“What part of shut up did you not understand?”
My stomach tightened. Stay calm, Charlotte. I reminded myself. Staying calm in high-stress situations is what I was trained for. “My purse is on the counter and all my jewelry is in the bedroom. I’m leaving. I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”
I started to step past him on my way to the door.
I got two steps before he grabbed me.
I didn’t think it would be that easy, but at least I tried.
I was jerked off my feet and stumbled back into the solid wall of his body. I felt his breath brush against the back of my ear and little goose bumps of extreme creepiness covered my neck. He leaned close, until I could literally hear the in and out of his nasty mouth breathing.
“I’m not here for your money,” he intoned.
He could totally do voiceover for some creepy as hell B-rated movie.
“What are you here for?” I asked, proud that my voice wasn’t shaking at all.
He chuckled. It was evil and vile. A shiver started in the balls of my feet and slowly racked my entire body.
“You.”
I had two choices. I could:
A) Dissolve into a puddle of begging and tears
Or
B) Put the woman’s defense class I took to good use.
I brought my bare foot up and slammed it down on the inside of his instep. He was wearing heavy boots and my size-six foot was bare.
He laughed.
I didn’t think it was funny.
I threw out my elbow and caught him in the rib. The second I heard the wheeze of pain, I spun around and kicked him in the balls.
He made this little choking sound that I rather enjoyed, and I took off through the darkness toward the door. I wasn’t surprised to find the door wasn’t even closed. In fact, a slim ray of light showed through the crack. The generators to the building must have been on and illuminating the hallways and powering the elevators.
The fire alarm was still screaming so loudly that my ears were beginning to buzz, as I yanked open the door and plunged into the poorly lit hallway. But at least there was enough light so I could see where I was going.
By now the others had already vacated the floor and I was alone. I ran forward, down the carpeted hallway, passing by numbered apartment doors and bare white walls.
Someone tackled me from behind and I fell face first into the plaid carpeting. Both my arms were pinned behind my back and then a knee held them down. A hard yank on the back of my head brought my face up off the floor, and I looked upward into one of the emergency lights.
“Just for that, I’m going to have to have a little fun with you before I drop you off.”
Drop me off? I wasn’t a pizza that needed delivered.
I began to struggle beneath him and he yanked harder on my hair, making it scream and burn at the roots. The knee gouging into my back was suddenly gone, and I started to flip, but before I could get around he straddled me, pinning my hands back against me and sinking his crotch right up against them.
Then he swiveled his hips around. “Feel that?” he said crudely. “I’m gonna enjoy getting answers outta you.”
I’m pretty sure that was the nastiest thing I’d ever heard. “What answers?” I asked, trying to ignore the grinding hips of the garlic-breath man.
The fire alarm stopped abruptly, but my ears were still ringing. I tried to catch my breath, to come up with a smart plan, to figure a way out of whatever the hell was happening to me.
“Hey, you got her or what?” someone called from down the hall. It was another man. He had a heavy New York accent.
“I got her,” garlic breath called.
“Hurry up! Let’s go!”
The next thing I knew I was being pulled up from the floor and forced toward the stairwell. The sirens of fire trucks drew near, and I knew that help would be here very soon. I just needed to buy myself a few minutes.
The man shoved me roughly and I threw my hands out to catch my balance, righting myself. But as I moved, I noticed that one of the apartment doors wasn’t latched. In their haste, someone forgot to shut their door.
“We gotta go!” the man near the stairwell yelled anxiously as the emergency responders pulled up near the building.
I dropped to the ground, pretending my foot got caught in my pants. I hit my hands and knees and kept my body rigid.
The man above me muttered some profanities and bent down to yank me up.
But I was ready.
As he bent, I threw my body up forcefully. Using my head, I plowed into his chin and jaw, snapping his head back and causing him to grunt. Pain exploded in the back of my skull and I stumbled but quickly focused and pushed away from him and ran at the open door.
Both men shouted as I threw myself inside and slammed the door. I turned the lock just as the handle began to jiggle frantically.