Chapter Six

Madelyn

The cool night air bit into her exposed skin as Madelyn stepped out of the station. It had been another long and tiring work day, and there was a new bottle of wine at home that was calling her name. As she made her way down the block toward the parking structure, she pulled her keys and her cell phone out of her purse, turning the phone back on. She’d had to turn it off earlier in the day to be able to get some work done because Xavier would not stop texting her, and it was distracting.

As she made her way down the block, toward the public parking structure where all civilians were required to park, her mind drifted back to the man that she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about. She knew that she never should have responded to him, but after their little confrontation back at her place, she couldn’t help it. There was something about him and his obvious obsession with her that she found interesting as much as she did irritating, and now he was all she could think about.

She had begun to hate how much she enjoyed their banter and despised the fact that she didn’t like it whenever he went quiet because she didn’t know what he was doing. She tried telling herself it was because she was worried about what his next move would be, but even she knew that was a lie. While she may not know where the situation was going to go, she was determined to find out.

If Melanie ever found out what she was doing, that she was responding to her stalker when she had insisted that she continue to ignore him, there would be hell to pay. Melanie would be pissed that Madelyn was encouraging him, but she was a grown-ass woman and could make her own decisions. And if one of those decisions was to engage in social sparring with her stalker, then so be it. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.

As usual, once she arrived at the structure, there were only a couple of cars left on the first few levels. Because the several blocks around the station were under construction, the only other people who parked in the structure anymore were construction workers. Despite her recent change in hours, they both arrived and left before she did, so parking was a nightmare in the morning. Today, she had to park up on the sixth floor, and of course, the elevator was broken. Taking the stairs up six flights wasn’t the best feeling after such a long day.

After what seemed like forever, she finally made it to the sixth floor and stepped out of the stairwell. Her quick footsteps echoed loudly on the slick concrete as she crossed the lot toward her car, and a couple of the lights flickered overhead. The place was always eerie and gave her a creepy vibe.

Once she reached her car, she opened the door and tossed her phone and purse onto the passenger seat. She was just about to climb in behind the wheel herself when she heard the sound of rapid footsteps behind her. Rolling her eyes, she spun around, half expecting to see Xavier sneaking up on her, and was fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind. However, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun instead, and Xavier was not the one on the other end of it.

The man who had snuck up on her was tall and skinny with shaggy brown hair that appeared as though he hadn’t showered in a while. He had a brown, scraggly beard and an unkempt mustache, and his clothes were filthy and rumpled. His dirty gray jacket had several holes in it as well. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was homeless, but his actions, his shiftiness, suggested that he was probably a junkie in withdrawal. Which made him even more dangerous.

“One wrong move, bitch, and I blow your fucking head off,” he told her, his voice nasally and grating.

Most people would be terrified in this situation. Madelyn, however, had to resist the urge to sigh. She just couldn’t seem to catch a break. First, it was Xavier and his stalking; now, it was this asshole. When were these people going to learn that she wasn’t as easy a target as she looked? Not to mention how stupid it was for him to be trying to do this so close to the station.

“Alright,” she said softly, lifting her hands in front of her while being careful not to make any sudden moves. She didn’t need to freak him out and risk him shooting her before she could come up with a plan. “What is it that you want? Money?”

“Nah, gimme the keys,” he replied, nodding toward the car as he shifted on the balls of his feet.

Madelyn held the keys to her car out, dangling them by a finger, making it appear as though she were complying with his demand. When he lunged for them, she flinched, and the keys dropped to the floor between them, which was all part of her hastily made plan. As she expected, the man paused only for a moment before he bent over to pick them up. That was when she struck.

Grabbing the back of his head, Madelyn slammed his face into her knee as hard as she could, his nose shattering on impact. He gripped his nose with one hand as he stumbled back but lifted the gun in the other. All of her self-defense training instincts kicked into high gear, and she didn’t even think about it before she rushed forward and grabbed his forearm, shoving him against the pillar next to her car. She banged his wrist against the concrete over and over again until he lost his grip and the gun clattered to the ground.

She knew that she needed to keep the weapon away from him if she had any chance of surviving this encounter. So, she kicked it with the side of her foot while still struggling to keep her would-be attacker pinned. By some miracle, the gun sailed off the side of the structure and into the dark, which eliminated that threat at least. But her luck had seemingly run out by that point.

Because she had been so distracted with trying to get rid of the gun, she had unknowingly loosened her hold enough for the man to yank his arm free. He twisted around and took hold of her hair, using her own momentum against her to slam her head against the same concrete pillar she had attempted to break his wrist on just moments before.

“You stupid bitch!” he sneered at her, pulling her hair so hard several strands were ripped out of her head. She winced as stars began to invade her vision. “All you had to do was give me the fucking car. Now I’m gonna kill you!”

When he yanked her backward, she stumbled as blood dripped into her eyes. The pain was expanding through her body, making it so that she couldn’t stop him from landing a heavy blow to her ribs. She cried out as the air was forced from her lungs. Thankfully though, she managed to block out the pain long enough to be able to stop the punch he tried to land to her face before she grabbed his arms and thrust her knee into his crotch. While he was doubled over, she spun around and began moving in the direction of the stairs, knowing now that she needed to get away. It was clear that, even in his current state, he was stronger than she was. There was no way she could win this.

Madelyn’s steps were clumsy, her head pounding so hard that it was blurring her vision. The blows had disoriented her, made her dizzy, and that made walking a bit of a struggle. Unfortunately, she didn’t get more than five feet before the junkie was on her again, tackling her to the ground with the force of a linebacker. Rolling her onto her back, he circled her neck with his hands, cutting off her air.

His grip on her throat tightened, and Madelyn realized that all that time and money sunk into self-defense classes had gone to waste. No matter what she did, this guy seemed to get the upper hand, and it had been the same way with Xavier too. She clawed and scratched at his hands, but nothing seemed to work, and he was squeezing her neck so hard that her vision was already beginning to tunnel.

The pressure on her throat trapped the blood in her face, making her already throbbing head feel like it was going to pop right off of her shoulders. The pain was debilitating, consuming every rational thought she had until only one thought remained: She was going to die. Her life was going to end at the hands of some brazen junkie who was dumb enough to try to carjack her a block away from the station, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had put up a good fight, but it just wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t good enough.

Determined not to go down without at least getting a few more shots in, Madelyn used what little strength she had left to yank hard on his forearms while simultaneously bucking her hips. The junkie flipped over her head and landed hard on his back.

With her airway now unobstructed, Madelyn coughed and sputtered as her lungs sucked in the oxygen she so desperately needed, and she managed to roll onto her stomach. Her arms shook as she pushed herself up onto her knees to face her attacker again. Much to her dismay, he was already rising to his feet and had pulled out a knife. Even though he was swaying and bloody, he still had the upper hand.

Her shoulders sagged with defeat as she lowered her head toward the ground, accepting her fate. She was just too tired and weak. There was nothing left in her to fight him anymore, no matter how much she wished she could. She had let her guard down, and now she was going to pay for that.

A low, deep growl suddenly filled the space around them, and she looked up just in time to see Xavier tackle the man from the side. He was again in the same hoodie he had been wearing the other night, which was how she knew it was him, but to her, he looked like a white knight coming to her rescue in her time of need. A small spark of hope ignited in her chest. Maybe she wasn’t about to die after all.

Both Xavier and her attacker went down in a heap of limbs just a foot away. When Xavier rose onto his knees, the hood fell off his head as he lifted his arm and slammed his fist into the junkie”s face over and over again. But the sound of bones and cartilage cracking beneath the blows was completely overshadowed by the sight before her. Not only was Xavier losing it on the guy, but his eyes were also glowing.

Madelyn blinked, rooted to the spot and wondering just how hard she had hit her head. Surely, she wasn’t seeing what she thought she was seeing. It was impossible. Eyes weren’t supposed to glow like that. It just wasn’t normal. People weren’t supposed to have elongated canines or claws for hands either, though, and Xavier did. Why? How?

Lost in her own mind, she hadn’t realized that the junkie had stopped moving until Xavier lifted his head back toward the ceiling and roared. She flinched at the completely inhuman sound as she had never heard anything like it before. But before she could even process that, along with his current appearance, her eyes widened as he suddenly lurched forward and ripped the junkie’s throat out with his teeth as if he were some kind of feral beast with a taste for blood.

A warm spray of fresh arterial blood splattered her face, neck, and chest, but still, she didn’t move. She didn’t think she could. All of her instincts were screaming at her to run, but she knew better than to run from a predator, and that was exactly what Xavier was right now. A predator. The question was: Who was his prey? Her or the man he just killed who was lying in a growing pool of his own blood?

A cold chill ran down her spine, and bile rose in the back of her throat as Madelyn had never seen a dead body before. She had never had to watch the life drain from a person’s eyes. The guy deserved it, of course, but being a witness to death up close and personal was not something she had ever prepared herself for. None of this was.

Xavier spat blood and bits of flesh from his mouth and onto the floor before he grabbed the guy’s jaw in his clawed hand. “No one fucks with what’s mine,” he growled in his face even though the guy was dead and couldn’t hear him.

All she could do was watch with both fear and trepidation as Xavier closed his eyes for several moments, taking deep, shaky breaths, before he rose to his feet. She flinched again as he turned and closed the distance between the two of them in a few strides. Her reaction didn’t seem to bother him though as he crouched down in front of her and gently tilted her chin up with bloody knuckles. “You alright, little dove?” he asked, his voice low.

Madelyn blinked, and his eyes were normal again, but they were full of both concern and residual rage. The claws had vanished, and his teeth were back to regular size too. Seconds ticked by as she wondered if she had imagined it all. The only indication that she had seen what she did was the blood that coated his front, starting at his lips and going down to the waistband of his jeans.

The thought of what he had done had her eyes instinctively flicking over to the growing puddle of blood and the dead body just a foot away. Her stomach rolled at the sight. The guy’s neck was gone, just a hollowed-out hole where his throat used to be. The skin was jagged and torn, and she could see the ripped ligaments, tendons, and even a bit of his spinal cord. She whimpered and swallowed the bile that began to rise in her throat again as Xavier tugged on her chin, forcing her to look at him again.

“Don’t look at him; look at me,” he told her. “Focus on me.”

“You… you killed him.”

She had to be going into shock. Her mind was blank as if someone had hit the delete button on everything but what had just occurred. It was replaying over and over again in her head like a horror movie on repeat. She found herself emotionally numb too, a blank void where nothing was registering. Once the shock wore off though, she knew that she would break; there was no doubt about that. It was just a matter of time.

“I did,” Xavier replied as he began examining her wounds. The gentleness of his touch was a contradiction to the viciousness in which he had just attacked that guy. She didn’t think he was capable of being gentle after that. “And I’d do it again. No one touches what’s mine.” His eyes met hers and blazed brightly for a moment, making her blink again. “And you are mine, Madelyn. Whether you want to admit it or not.”

Because she didn’t have the mental capacity to fight him right then, she just averted her gaze, biting her lip. She instantly regretted that though as she got a taste of the man’s blood that now splattered her own body.

Xavier yanked his sweatshirt off and wrapped it around her shoulders. She hadn’t realized that she was trembling until he began rubbing her arms through the material as if trying to warm her up. “You are in shock,” he pointed out. “But I don’t think you have a concussion. Your pupils look normal.”

“I… I think he broke my ribs,” she muttered, unsure of why that mattered. It was just all she could think of to say.

“Here, let me see.” Xavier helped lift her to her feet, one hand grasping her arm and the other on her waist. Dizziness washed over her once she was upright, but he kept a hold on her until she was steady.

Grabbing the hem of her shirt, she gently lifted it, wincing as she did. Xavier pressed against her side in multiple places, some of them causing her to hiss through her teeth. When he was done, she lowered her shirt and instinctively grabbed onto his biceps. After what just happened, she needed the comfort his touch seemed to bring.

“They’re not broken. Just bruised,” he explained.

She looked up into his pretty blue eyes, her vision only slightly blurry now. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

“I watched you come into the structure and realized you were taking longer than normal to leave,” he said with a shrug. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I… I think so. Th-thank you.”

Not once in her life did she expect that she would be thanking her stalker. It felt strange and unnatural, and she was sure she would end up regretting it later when she was thinking clearly again. But, whether she wanted to admit it or not, he did just save her life, and that warranted her gratitude.

Xavier cupped her cheek with his hand, and for the first time, she didn’t shy away from him. “You never have to thank me, little dove. I will always protect you. I’m just sorry that I didn’t get here sooner.” He bent down a bit and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “But right now, you need to get out of here. Go home and get cleaned up. I’ll handle this.”

Madelyn shook her head, not understanding. “Xavier, I can’t leave the scene of a crime. I have to stay. I have to give my statement to the police.”

“And what exactly are you going to tell them, Madelyn? How are you going to explain this?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her as he motioned toward the body.

“I…” She paused, trying to rationalize what she had witnessed, but she was coming up blank.

The truth was she didn’t know how she would explain it because she didn’t know how to rationalize what she saw. Then, there was the very real possibility of the cops thinking she was the crazy one. If the police didn’t believe her when she tried to tell them about her parents and her foster father, there was no way they would believe her when she told them that Xavier had glowing eyes, claws, and extended canines. That just screamed ‘crazy’, even to her.

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly. No police. I’ll handle this. Just go get cleaned up.”

Without waiting for a response, Xavier helped her back toward her car, stopping briefly to pick up her car keys, which were still lying on the concrete where she had dropped them. Then, he assisted her in getting into the front seat. She looked over at him as he placed the keys into her hand, and she realized that it didn’t feel right to just leave him behind. He had protected her, saved her. If he got caught trying to clean up her mess…

“Go,” he told her as if he could read her mind. “I’ll be fine.”

After giving him a small nod, Xavier closed her door, and she struggled to put the key into the ignition, her hands still shaking violently. Once the car was started, she pulled out of the spot and headed toward the exit, watching Xavier disappear in the rearview as she did. Something had changed between the two of them that night; she could feel it as if it had left a mark on her. Something was different, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Somewhere along the way home, the adrenaline began to wear off, and Madelyn had to pull over to the side of the road because she began crying so hard that she could no longer see through the windshield. Her mind was a mess, her body was sticky with drying blood, her head was killing her, and all she could do was replay the events of the attack over and over again. And every time she went through it, she came to the same impossible conclusion: Xavier wasn’t human. And she had no idea what she was supposed to do with that information.