Haze, Andrea Wolfe [english novels for beginners txt] 📗

The ringing would have to get someone's attention.

"Fucking fuck," the attacker snarled, the tone both familiar and unfamiliar. I could tell he was debating further smashing the phone. But before he moved, the sound stopped—and my hope died again.

"Fucking phone." He repositioned his body and forced himself toward me again—and the ringing resumed. Oh yeah, Jack was definitely searching for me.

"Effie? Effie!" I heard, the sound actually growing louder.

With my last burst of strength, I pulled away and screamed again. "Jack!"

That not-so-friendly fist struck my face again, the response purely instinctive by the man I hated more than any other. The world started to fade as I felt the ground with the side of my head.

Would my misbehavior warrant a fatal stabbing?

"What the fuck?" It was Jack, and it was also the failed rapist, their voices rising simultaneously. There was the sound of metal on metal and then a garbage can crashed against the wall. A struggle was in progress. I heard Jack cry out in pain, the sound causing me to wither. I should have screamed out and told him there was knife, should have spoken...

But then, I heard the clink of the knife hitting the ground and I realized I might need to get involved.

My consciousness returning, I ripped the bag off my head in time to catch Jack shove the other man into the ground, viciously pounding his ski-masked face with his fists.

The knife was near my feet and I grabbed it, clenching the handle so tight I thought I might bend the metal between my fingers. I wanted to stab that scumbag, wanted to cut him into pieces—but killing him didn't feel like it would fix anything.

Jack kept pounding and pounding, the man literally crushed by his intensity, moving less and less with every subsequent blow. I could see an animalistic fury inside of Jack, his eyes illuminated with pure terror. I saw flashing lights in the alleyway as police cars arrived on the scene.

"Jack, stop!" I grabbed at him, trying to prevent him from committing murder just as the police arrived. He wasn't going to stop, no, not until this guy's heart quit. The police were shouting, trying to figure out where we were. I couldn't have Jack take this too far.

He responded to my touch, controlling himself, tears forming in his eyes. His chest heaved as he fought for air in sync with me. "Oh God, Effie," he cried out, hugging me, his eyes noticing my torn dress and mangled panties on the ground along with my bleeding arm and the pool of blood beneath where I had been against the wall. "How could I let this happen to you? I could have called the police. I could have told them that Timothy might try to hurt you. What he did was more than enough for a restraining order."

"It's not your fault," I said, starting to sob myself. Still, despite my weakness, something didn't add up.

"God, you're bleeding. We need a fucking ambulance!"

After he said it, I noticed his side was bleeding, his shirt torn and stained at the site of the cut. "Oh my God, you're cut too." I held him close, trying not to touch the wounded part of him.

"I went back in to say goodbye to those people I don't even fucking care about. Just those stupid, hipster assholes that only exist to make my life a living hell." He was so shattered, so devastated by what he had uncovered here. "And fuck you!" Jack kicked the fallen assailant in the gut, the body barely responding to the strike. I hoped he hadn't actually killed him.

"I almost lost you again, and I'm so sorry. It'll never happen again. I fucking swear on my life."

There was nothing I could say in that moment to make him feel any less like it was his fault. Only time would heal his emotional wounds. I knew that clearly, but it wouldn't be so easy for him to accept.

Jack leaned forward with shared morbid curiosity and pulled off the ski mask—and we both almost fainted.

The man was still breathing and he wasn't Timothy. It was Sam.

***

The trip to the hospital was quick. Besides my nearly fainting when we uncovered Sam, I had lost a fair amount blood and, paired the with the sudden drop in adrenaline after I was safe, was actually starting to get woozy by the time the ambulance arrived. Lexy and some of the band members followed us to the hospital, agreeing to stick around until the doctors told us that Jack and I were okay. It had shaken them up almost as much as it had us.

Sam was handcuffed, and left in the back of the police cruiser, his eyes puffy and squinted. Jack had beaten him unconscious and he hadn't come to until he was inside the car, away from us. His face had been battered and bruised, bloody and obliterated. I was glad Jack hadn't killed him, even if I hated his guts with every cell of my body.

Why had he blamed me for his misfortune?

I knew that voice had sounded familiar, that faked, bullshit, scumbaggy threatening tone he had used. Fear had made me unable to think straight, unable to make the proper connections. I had been so afraid, and when I thought about a man attacking me, I could only think of Timothy—especially since Timothy had been the only man that had ever attacked me before tonight.

The alcohol should have been a dead giveaway since Timothy didn't drink hard stuff like that. He might have changed now but given his previous aversion to the stuff, it seemed highly unlikely.

Suddenly, I was confronting memories of Sam head on, that fateful night when I had run into him outside my apartment. He had been stalking me, I was sure of it now. How could I be so foolish and believe that he just randomly wound up in my part of town? I wondered just