Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

“Screw it.” I pop the pill, wash it down, and climb in bed.

The med really works. Knocks me straight out.

So much so that it feels as if a scant second has passed when I’m yanked fully awake, several hours later, by what I immediately take to be an earthquake.

A deep rumbling pulses through the walls of the cottage. The back door rattles on its hinges. Adrenaline floods my body, starting a war with the sleep aid that neither side quite wins. Before I know it I’m on the floor beside my bed, on hands and knees, panting from fright and only half conscious.

The shaking ends abruptly. Everything goes quiet.

“What the hell was that?” I mumble, and stagger to the bedroom door. I stop under the jamb, trying to remember if that’s safe in an earthquake or not. My head clears a little. The clock says 1:39 a.m. I run a hand over my face, willing my nerves to settle. I’d been dreaming of a bear, a big black one, strolling toward me down Main Street, and all the townspeople just standing there welcoming it with open arms—

Mumbling from outside. Hard to make out, except the last part, because it’s my own name: “Mary Whittaker.”

“Kyle? That you?” I call out. Only, that voice didn’t sound like Kyle’s. Or did it? “Kyle?”

I hear steps heading around back.

Which finally triggers a coherent thought. The back door had rattled. It doesn’t rattle when it’s bolted, which means I forgot. I curse my fatigue and stumble along the dark hallway toward the back of the little house. You always hear about those small towns where nobody locks their doors. Well, this place isn’t like that. Silvertown has its share of quaint, neighborly people, but with so many folks passing through, we do have a bit of a problem with break-ins.

Having heard my name out there, though, it’s not theft I’m worried about. Last thing I need tonight is a drunk Kyle pawing at me while I’m half asleep. I might make unwise decisions.

I reach for the handle. “Not tonight, dude. Go home. I’m—”

The door bursts open. It cracks into my hand, sending bright pain up my arm. I stumble back.

A dark figure looms on the top step. Black boots, designer jeans, leather jacket, and gray hair.

Kyle doesn’t have gray hair.

I recognize this man a second later. The biker from mile marker thirteen. The one sitting in the middle of the road who started my day yesterday. It was the thunderous exhaust of his Harley shaking the house, not an earthquake.

White gauze stained with blood is taped across his nose. Had his nose been broken this morning? I can’t recall. I don’t think so, but my brain’s full of fog.

His eyes are cold and narrowed.

I shake pain from my right hand. “Can I help you?”

“Mary Whittaker,” he says, his pleading, apologetic voice totally at odds with his murderous glare. He takes a step forward. “I’m so sorry! I can’t stop.”

The words are just this side of insane, but before I can challenge him something slips from his sleeve into his hand. A bottle of some sort. In his other hand he holds a rag. He sprays something onto it. Two pumps of mist. Vinegar smell hits me, eye-wateringly strong.

His eyes hold mine as he wraps the damp rag around his fist.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats meekly. “I wish I could stop.”

“So stop, then. Right there.”

“I can’t.” He steps toward me.

“You picked the wrong house, asshole.” This doesn’t come out as tough as I’d hoped, and the pill I took has left me sounding like I’ve just downed half a bottle of tequila.

He crosses the threshold, technically first-degree trespassing now, leveling a glare on me that has me stepping back despite myself. It’s the disparity between what he’s saying and what he’s doing that terrifies me the most. My heart’s racing, but my limbs are heavy as lead.

He snarls, winding up. His wrapped fist sings through the air between us. I’m rooted in place, body ignoring brain.

The fist hits string and glass, tangling in the shitty old chandelier hanging over my breakfast table. His strength tears the whole mess of 1970s kitsch right out of my ceiling. Plaster rains down. Glass beads shower the floor. His hand is snared, only for a second.

One damned second, but it’s enough.

Something finally clicks in my head. I turn and run.

Boots stomp loud behind me.

I take a sharp left into my bedroom. No time to close the door, he’s right on my heels. Two steps in I dive headlong across my bed, misjudging distance, smashing into my nightstand, sending the table lamp flying into the wall. The drawer handle digs into my scalp, warm blood flowing. I roll just as the insane biker crashes on top of me. He grasps my face with his rag-wrapped hand, covering my mouth and nose. Strong medicine stench. I fight to hold my breath. The bastard’s heavy. Spittle sprays from his mouth as he tries to smother me with that cloth. My fingers fumble and find something cold and hard. The neck of the table lamp. I smash it into the side of his face. The biker grunts and balls his free hand into a fist. Before he can throw the punch I hit him again, this time square on his broken nose. Half the bandage covering it is torn free.

He howls in pain like an animal. Sneezes. Blood sprays into my eyes.

I knee him, aiming for the groin but missing. Still it shifts his weight, and I roll from under him.

I can barely see. Blood stings my eyes and I’m not sure whose it is. The room is almost pitch-black. I scramble to my feet and run with arms outstretched, feeling my way to the bedroom door.

There. I grab the handle.

And slam it closed, sealing us both inside.

Hanging from a peg on the back of the door is my gun belt. My sweaty fingers, still stinging from the door he kicked against