Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(17)
“Think she knows, boss?” the taller man asked.
The beady-eyed one only snorted at the question. “Doesn’t matter,” he said indifferently. “She still has to die.”
Katherine clenched her fists in frustration at his callous response. She knew then that there was no reasoning with either of the men in front of her. They were insane – completely batty.
“Why are you doing this?” she yelled angrily, any attempt at appearing meek and compliant forgotten. “I’ve never hurt anyone! My family’s never hurt anyone!”
The taller man sneered at her. “Maybe not yet, you’ve never hurt anyone, but it’s only a matter of time. Your family’s just collateral damage. Too bad ya dragged them into this.”
Did they not realize that they seemed more and more unhinged with every word that came out of their mouths?
“I still have no idea what you’re taking about! You haven’t explained why you’re here – why you’re doing this. And where’s my mom?”
“Dead,” the smaller man replied unsympathetically, shrugging his shoulders a bit. “Just like your little boyfriend. Your dad’s dead too – or at least, he will be shortly.”
And Katherine finally cracked. Knife or no knife, she flew at the smaller man. She hit and kicked and clawed at him everywhere she could. The suddenness of the attack worked to her advantage and she was winning the physical battle until the man’s bigger partner once again seized her from behind and threw her brutally to the floor.
It was just as the disheveled and infuriated man looked ready to pounce on her that a loud crash – the unmistakable sound of a window breaking – alerted Katherine that another person was about to join the fray.
And join he did, immediately distracting both men as he sprinted into the room and slammed into them. Although she’d seen him only once, she immediately recognized her rescuer – the wild-looking black hair was a dead give-away. “Run!” he bellowed at her.
She didn’t need to be told twice.
Katherine bolted from the room, trying to ignore the colossal shame she felt at having to leave her dad and Brad. But she knew she wasn’t physically strongly enough to drag either of them with her and still get away in time.
She was getting help, she reminded herself. She wasn’t leaving them there. She was getting help.
Because the front door was blocked off by the fighting men, Katherine was forced to head back to the garage door, intent on leaving and running to a neighbor’s house to call the police.
She had just opened the door when she heard it. A deep howl of pain.
Katherine paused in her hurried movements, concerned for the first time that if she left the stranger with those men, he could die. Should she stay and try to help him?
Her indecision cost her precious time and before she could dodge the masked man who suddenly appeared, she was thrown violently into her car, the back of her head smacking hard against unyielding metal. “You’re not getting away, you little beast!”
Following her instincts, Katherine kneed the man where she knew it would hurt the most. When he buckled, but didn’t go down, she swung her fist wildly, ramming it right into his nose. She heard a satisfying crack before he finally toppled over.
Wasting no time, she threw herself into her car, her original plan of running to a neighbor’s house dashed. She jammed the key, which she thankfully still had in her pocket, into the ignition, twisting it and bringing her car to life.
The man forced himself up as soon as she’d revved her engine and began violently banging on her driver’s side window. She didn’t have the time to open the garage car door, so slamming her Chevy into reverse, she drove straight through it.
She managed to get the vehicle onto the street, the furious man chasing her down the driveway, screaming obscenities at her as he did so. Katherine hoped that the commotion would alert someone to what was happening.
Somehow, despite her shaky hands, she was able to maneuver the car past the man. Looking into her rearview mirror, however, she could see him running to a black BMW that was parked across the street from her house. She berated herself for having missed it when she had gotten back from practice. She had been too focused on Brad’s car.
The BMW sped off the curb and was soon on her tail. Katherine raced through town, but to her distress, couldn’t shake the man. Praying that her parents would forgive her, she whipped her car out onto the highway, hoping she’d be able to lose the BMW in time to get them some help.
CHAPTER FIVE
For the first time in nearly two hours, Katherine thought she may have finally lost the black BMW. She hadn’t seen it emerge from the last back road she had taken and could only hope that the masked man driving it had made a wrong turn somewhere on the twisting gravel.
Until now, he had been on her tail the entire time, even threatening to run her off the road on one occasion. After that, she’d been forced to abandon the much-too-open straightness of Highway 67, continuously turning off onto rarely used back roads in attempts to lose the crazed man.
She had somehow made her way back onto the main highway a few minutes ago and had seen no sign of the black BMW since. She remained suspicious, however, and couldn’t stop herself from glancing into the rearview mirror every few seconds, expecting to see bright headlights every time she did so.