t,” I grunted, pain shooting through my shin. I fumbled for the phone, found it, and gripped the receiver.
But just then, he was at my back. A sob lodged in my throat as he wrapped his arm around my stomach, lifted me up, and yanked the phone out of my hand.
I breathed hard, my head falling back on his shoulder as he carried me away. My limbs were exhausted, and the fear had drained me. Everything felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
He stopped, leaning against what I thought was the wall next to the closet, and I used what strength I had left to alternate between pushing at his arms around me, trying to get him off, and batting for his head behind me, barely able to hit much while facing the wrong way.
But then he took one of my hands, clutching my fingers tight, and held it steady, even as I continued to pull and tug at his grasp.
Even with my resistance, he pulled my hand over my shoulder and pressed my fingers into his neck, the pulse of his vein there throbbing wildly against my fingertips.
He dropped his head into the back of mine, breathing heavy. “You know what I have to do to myself to get it to pump like that?” he whispered.
He sounded spent.
It was beating hard, and I could feel the sweat on his neck under my fingers. But so what? My pulse was pounding, too, you freak. We just ran up the stairs. What the hell was he talking about?
“Don’t worry,” he finally said, releasing my hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not tonight.”
I brought my hand down, grazing his collarbone, but there was no rosary there. And he didn’t have Damon’s scent.
His hold around me tightened for a moment, though, and I didn’t trust a damn thing he had to say. Then, he let me down, my feet touching the carpet.
But he wouldn’t loosen his hold.
“I wanna leave,” I told him.
If he wasn’t going to hurt me, then he could let me go. We had no cameras inside or outside the house, and no one else was here. No one would know who he was if he left now. I certainly couldn’t place him.
But then came his cocky response. “Then leave.”
“You’re not letting me,” I growled, trying to push against his arms.
“People aren’t going to let you do a lot of things, Winter.”
So he wanted me to make him let me go? What game was he playing?
I was done entertaining him.
“Please,” I said.
“Don’t walk away from me!” someone suddenly shouted down the hall.
I popped my head up, realizing someone else was in the house.
What?
My mom. She was home.
“Fuck,” the boy whispered.
I opened my mouth to shout, but he clamped his hand down over my mouth, hauled me up again, and I heard doors behind us swing open and realized he was hiding us in the walk-in closet.
I kicked and screamed, but the doors swung closed again, and his hand muffled my cry.
I heard the bedroom doors on the other side slam shut and a switch next to me click. He must’ve cut the light in the closet as he hid us behind the wall.
“No, no, no,” I heard my father argue. “Since you had to drag us back home tonight, I’m just trying to make sure we’re behind closed doors so the girls don’t have to witness your drunk-mother-tantrum.”