Page 5 of Pretty Poison
What was happening? She was holding me against her, soft curves pressed against my back. We’d never been this close outside of our trapeze performances. Okay, occasionally we’d hug, or lean against each other…nothing different to the things we’d do with other circus members.
My heart beat faster.
Did she know how I felt about her? I thought I’d kept it hidden, along with my other, much darker secret that I kept close to my heart. Two secrets that should never be spoken aloud. One, because I’d never even dared to hope that Amélie would ever see me as more than a friend, and two…
I didn’t want to think about my second secret anymore.
“Um.” I swallowed, trying to get my brain to work. “Chase me…if you want to.”
Then I tore myself away from Amélie, running headlong into the darkness of the maze.
“Run.” She laughed, clear and bright, and followed me.
Although her steps were light, I felt the whoosh of air as she closed in on me, and I put on a burst of speed.
“I’m going to catch you, Wren.” Her voice seemed to come from all around me, and my self-preservation instinct kicked in.
Picking a random direction, I ran.
I lost myself in the darkness.
For a moment, the adrenaline carried me forwards, a smile on my face, but then I hit the true darkness. The blackness with no shadows, no light to break up the dark, walls surrounding me, bearing down on me.
I froze in place. There was no sound, and it was so, so dark.Toodark.
The kind of dark I remembered.
Flash.
My panicked breaths loud in my ears. Too loud. He was going to hear me.
Flash.
Diving under my bed, moving from memory alone in the pitch-black room, the windows covered by blackout blinds. Blindshe’dput up, so no one could see inside his house of horrors.
Flash.
My hand clamped over my nose and mouth, willing myself to stop breathing for a moment. If I were silent, maybe he wouldn’t find me. If I could make myself small enough, invisible enough?—
Flash.
A sliver of light from the doorway cutting through the shadows like a knife.
Flash.
His hulking silhouette filling the frame, followed by the squeak of the floorboards as he stepped inside the room.
Flash.
His hands wrapping around my ankles, yanking me out from my hiding place as I desperately clawed at the threadbare carpet beneath me.
Flash.
The snick of his belt buckle as he stood over me. The sound of my nightmares.
Flash.
His heavy weight crushing me into the mattress, his breath hot and rancid against my neck, whisky and cigarettes and poison.
