Page 122 of Veiled in Brick

Liam rushed his way to me, only able to take two steps before another blaring bang rang out.

This one hit the trunk to our left, and it was nearly impossible to tell who was screaming what in the string of shrieked profanity that erupted around us. All I knew was that with the man lurking amongst us once more, obviously ready to blow us to bits, the decision to stick together had disappeared. Quickly scattering upon the second shot, Luke and Claire had dashed off to the left—her arm slung over Luke’s shoulders to aid her usual limping whilst attempting to run. Cassie had grabbed James by the arm, the two of them sprinting to the right. And Liam had finally made his way to me.

“I’m behind you,” he stated in a raspy exhale. “Run.”

He pulled me up by the wrist, and his words hit me as I straightened my knees. “The fuck do you mean, you’re behind me?”

Liam pushed at my lower back. “Weave through the trees—GO!”

Time never being more of the essence than now, I blindly obeyed.

The man was behind us—I knew he was even though I couldn’t see him, for that’s where the shots had been fired from. Horrid, repetitious motions quickly created, I followed Liam’s instruction and zig-zagged this way and that through the wood. I would sprint a few steps to the left, a few steps to the right, and glance behind me to find Liam keeping pace, watching me intently—until he wasn’t. It was the sixth iteration of the ritual when the surroundings around me were alarmingly quiet, and I slowed my steps.

My lungs burned. I spun three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees, my head turning every which way to find Liam—not to mention the remaining four of our group—and I found no one. I considered calling out any of their names—screaming into the abyss—sprinting back for the street in hopes that the others had made their way back to the car. I didn’t, though. I just panted, my gaze whipping back and forth in a panicked fashion until it was being physically held in place.

His slim, long fingers were familiar. He wrapped them around my cheek, pulled me close to his chest, and—in a turn of events that I desperately wished could be my last—forced them into my mouth. They tasted like sweat and soil, and he kept them there.

I should have bitten them off—felt the blood run down my chin and spat the digits in his face—but I didn’t. He was quiet, and so was I…but that was the ritual that I had created for myself any time that we encountered each other, I suppose.

I didn’t even attempt to scream.

I don’t know that if I was in a right mind I would have screamed, though, because I could feel cool metal against the base of my neck. The sensation left me feeling as though everything had oddly come full circle.

That’s how the world works, though—is it not?

You try your damndest only to be let down. You lay out a plan only for it to go horribly awry. You fall in love only to be murdered.

It was oddly poetic, really, for no matter the course of action, the clock never stops. Time goes on. The planet continues to spin on its axis as if nothing happened. And though I knew that the world didn’t stop—I wasn’t frozen in time with this man digging a gun into the back of my skull—it felt as such. I looked up to see the sky peeking through the trees, a stray patch of sun reaching my eyes, and he spoke to me.

“Y’know it’s always a…a James. A Luke…A Liam.” Bile rose in my throat at their names, and he continued, “Those are the ones that get noticed. Women run to them. Throw themselves at them. Me on the other hand…an actual nice guy—”

My mind screamed at me that he was anything but, building snappy responses left and right that I could use to verbally decimate the man, but nothing came out that was recognizable as a word.

“Ahm,” I complained in a groan, the barrel of the gun pushed harder into the skin on my nape, and the fingers in my mouth flexed around the teeth on my lower jaw, holding it ajar.

“This was the only way to get you to open your eyes,” he remarked quietly, bending down as he spoke, his lips grazing my ear. “I see you around town; you walk right past me. The first flowers I sent, you…burned them.” His grip on my teeth tightened, and I whimpered as the hinge of my jaw cranked past the point of resistance. “You should have been elated. You should have looked for me—found your admirer—been…curious. Asked around the complex, ‘Did you see who dropped these off? Any ideas?’ But no—instead, you burned them. I saw you both…smiling while you threw them in a goddamn bonfire. Fucking ecstatic while you bounced on his dick afterwards. You caught my attention then.” He seethed, whispering, “Do I have your attention now?” I nodded, the gun shifting against my spine with the minuscule movement, and he praised me with a gentle, “So quiet for me.”

His nose had just begun to caress my ear, tracing up and down, when another presence made itself known. The rough touch forced itself between the man’s head and mine, a choking noise erupted from the man’s throat, and as he was pulled backward, his grip yanked at my jaw. I yelped in pain.

“Get your hand out of her goddamn mouth,” Liam’s voice, nearly unrecognizable from the grit of hatred leaking into it, spoke from behind us. The man was jerked once more, the hard touch of metal left my neck, and his nails dug into the gums on the backside of my teeth. A high-pitched whine left me, and Liam seethed, “Don’t make me break your fucking neck. Let. Go.”

He obliged, and I buckled to the ground with a thud, a sharp rock hitting my right kneecap and radiating pain up my thigh. With a grunt, I rapidly flipped myself onto my rear. I glanced up, witnessing Liam holding the man with an arm wrapped around his neck. Slightly taller than Liam, the man’s lanky frame bent at the knees as his neck bent backward and into Liam’s grip. Liam’s other hand grasped the man’s right wrist—the one that held his gun. The man’s free hand flailed like mad, his gaunt gaze wide as he clawed at Liam’s forearm, and just when Liam locked his eyes with mine, the man’s rapid scratching ceased. Instead, he calmly reached behind himself toward Liam’s scalp, grabbed his hair, and gave it a swift yank.

It was where the laceration from the crash resided, and Liam’s eyes squeezed shut as he moaned a gritty, “Ah!”

The man was able to wrench his gun-laden hand free, and the world spun slower once again. My heart beat at thrice the pace. I screeched a hellish noise that vibrated the wood around us. I reached anywhere around me—smacked the forest floor to find anything that would aid me as Liam screamed from the grip on his scalp and the man began to swing his weapon up. The rock that I had fallen on earlier scraped the bottom of my right palm, and I grasped it. More than a fistful, but small enough for me to wield in one hand, I launched myself to my feet. I had no time to consider the man’s most vulnerable area—I was only able to swing blindly at his ribcage with all the force that I could muster.

The action made the breath leave his lungs. His fingers automatically squeezed the trigger, a bullet shooting straight for the stars, and I hit him again—the sound of the rock against his ribs was a wet smack, I assumed, from aggravating any slice that I had previously given him along his side. Folding forward as the wind was knocked out of him for a second time, he pulled Liam down with him by the hair. Nearly eye-level with me now, I placed my other hand on the rock, gripping it with both palms, and wasted no time in striking the back of his skull.

The first blow to his head sent him to the ground, face down. Liam stumbled beside him, finally free from his grasp, and I repeated the motion. A stomach-turning cracking noise at the moment of impact made Liam call to me. My own name was a dull murmur to my ears, and I did it again. My arms began to ache from my voracious swings, and I was gasping for breath by the time that I stopped.

The man remained still. His arms splayed above him on either side of his head, palms down, and the gun had skittered to his right. Light filtering through the trees shined over his body in choice splotches, illuminating the damage that I had done. I looked down at my bloody hands—they gripped the sides of the rock hard enough that the rough texture of it bit into my nailbed, and I found myself wanting to scream.

I should have been screaming, but I couldn’t. I just stared, my eyes beginning to water from my inability to so much as blink, and Liam hesitantly touched the space between my shoulders from behind. For whatever reason, it made me drop the rock, sink from my kneeling position down to sit on my left hip, and then I was in his lap.

“Don’t look at him,” Liam spoke to me gently, angling my face back to him with a squeeze of his hand on my jaw. His dark eyes pinched in sympathy at my obvious panic. “Just look at me; it’s okay.” I nodded, but it was too late. The picture of him was there in my mind. Lifeless. Bloodied. What I was beginning to realize was brain matter shining in the spotty light of the forest. Shivering began to take me; subconscious whimpers leaving my mouth with every shaking breath. “Shhh,” he consoled me, whispering, “I know, Sweets. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

I did as he asked, looking to him rather than the man—the body—beside us. My hyperventilation continued, the breaths becoming hoarse, and he pulled my head to his chest. His voice hummed comforting words, but his heart raced. The rapid pulse hammered in my ear, betraying his calm tone as he inhaled deeply, and then exhaled long and slow. The action was forced—imposed upon himself as I knew that his lungs were straining in the same fashion that mine were. I followed his lead, our breaths unsteady as we attempted to restrain them, and he clutched at my back as we sat on the forest floor.

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