But as he squeezes harder, cutting off my airways, I panic. He’s too angry, so lost in his rage he could really kill me, and this will be how I go, at the hands of someone I’ve come to care about so much that I let him. I’m letting him do this.
Once my lungs begin to ache, my body fights back. I manage a kick to his groin and he falters but not enough to free me from his grasp. My fingers claw at his shirt then his neck, not registering why something isn’t right about the bare white flesh against my nails.
My mind only registers one thing—he’s going to kill me.
It becomes obvious to me after my vision begins to blur. My eyes focus only on the soft blue irises hidden behind his mask. I keep his eyes with me as everything starts to darken, so they are the last thing I see before it all goes black.
16
Cullen
“Over there,” I say, pointing to the lone car parked by the English department.
“You want me to drop you off here?” Gina asks.
“Yeah. Thanks, G,” I say as I jump out of the car and check inside Everly’s for her. She’s not there, so I lean against the driver’s side, waiting for her to come out. As I wave goodbye to Gina, I glare toward the building, and there’s an itch under my skin already. I hate fighting with her, but right now I want to yell and scream just to feel that fire between us. I’m ready for everything to be out in the open.
Yeah, I should have just gone to the party and tried to move on from Everly, but fuck, I don’t want to. I’m not going to feel bad for wanting to keep things the way they are, even if I can’t blackmail her anymore. I want the daily rituals we built, the company, and the sex, of course I want that.
I only pace around for about two minutes, but with all these thoughts running through my head, I’m feeling impatient, and it feels like twenty minutes go by.
What the fuck is taking so long?
If she’s planning on working all night in there, I’m going to kill her. I really didn’t want to text her to tell her I’m here, but I pull out my phone anyway, and check her location again. She’s definitely in there.
After jogging up the stairs, I check the door, but it’s locked. I give it a quick bang then hit dial on my phone to call her. It rings four times before going to voicemail. She’s ignoring me now? What the fuck?
Suddenly the door bursts open, and I stare in shock at the figure that rushes past me. He’s in a black ski mask, and he’s fast. Quickly, I catch the door before it closes and I stand there speechless as he runs away. My blood turns to ice.
Everly.
Bolting into the building, I realize I have no fucking clue where her office is. The only light is dim, like night mode in the building so I can hardly see where I’m going. There’s an empty receptionist desk at the front, a mailroom behind it and a hallway on each side.
“Everly!” I scream in a panic before bursting down the hallway on the left. Each door is closed, and I try a few, finding them locked. Sprinting back and across the receptionist area I see an open door down the other hall.
Rushing into the room, I freeze in the doorway. She’s lying on the floor, her dark hair covering her face.
Please be okay. Please be okay.
Snatching her body up in my arms, the first thing I notice is that her eyes are closed and I’m relieved that I don’t find her lifeless stare glaring back at me. Desperation and panic mute every thought in my head as I shake her. Then I feel for a pulse, but my hands are shaking too much.
“Everly, please wake up!”
Clutching her body to my face, I listen for a heartbeat and feel subtle movement under my cheek. When I try again for a pulse, I find a soft beat under my fingers. She’s alive.
“Come on, baby. Please wake up,” I whisper, pressing my lips to hers.
Time seems to be moving both slow and fast at the same time. I need to call 9-1-1, but I’m too focused on just getting her to wake up. I need her eyes on me, but I’m starting to lose hope.
I pull out my phone and shake out the numbers but just before I hit send she jolts, knocking it out of my hand. Her eyes are wide and full of terror, and even as I stare at her with immense relief, she glares back in horror.
“No!” she screams, pushing herself out of my arms.
“It’s me, baby. It’s me.”
“Get away from me!” she cries, her voice catching on a sob.
“Ev, it’s me, Cullen. You’re okay now.”
Her hands reach for her throat, and her face twists into anguish as she presses herself against the wall, holding the opposite hand out to stop me from coming closer.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“I would never hurt you, Everly. It wasn’t me.”
“It was you! You just want to torture me, and I thought you were going to kill me. I can’t do it anymore, Cullen. I can’t let you hurt me anymore.” Tears stream down her cheeks and the pure agony on her face pierces my heart. It shatters everything, every moment when I thought I could control her, own her, punish her. It’s all so trivial and pointless now as I see the very real suffering on her face.
She must be hysterical, thinking it was me that hurt her, but right now, as she cries and flinches every time I even dare to come hear her, I realize that to her, it could have been me. She thinks I’m capable of truly hurting her like this.
“What are you doing?” she cries as I pick up my phone.
“Calling 9-1-1.”
She hiccups, watching me from the curled up ball on the floor. And I can’t bear to look at her. I can’t face the terror in her eyes, what she really thinks of me hidden in that fear.
“He didn’t…hurt you, did he?”
Her eyes are searching my face, and I know this is hard for her to understand. That man had a mask on, and she probably did think it was me. Now she can’t even trust me enough to answer the question. She still thinks I’m toying with her.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” The woman on the phone says.
“Yes, my…” I stop myself. What is Everly to me? My girlfriend? It feels wrong. “A woman was attacked. We’re in the English department at Florence University.”
“Is she conscious right now, sir?”
My eyes meet hers. “Yes, she’s sitting right here next to me. She’s pretty shaken up.”
“I’m sending a patrol car and ambulance to your location now.”
The dispatcher asks me a list of questions about Everly, her attacker, her wounds, and I feel so disoriented answering them, but I don’t take my eyes off her for a second. She begins to soften, not ready to touch me yet, still holding onto some doubt in her head that I didn’t just try to kill her, but I gather by the way I found her and the fact that her pants are still perfectly intact that he didn’t do anything worse. It gives me some form of relief. Still the thought of that man, the one I let slip right by, touching her, scaring her, nearly killing her has my blood boiling.
It was probably a drunk kid on campus, maybe just out to scare women for no reason. Maybe his plans were worse and she fought him off or he heard me coming before he could do more, but I still feel fucking sick thinking about it.
When the ambulance arrives I hang up from the call with the operator since I have to run to the front door to let them in. Everly reaches for me before I can get out the door.