Love Bites 1 (Austin Mahone Oneshot)

Chapter 48: Caleb My Killer

~Carmen Silver's POINT OF VIEW~

I woke with a moan, feeling my eyes twitch open. But I couldn't see anything; everything was black. Panicked, I closed my eyes and opened them again until my vision returned. I took in a bright wild fire several feet away. My eyes darted around me, taking in the cave walls in the flickering fire light. There was that same, rusty, metallic scent of blood in the air and it took me a moment to realize that that scent was mostly coming from me.

I made a move to stand up, but my legs buckled before I could get further than a crouch. I fell forward, closing my eyes as I braced myself to hit the rocky floor face first. But I never did. I stopped abruptly, feeling a sudden, painful, yank against my wrists that held me back.

I let out a surprised yelp as I tried to adjust myself so there was nothing yanking on my wrists and pulling my arms backwards. I looked up, and there were metal cuffs around my wrist. My eyes followed the relatively thick chain that attached to it all the way until it ended at the wall, where it was bolted securely against the rocky surface.

I looked around the cave again, sudden realizing how familiar it seemed to me. And then I remembered.

My nightmares.

This realization hit me like punch in the gut, and I felt panic well up inside me as I started to yank furiously on the metal cuffs around my wrists. The metal never once gave out; they just cut into the skin on my wrists, making me bleed.

I gave up, exhausted as I slumped against the wall. Tears threatened as I realized that there was no immediate escape. All I could do now was wait.

********

"It's about time you woke up," came a whisper.

I opened my eyes, blinking groggily against the sudden brightness of the fire in the center of the cave.

I turned my head to look up and search for the source of the voice, and nearly screamed.

He was there; black hair, tall frame and lean muscles covering most of his body. He wore only a pair of jeans, meaning he was topless, but that is not what had me transfixed like a mouse to a snake. It was his eyes. The irises were black as night, almost impossible to tell apart from his pupils, and they seemed almost endless, as if I were suddenly staring into a dark abyss of nothing.

It was strange how in my nightmares he had frightened me, but my nightmares paled in comparison to the real thing. I suppose it's because when I just had dreams about it him I could pass it off as a lapse in my sanity. But now that he was standing in front of me, and that he was for real, that just frightened me even more.

"Hello there, my dear," he purred, crouching down so we were eyeballs-to-eyeballs.

"Who are you?" I asked hoarsely, staring into his black eyes as I attempted to swallow.

"Who?" he questioned, "You don't want to know what I am?"