She gagged and struggled. Her arms flayed about wildly, but his hands were too strong. Her desperately clutching fingers clawed at the rungs of her iron bedstead, then grasped the edge of her pillow, then her snow—
She crouches in the far corner of her bed, trapped. One of her shoulders is pressed against the cool iron bedstead, the other against the gritty wall. She hugs a snatched-up pillow to her naked chest, unable to move because she's afraid of touching the thing that sprawls diagonally across the bed, split down the spine by a shadow that leaves one shoulder, one buttock, and one dangling leg in the bright light.
When she swallows, her bruised throat hurts. After hitting him... and again... and again... she scuttled into the dark corner and stared at the paperweight lying next to him until the swirling snowstorm ebbed and settled to one side of the sphere. There was stuff from his head on it.
She stares at it still, her insides fluttery and cold. Her hip feels slimy. He squirted while they were struggling. She wipes it off with the hem of the sheet, shuddering.
The faucet drip-drip-drips into the sink.
Suddenly the streetlight goes off, and the ceiling is dark. A thin metallic dawn seeps into the room and she whispers to herself that she has to find help... has to tell somebody what happened.
But first she has to get past him.
Down in the street beneath her window, the air is almost cool. Milky tints began to stretch the morning sky, and already the air is stale and dusty in the nostrils.
It's going to be another scorcher.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Trevanian has previously published several of these tales under various pseudonyms. He gratefully acknowledges:
Copyright © 2000 by Trevanian.
ISBN: 0-312-97882-0
