Moon, Bitten

Chapter Eighteen

            Her eyes drifted open to traces of an early sun streaming softly through tall, bay windows. Kate willed her body to move, heedful of the stiffness in her limbs and the dull ache that ensued. Her eyes fell closed almost lulled by that profound impulse to sleep, but she forced them open, fixing them more intensely about the room.

          Her thoughts slowly roused from their languid state, steadily piecing together her last bit of recognition and what followed nearly pitched her forward in bed.

          A horrified gasp wedged sorely in her throat and instinctively her fingers moved to the pulse that reverberated there.

          Her eyes now wide pools of panicked green Kate glanced frantically around the room, regarding the gray on gray upholstery and settee resting beneath a window. The walls of the open room were of an unfinished brick displaying but several pieces of modern art.

          She sat frozen amidst a rather large King size bed donned purely in slate gray covering and huge feather-stuffed pillows.

          Nothing of the room struck a familiar note and her fear pulsated through her body like a bolt of electricity.

          Her hands trembled as she pushed the covering aside, noting its extravagance by the heaviness of it in her hands.

          She swung her legs over the side of the bed and started to rise, but the moment she applied pressure to her right foot a throbbing stemmed from her noticeably swollen ankle, forcing a cry past her throat.

          Grimacing she shifted to her other foot and limped across the room to a tall mirror propped against the wall. It wasn’t so much the crisp, button-down shirt belonging clearly to a man, but the woman staring back at her that came as a shell-shock.

          Kate stared aghast at this woman having seen her once before in a sterile, egg-shelled room.

          She now knew the cause for the ache at her throat where the impression of cruel fingers had been. The right side of her face bore an ugly bruise done in those horrid shades of purple and blue. The collision of thin, sharp limbs accounted for the many scratches marring her face, neck and collarbone as she recalled running along harsh, sodden earth.

          She clenched her eyes shut against the horrible, all too familiar reflection as it brought unbridled tears to her eyes, her stomach churning with it.

          Danny. He had found her, just as he said he would. Even when she thought she’d been safe he’d manage to erupt back into her life. Tears streaked her face as her mind recalled his havoc and rage, destroying everything belonging to her, even taking her money.

          Her knees buckled and though it caused her pain to settle to the floor she did so, unable to stand. It was cold and unforgiving against her bare legs as her chest shuddered with a sob, rippling through her weary body.

          He tried to kill her – again.

          Another sob tore from her and she curled into a ball, succumbing to the grief that consumed her. She’d never felt so empty so completely depleted of life – and so alone. There was no where to run, no family who would keep her secure. There was no place she could hide that he wouldn’t find.

          A small part of her considered death and wondered if in the afterlife she’d find tranquility.

          The despair that engrossed her was near debilitating that she hadn’t noticed the warmth suddenly enveloping her. She’d felt the cold floor and then – air. Her eyes had grown leaden and her head lolled against a solid shoulder.