She hated them.
She hated every single one of them for making her feel inhuman.
The tears stung her burning cheek, going down her jaw and falling, as she turned and ran.
She heard the laughter around her, heard some of the voices closer than they should have been, and the walls closed in on her even more. She couldn't even stop and hide herself, knowing they could see her from their seats above, and god she wanted to kill them all, completely destroy them for treating her like this. She'd done nothing to deserve this. Nothing.
After a minute or an hour, she didn't know, she turned left and came to a stop, looking at a little opening in the middle of the maze. From where she stood, she could see around the entire auditorium, and she realized she was in the dead center, in the visibility of others. There were five men on the couches above, one of them getting his dick sucked by a girl, two of them fucking a girl, the other two jerking each other off. A masked woman sat on another side, watching the scene and getting eaten out by a girl.
So many people watching her be helpless, and none of them willing to find a shred of humanity to help.
Two men emerged from the other end of the maze, their masks keeping their faces hidden, and she braced herself as they came toward her.
Heart in her throat, she watched as they grabbed her arms and dragged her to the middle of the room even as she struggled to get away, her struggles futile. Seconds passed, the men talking to each other in a foreign language, their hands tight on her biceps.
Defeated, she closed her eyes, and prepared herself to lose.
And suddenly she heard it.
Gasps and screams rang out in the air, and she opened her eyes, blinking, unable to understand why everyone who'd been watching seemed to be rushing out.
Her buyer, the gray-haired monster, sat on a couch, his throat slit open, red drenching his white shirt. Lyla watched, aghast, as the others ran out from an exit just as a blade flew and embedded itself into the neck of one of the men holding her. Something warm splattering on her breasts, the grip on her arms loosening, Lyla looked down at the blood on her body in shock. The other man holding her left and began to run, only to have a blade embedded in his back.
Terrified, filled with a deep-rooted instinct for survival, she jumped back into the maze, and pressed herself into the wall, running toward relative safety. Whoever had issues with her buyer, she didn't want any part of it. Knowing she was visible from the elevated ground, she somehow managed to crouch and run, making herself as small as possible, her breaths heavy as her arms strained behind her back in the restraints.
Finding a corner away from the direct line of sight of the seating area, she straightened, catching her breath, her eyes wildly scanning for any danger.
And she felt a blade touch the nape of her neck.
Stilling, her body fraught with tension and her heart fraught with fear, she froze.
The blade traveled down the line of her spine, the sharp point just on the surface of the skin. A little pressure and it would rip her open. She closed her eyes, the sensation inducing fear and something else inside her, hoping against hope the killer didn't torture her.
She felt a warm, tall body press into her front as the blade kept traveling over her back, and she clenched her eyes shut, her arms shaking.
A breath on the side of her neck, the scent of something familiar in her nose, and the voice of death in her ear.
"Eyes, flamma."
Her eyes flew open, shock, something else filling her system as she tilted her head back.
Devilish, mismatched eyes locked with hers through a mask, and her breath caught.
He'd come.
He'd come for her.
He'd killed for her.
Lyla began to sob, intense, acute relief flooding her body.
As his blade ripped through the restraints holding her wrists, she launched herself into his chest, feeling his body freeze and she clung to him, her tears wetting his shirt, his scent ensconcing her, his warmth chasing the chill from her bones.
She felt one of his hands hold her wrists behind her—similar to the restraints but somehow she didn't feel bound—the other hand coming to grip her jaw. His thumb traced her lips before tracking the tears on her cheek, his gaze watching her cry in something akin to fascination.
His lips came to her cheek, his tongue darting out to lick her tears, before he pulled back, watching her with such innate possession she felt it in her marrows.
"I didn't think you'd come," she whispered in the space between their lips, her body overcome with the emotions she'd felt in the last few minutes.
His gaze intensified, and he leaned down, speaking right against her mouth, his words brushing her lips but barely, so close she felt them on her skin, a promise and the threat all in one sentence both claiming and capturing her.