Page 81 of Kat Bethel

I hit the peddle, knowing I wouldn’t hurt him, but fuck all if I’d let him box me into this parking space or worse, bait me out of the car.

As the bumper touched him he unraveled as if he’d pulled the thread on himself, erasing himself before the car even made full contact. I didn’t take the time to figure out where he went. I didn’t want to know. I slammed the car into drive and hit the gas.

A dread filled me that wasn’t mine. That the car was a prison that I would never escape. A carved box made specifically to hold me.

It made that box on my living room floor flash in my head.

Slowly, I turned my head to the passenger side of the car. Not wanting to confirm the feeling knotting itself in my stomach.

The hat man sat there with that fucked up grin, like there had never been a second where he wasn’t patiently waiting for his chance.

I left him trapped in a magical prison for almost two months, then burned him alive.

Fuck me.

Chapter 30:

Hegrabbedmebymy hair, sending shocks of pain through my scalp. He slammed my face into the steering column. Bone cracked and hot, wet blood coated my face. My entire head throbbed with every beat of my racing heart.

The car came to a halt, slamming my head into the column again. My ears rang as my vision went black. I think I passed out for a micro second before ripping pain brought me back to the real world.

He yanked me out of the car, dragging my skin across the rough cement. The smell of burnt rubber filled my nose as my cheek scraped across the asphalt.

Even out of the car, there was this sensation that the walls were closing in around me. It made the air thinner and harder to inhale.

“You were supposed to be mine!” His voice sounded like a bunch of beetles chirping. The way he said it didn’t make me think his intent was to obsess the same way Abiel did. “You think you can do this to me and get away with this?”

No, he intended to punish me for eternity.

“Why did you let him claim me?” Monsters weren’t shy about marking their territory, and he’d been awfully quiet.

That was a line they didn’t cross, unless they were ready to fight to the death over it.

His fist twisted my hair tighter, but he didn’t say anything else.

He’d hovered in the background all this time and didn’t say a damn thing to me. Because Abiel would have ripped him apart and he knew it. This shadow was only a few days old.

Abiel would eat him for breakfast.

And I’d put as much space between me and my only possible savior.

A laugh left me, but it was a mad sound devoid of any amusement. If I’d taken even a second to ask myself why this second entity was creeping around in the background, the answer would have been obvious.

I’d even thought to myself that Abiel was why he kept his distance.

So not only did I ruin the only good thing I had.

I actively launched myself out of the pan and into the fire. All while I burned the whole kitchen down.

“What’s funny?” He pressed my face into the gravel harder. Skin ripped and burned off my cheek.

I screamed, trying to grab him to make him stop, but it was useless.

Why could they touch me, but I couldn’t touch them? Shadows were nothing more than reflections of the items around them.

He put his knee in my back to hold me in a submissive position that made my pulse race hard enough to give me a headache. “You’re going to pay in blood and screams.”

I’d pay in a lot more than that. If he’d intended to claim me, that meant he didn’t intend to kill me.