Page 76 of Riffs That Ruin

It earns me stares, crew members giving me looks like they think I’ve lost my mind. They aren’t far from the mark, if I’m honest. I don’t care what they think though, I only have one thing on my mind.

Tristan.

I take a turn and bolt out a door, quickly realizing it leads to a side emergency exit. Fucking venues and the maze of hallways they hide behind the stage. There’re so many places we visit that they quickly blend together.

Turning around, I find a man standing behind me. A quick glance around his body shows a mop handle shoved through the handles of the door, blocking it from anyone coming through.

He turns to face me, and the sight in front of me sends fear coursing through my body. His hood is drawn over his head and he’s wearing a baseball cap, but what turns him from emo boy to scary is the black ski mask showing only his eyes peering at me.They look like dark pools of death. There’s no sign of humanity in his gaze.

A shiver runs through me, sending me racing for the emergency door at the end of the hall. If there’s ever been a time for an alarm to go off, it’s now.

Reaching the end, I press on the bar to release the door and let myself out. There’re so many people who camp the outside of my shows, I know it won’t be hard to find help. Facing fans without security will suck, but I’d brave that any day over the man behind me.

I shove my body into the door, hope rising in my chest as it releases, only to come crashing down when I find it’s chained on the other side. I have about two inches to view outside, finding a dark alley and a brick wall several feet away.

“Hey, Raina. Going somewhere?” His voice is a low rumble, far more menacing than I could’ve imagined. The words are an icicle to my spine, turning my body colder than the winter wind peeping through the slight opening of the emergency door.

I force a reply up my throat, but it halts at the edge of my lips. My heart pounds in sync with each heavy step he takes toward me, creating a rhythm akin to a suspenseful orchestra. The master conductor of my nightmare.

“Please,” I manage to rasp out, clutching the door handles tighter like they might suddenly break free at any moment. It digs into my skin but fails to hurt more than the terror ripping through me, holding me hostage.

Deer in the headlights… I never thought that would be me, but I’m shaking in my boots.

Swallowing, I decide to fake my boldness that seems to have fled through the gap in the doors. “What do you want?” I ask firmly, finally turning around to face him.

Guilt seeps through me as I remember Gill, Tristan, and everyone else still in the building. If only I hadn’t rushed off...Keaton asked me to never go anywhere alone. This is what I get for losing myself in my desperation to get to Tris.

I need to buy them some time. It’s not like they won’t come searching for me.

He pauses for a moment, neck angled upward slightly, as if observing me with intrigue rooted in the invisible crevices of his obscured face. “Money,” he finally replies, running the back of his gloved hand over my cheek.

My throat feels clogged and I try to swallow past it. “I can give you money.” Something tells me this isn’t what he really wants, but stalling is the name of the game.

You just have to make it till someone comes to find you. You’ve got this, Raina.

A laugh comes out of him, making my blood freeze in my veins. My heart fails to pump in the presence of such a sound. “I get the money when I’ve killed you,” he hisses, the next second his hands are around my throat.

The bastard lifts me against the door; the chains holding strong even as they rattle with the force of my body slamming against them. I claw at his gloved hands desperately as he squeezes tighter, my vision blurring in the face of air deprivation.

“No...” I rasp weakly, kicking violently against his body. He retaliates with a brutal laugh that sends shivers shimmying down my spine. My heartbeat roars in my ears, a frenzied drum pattern that seems to play its final countdown.

In the haze of pain and terror, I remember Keaton’s song he played against my skin. That’s supposed to be the rhythm of my heart, not this.

Keaton... Oh god, where is he? My ever looming self-named bodyguard. The thought brings a fresh wave of fear that stokes the burning need for survival buried deep within me.

If anyone gets to take my life, it’s me. Not this motherfucker.

My fingers tremble as they reach for the base of my spine where hard plastic digs into my skin. The weight of the small microphone pack nestled there is palpably reassuring. It’s the only thing I can fight with. Not even the heeled shoe will help me right now unless I can land a perfectly aimed kick.

With a triumphant surge of adrenaline, I manage to yank the pack free and immediately slam it hard into his temple. I don’t have time to waste as stars dance in the corners of my narrowing vision. He falters, his grip on my throat loosening enough for me to suck bittersweet gulps of air in as my feet hit the ground, making me stumble.

“Help!” I do my best to scream, but it doesn’t come out as loud as I want, and it’s like I’ve swallowed shards of glass. My throat is on fucking fire.

His hands are on me again in an instant, throwing me to the ground where he lands on top of me. The thick fingers hidden in gloves return to my throat, wrapping around the delicate skin and squeezing like his life depends on it. This time he’s aided by gravity and better leverage to force his weight into the action.

My hands grip his wrists, the mic pack lost when I fell to the ground. I tug at his grip, wishing I could remember any self defense at all instead of this numbing blank wall of pure terror.

I reach for his face, wanting to scratch his eyes out, to inflict some kind of damage on him as my feet scrape against the ground, trying to find some purchase to get me out from under him. His arms are too long for me to reach his eyes, so I work on a plan B.

The only thought running through my mind is the need to find some way to leave a message of who attacked me. I don’t know this man; it was evident from the first moment I looked into his eyes. That tipping feeling of falling off a cliff with sharp rocks at the bottom isn’t something you’d ever forget.

Scratch him. Bite him. Find some scrap of skin to get under your nails for DNA…

In desperation, I slide my hands from his wrists, reaching for his gloved fingers. My nails dig into the thick material, clawing at it with all the strength I can muster. But even this yields nothing. His gloved fingers remain unyieldingly clenched.

He lets out a deep-throated chuckle then, breaking through the bubble of fear that had encased us. The sound ripples through me like a brutal symphony of impending doom. This can’t be the last sound I hear.

I panic, scrambling through my memories for something happy to hold on to. But I’m too late. Inky blackness envelops me, its chilling embrace feeling like the unbidden kiss of death’s mistress. It engulfs me, pulling me deeper into its depths, until all I can see is the faint glimmer of stars above.

The silence is deafening, yet I can hear the echoes of my own slowing heartbeat. Bah-dump… bah-dump… bah—