Page 45 of Beautiful Ruins
The other looked at me with cold anger.
“She’s useless,” he spat.
Relief flooded me for half a second.Then he leaned down, close enough that I could smell cigarettes and sweat.
“We’ll be back.”
His voice was low and certain, the kind of promise that didn’t rely on volume.His breath washed over my face—stale, sour—and I fought the urge to recoil.
“And when we are,” he continued, eyes dragging slowly over me, “you better have what your boyfriend stole.”
The way he said it made it clear this wasn’t a negotiation.
They took their time leaving.One of them shouldered past the door hard enough that it slammed against the wall with a crack.The wood shuddered, bounced, and hung there half-open like a wound that refused to close.
The apartment felt exposed.Split open.
I stayed frozen for a second too long, listening for footsteps, for voices, for the sound of them lingering outside.But there was nothing.
Then my body kicked into motion.
I scrambled toward the door on unsteady legs, nearly slipping on the scattered mess across the floor.My hands shook as I grabbed the edge and hauled it shut, fumbling with the chain lock.The metal rattled against the bracket before finally catching.
I stared at it once it was in place.I don’t know why I hadn’t had it on before.Not that it would have mattered.If they wanted in, they would have come in.The chain was too flimsy to keep them out.
Silence followed.A violent, unnervingly still silence.
My knees quaked and I slid to the floor.My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t push myself up.My cheek throbbed.My shoulder burned.My clothes hung torn at the collar.
I crawled toward my phone on the floor.
I didn’t know if—the door burst open again with a thunderous clap and I screamed.
But it wasn’t them.
Raze filled the doorway like something summoned by fear itself.His eyes took in the room in one sweep—overturned drawers, broken chair, me on the floor.
Something in his face changed.
Rage.Red-hot and unfiltered.Violence.
He crossed the room in seconds and crouched in front of me.
“Izzy?”His voice was tight.
“I—” My voice broke, and the words dissolved into pathetic, shuddering sobs.
His jaw flexed.He stood and pulled me up with him, one arm wrapping around my shoulders.I didn’t resist.I couldn’t.The strength of him felt like the only solid thing in the room.
He guided—no, lifted—me toward the door.I didn’t remember my feet touching the ground.I just remembered the night air hitting my skin and the way my body finally started shaking in earnest once we reached his car.
He opened the passenger door and bundled me inside like I was fragile.
I didn’t look back at my apartment.Not once.Because some doors don’t deserve a second glance once you know what’s been standing behind them.
15
Raze
