Odd thoughts flit through my brain as I lay there immobile while my attacker uses his knife to cut my mini-dress off my body from hem to bust.
My head throbs from the effect of the zap of electricity.
How ironic. Laura’s brother is looking better by the minute. Hell, if only it were a few weeks in the future, I’d be safely in my bedroom at my parents’ house right now.
But none of those things are my reality.
The painful tingling in my limbs is just starting to subside as my attacker picks up my right wrist and drags my still limp body across the floor of the foyer and deeper into my suite. The tile is cold against my bare skin and I’m grateful he hasn’t cut off my bra and panties yet.
Desperate, I reach out with my free hand, trying to grab onto anything that I can use to stop his progress.
My fingers wrap around the foot of the decorative table, but it’s too light to stop us and it topples to the floor with a loud crash. Will my neighbors hear and maybe call in a noise complaint? The thought helps me pluck up the energy to scream.
“Help me! Call the police!”
My attacker is there in a second, straddling my body as he stoops down, yanking my head off the floor by my long hair. His breath smells like stale cigarettes and booze as he warns, “You better shut up, bitch. And stop pretending you don’t want it.” Spittle flies from his mouth as he adds, “You’re a fucking cock tease, and tonight you’re gonna get what you have coming to you.”
He’s waving the knife around wildly with his free hand just as my own flailing hand comes into contact with the glass vase that toppled to the floor when the table tipped over.
It takes all the strength I can muster to lift the vase high enough to send it crashing against the side of his head, splintering it into dozens of pieces.
Under different circumstances I might have laughed at the shock in his eyes when he realizes he’s bleeding. But his shock quickly turns to raw fury, and I hear the clatter of the knife falling to the floor.
I’m grateful that, while I’m still in pain from being tased, my muscles are cooperating enough that I can scramble to retrieve his weapon before he can.
We wrestle for control until a fresh pain explodes as he backhands me across my cheek. My neck snaps to the side and stars explode in my vision as he punches my stomach. Bile rises and I fight down the urge to puke. While I’m recovering, he leans down to pick up the knife, pointing the blade at me with a wild look in his eyes.
I’m trapped beneath him. Unwanted tears blur my vision. I’ve put up a good fight, but he’s just too big… too strong. I don’t want to die… not like this, but a wave of despair washes over me as I lie on the cold tile.
It’s brief, and as everything seems to move in slow motion, I know I can’t give up.
I’m no quitter. I never have been, and I’ll be damned if I’m going out like this. I flail my free hand around again until I feel a large shard of the broken vase. I pick it up and just as he lunges down with the knife, I stab the shard into his face. My offensive move knocks his knife to the side, but I still feel it slicing open my left shoulder.
Blood squirts from his eye where the glass is buried, and his high-pitched scream almost makes me laugh. I struggle, trying my best to get away from him, but he collapses to his knees, straddling my waist and pinning me to the floor. I’m vaguely aware of a throbbing pain in my hand and shoulder. I see blood flowing out, realizing I cut myself on the same shard I stabbed him with.
For a few long seconds he’s more focused on his face than me, giving me a moment to catch my breath. Both of us pause, confused and unsure what will happen next until I see him lifting the knife again. I grab for him, wrapping my hands around his, fighting to point the sharp edge away from me. Drops of my blood drip down my arm, distracting me, but I don’t let go.
In our struggle, my attacker leans closer just as I use my last surge of strength to shove my arms downward.
I feel the knife plunge into his stomach as he falls on top of me. The handle is still sticking out of him and slams into me so hard I cry out in pain as his entire body blankets me with his heavy weight.
We’re back in a wrestling match, both injured, both fighting for our lives. I’m finally able to roll him off me, but it backfires as he now has the space he needs to pull the knife out of his body.