart. Soul. And body.
I kept on, my voice soft but clear despite the sounds below our perch. “Every day. From when I was a junior in high school, then when I was a freshman in college, and until a few months ago.” He was a year older, so this was the second temporary distance betw
een us. He went to Cain a year earlier than I did, and I had to leave his side in Massachusetts to start my last year here. Threading our fingers together, I felt the rub of my engagement ring against his finger, and I couldn’t stamp out that pride mixed with love and bittersweet sadness.
It was good to miss Mason. I did, every damned day, but we had an entire lifetime together. This last year at university was mine to be with friends and train for my future. He wasn’t the only one who was a professional athlete. I had an Olympic-sized future for me too, but until then, until we got married, until I was done with college, I wanted to have fun.
And focusing on the field beneath us, I wanted some revenge fun too.
“In a way, it feels weird being the one to tell you about something at Cain.” It was his place first. He came there first, and his brother and I followed the year after, but it became my place once he graduated. He had moved on, playing for the New England Patriots, so it was like I was sharing something with him that should’ve been his in the first place.
As if reading my mind, which he seemed to do so many times, he pulled me to his side. His arm fit around my back, dipping under my shirt and holding on to my hip. I closed my eyes, feeling his lips on my forehead. He said, “We’re apart for now, but it won’t last. And I’m coming back to crash at the house during the off season anyway.”
I blinked back a few tears. It was ridiculous, but the love I felt for Mason was more than me, more than where we stood, more than the skies above us. It felt big enough to fill the galaxy at times, and yes, that was cheesy, but it was how I felt. It was the truth.
A scream cut through our small moment, followed by an almost maniacal-sounding laugh.
I sighed, recognizing the sound. “That’s him.”
“Him?”
“Lawrence Yearly.”
“Who’s Lawrence Yearly?”
Mason’s chin rested on my head, and I leaned back against his chest. His arm fell down, encircling my waist. I let go of his hand so I could rest my own on his arm, dipping my thumb to slowly caress the inside of his wrist.
I answered, “No one really.” Of all the villains our group had come across, he was more of a gnat, but he was an annoying gnat. “He hit on me the first week of classes, asked if you’d cheated on me yet.”