Chapter 21 Fingers
RORY POV
You’ll be replacing her.
Those words had been replaying in my head since I practically ran out of that party last night.
Replace his wife.
Why would any sane person want that? Why would any sane person look at someone they barely knew and say something like that so casually, like it was a perfectly reasonable thing to put on another human being?
Those words shook the hell out of me. I quit.
Alexander Miller scares me. Every time I look at him something at the back of my head tells me to stay away from this man. Not the nervous kind of scared. The deep kind. The kind that knows something your conscious mind is still pretending not to know.
I didn’t go to work today. I didn’t intend to go again.
Which brought me to where I am right now. My ex-boss. Mr. Smith.
His eyes are trained on me with the expression that says, 'See, I knew you'd come back!
"Mr. S-Smith, please say something." I said desperately, wishing for him to take me back.
"What do you expect me to say, Rory? You walked out yourself over a week now. You left and now you want me to take you back?" He said, his voice dripping with fake arrogance.
"What do you think this bar is? You can go and come anyhow?"
Only I didn't choose to leave, he left me no choice. But I didn't say that.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Smith. I'll take double shifts, I'll walk all day. Please just let me have it back." I begged. I could feel sweat breaking out of my forehead. Only a few minutes before I start stuttering again.
Mr. Smith stood up from his seat. I could smell the cheap cigarette smoke radiating off his body as he moved towards me.
"If you want your job back, are you ready to do as I said?"
I read his lips out of habit, even with my hearing aids turned up to the max. He stopped a few inches from me.
I let my head hang low. "Mr. Smith, you know I can't..."
"Please, sir," | tried again, my voice cracking.
"I'll keep my hearing aids in. I won't be rude to customers. I won't even complain even if they—“ I stopped and swallowed. “Even if they touch me inappropriately."
I was willing to be a doormat. I was willing to let strangers paw at me just to get out of Alexander's reach. Anything to get out of Alexander’s reach. I know I will miss Liam so much, he’s literally the only person who ever made me feel wanted, the only one who cared enough for me to get his father to help me. But I can't. Not when I’m to replace a dead wife.
"You're too prideful for a girl with no use," Smith taunted, a greasy smile spreading across his face. Suddenly, his hand shot out, yanking me flush against his chest.
Nausea rolled through me. His breath was a toxic mix of nicotine and bottom-shelf whiskey.
Panic flared in my chest like a swarm of angry flies.
"P-please, stop!"
I thrashed, trying to find the strength to push his heavy frame away, but he was a wall of solid, ugly muscle. His hand moved to my ass, gripping me with a bruising force.
"Calm down, Rory. It'll only take a few minutes," he grunted. His fingers flew to the buttons of my shirt, ripping them open. The plastic buttons scattered across the floor like hail. I was left in nothing but my bra, shivering and terrified.
When his palm clamped over my breast, something snapped. I didn't think. I just leaned in and bit his hand. Hard.
My teeth into the flesh of his hand until he yelped and his grip loosened just enough.
I shoved him with everything I had left.
He flew back into the wall.
I stood there, gasping for air, clutching my torn shirt to my chest. Relief moved through me in one single wave.
Something hit the wall.
I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know how it happened.
I saw blood everywhere on the floor.
And when I looked up at Mr Smith the breath died in my lungs.
Mr. Smith was staring at his own hand in a daze.
Except his fingers weren't there anymore.
Five severed fingers lay on the floorboards between us, twitching in a pool of widening crimson.
Then the sound that came out of him wasn’t a scream exactly, it was something worse than a scream, something that came from a place beyond pain, beyond understanding, beyond whatever his brain was trying to do with what his eyes were showing it.
“You’re late for work, Aurora.”