The girl began to struggle in earnest, realizing what he was attempting. “Nathan!” Her voice trembled. She was about to cry. Cold chills raced down my arms. She just realized she was in serious trouble.
With a growl, Nathan reached between their bodies and I heard the sound of a zipper. I raised my hand to my mouth to smother a gasp. It was horrifying to watch, yet I couldn’t look away.
Despite her thrashing, the girl must’ve heard it, too. She raised a hand and dug her fingernails into the side of his face, dragging them down his neck, leaving long bloody gashes in his skin. With a growl, Nathan clenched his fingers into a fist and hit her in the side of the head.
The girl’s head lolled back and forth for a minute; she seemed addled by the punch. I scooted to the edge of my cushion, every muscle in my body tensed and ready for action, action that could not help her no matter how much I might wish it. Hot tears streamed silently down my face as I willed the girl to do something, anything, to save herself.
Within seconds, I saw the light of alertness come back into the girl’s eyes. I watched as it shifted first to panic. It swelled in her face and my heart broke for her. I felt her fear and her helplessness almost as if they were my own. And then I saw something that I had experienced too many times in the last several months not to recognize. I saw her panic turn to rage.
Nathan’s ardor had only increased by her resistance. He was going to persist, whether she wanted him to or not.
As his mouth skated across her jaw line dropping unwanted kisses toward her mouth, the girl turned her head. She found his nose with her teeth and she bit down. Hard.
Nathan screamed and rolled off the girl, coming to his feet beside the bed. He was holding a hand over his face. Blood was oozing between his fingers. Though his voice was muffled, I could plainly make out what he called her. And she heard it, too.
As he turned to walk across the room, I glimpsed the wall behind him. It looked like the interior of a cabin, with its large exposed beams and whitish chinch fill in between. He stopped at a dresser that sat against the wall opposite the bed. He leaned in to the mirror that hung above it. As I watched his reflection, I caught sight of something else moving in the glass. In the image of the window near the bed, I could see a pale face floating eerily against the black of the night.
It was Grey. Her eyes met mine in the mirror. Anticipation was gleaming in the obsidian depths.
“Look what you did to me!” Nathan yelled, turning back to her, fists clenched at his sides.
“You deserved that. And more!” The girl had risen to her feet and was standing in the center of the bed, shouting defiantly at Nathan. “Just wait until people find out what kind of monster you really are. Only a total loser has to take what he wants because no one is willing to give it to him. And that’s what you are—a monster and a loser.”
Nathan’s blood-streaked face blanched at her words and a look of utter satisfaction settled over her pretty features. But, alas, it was short-lived.
Suddenly the blood rushed back into Nathan’s face, turning it beet red, and he began to shake. The smugness drained from the girl’s expression when she realized that she’d overshot her mark. She’d made her threats before she was out of harm’s way. And her mistake was a fatal one.
With a cry that sent chills racing down my arms, Nathan leapt up onto the bed and grabbed the girl by the throat. Her eyes widened in shock and she pulled at his wrists. She couldn’t move them an inch. She beat and smacked at his arms then turned her fingernails to his face once more. When that didn’t work, she reached for his nose, but he was able to turn his face this way and that, keeping his wounded nose from her grasp.
He tightened his grip on her neck and began to shake her. She made coughing, sputtering sounds, her face turning an unhealthy purplish red. Tighter and tighter he squeezed, her struggles becoming less and less robust. Finally, her eyes rolled back