My mind finally clicked in as the slam behind me said this person wasn’t wasting time trying to carefully cut the glass and unlock the door from the inside, keep things quiet. It told me to get my phone, to call the police, to get help to come to me.
But my phone was carelessly tossed on the foot of my bed where I had thrown my bags on my path to my bathroom.
It was also further from the door.
Which meant I was much more likely to be caught.
When it came to fight or flight, my scale was heavily tipped toward the flight side. I was thin, not strong. Instinctively–all pride aside–knew I had absolutely no chance against a man who looked like he weighed nearly twice as much as me. Who seemed like he was here to catch or kill me.
Phone meant freedom, but so did making it to my front door, out into the hall.
So that was where I headed, grabbing my keychain as I went, knowing that I’d gotten a birthday gift from Gunner one year that came in the form of an eye-gouging kitty cat.
While I wasn’t entirely sure I was even capable of gouging someone’s eyes with a sharp object, I liked the option as I slammed my door behind me, getting into the hall.
I knew some of my neighbors in passing. By name. Enough to share pleasantries. Enough that, I hoped, they would call the police for me if they heard me screaming. That they would try to help me fight off a man chasing me if they were in the halls or lobby.
I knew better than to stop and pound on doors, waiting for someone who might be too afraid for their own safety to come to my rescue. It was human nature to protect yourself first.
Smith had once explained how they’d lost a client who did that very thing. Standing, pounding, begging. And I remembered him saying she should have screamed and slammed a fist into the doors as she ran, just so people knew it was an emergency, not just someone who got startled by a rat or something.
So I ran, screaming, pounding when I could. All the while hearing footsteps behind me. Not gaining per se–and I was never so grateful for my long legs before–but not falling behind either.
No one was in the halls or in the stairwell as I nearly threw myself down them, feeling my chest getting tighter with the need for more oxygen.
The lobby was also abandoned as I raced through it, bursting outside, the cool nip in the air biting at my skin, giving me clarity as I did the only thing I could think of.
I ran toward my car.
Maybe I would waste precious seconds getting it unlocked, getting inside, and re-locking it, but I wasn’t sure for how much longer I could outrun him, or if there would be anyone in any direction who would be willing to save me. At least in my car, I was safe from getting snatched, could drive myself to freedom.
My key slipped into the lock, turned.
My other hand reached for the handle.
Close, so so close.
Pain exploded through my face as my whole body was slammed forward, my head colliding against my car, sparks flooding my vision for long enough that I worried I might pass out. And then, well, who knew what could happen to me?
There were defining moments in life, times when you realized something about yourself that, previously, you never could have known existed.
In that moment, as my fingers slid into two little circles, I realized I was, in fact, the eye-gouging sort of person.
With every bit of strength in my overwrought, terrified body, I turned, twisted, cocked back, and swung forward.
My stomach dropped low as the pointed cat ears sliced through the knitted black ski mask and ripped through actual flesh.
Not eyes.
And I was oddly thankful for that, not sure if my stomach could handle it, if I could live the rest of my life with that image flashing before my eyes as I tried to go to sleep at night.
But right into the cheek.
His howl of pain matched my hiss of revulsion.
Just as my arm started to pull back, his upper body whirled away, hands going up to press into the–I imagined–holes in his face.
I stared down at the happy yellow cat face now dripping in blood for a long second before remembering myself, turning again, yanking open the door, slipping inside, slamming the door, pressing the locks.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, my God,” I shrieked into the hollowness of my car, stabbing the key into the ignition. “Fuck!” I cried out as the car shook, making me turn back to see a foot crashing into my back window.
My foot, once again, remembered itself, thought faster than my brain, slamming into the accelerator as my hand threw the car into reverse.