August's breath hitched in her throat.
She must have been hallucinating, she thought to herself. First she had freaked out about a stranger in class, and now she was hearing voices.
Her thoughts of self-doubt were put to rest when someone appeared from her bathroom. She at first didn't recognize who it was, perhaps from her vision being clouded with anxiety, or maybe because she was finally seeing the person in full form.
It was the woman she had just seen in her classroom. She was strikingly tall as she leaned against the frame of the bathroom door, arms crossed, along with her long legs that were clothed in tight black pants. Her raven black hair hung loosely down her shoulders, her green eyes staring right at the petite girl still laying on her bed, frozen. She almost wanted to laugh at how pathetic the girl looked, and she wondered how she couldn't have managed to keep up with her the previous night. She had gotten a clear look at her before, but now she looked even more frail and helpless.
"W-What..." was all August could manage to whisper. Her eyes were wide open, blinking hard every few seconds to make sure this woman was really standing in front of her and wasn't just a floater in her vision.
The woman's lips spread open as she laughed, revealing pearly white teeth that looked pointy at the ends. "W-What," she exaggeratedly mocked her, uncrossing her arms and leaning up from the doorframe as her smile disappeared.
Her sudden movement alarmed August, so the girl looked over at her nightstand for anything she could use to protect herself. Deeming a hairbrush a smaller version of a baseball bat, she quickly grabbed it and pointed it towards the woman. "Don't c-come any closer..." She inwardly cursed at her voice for trembling so, as she wanted to defend herself from the murderer in her room.
The woman didn't react at first, just staring at the girl with a blank expression. But then her face broke as laughed, again revealing her nearly haunting teeth. Through her chuckles that rang in August's ears the way an evil villain on a Disney movie's did, the woman said, "Do you really think I'm scared of your little makeshift dildo?"
The forwardness of her remark made August's cheeks burned, and she knew that they were visible. The woman's words angered her and almost made her want to cry at the same time. Nevertheless, she held the hairbrush up. She tried to think of some quick remark, as sarcasm was usually her forte and could possibly show the woman that she couldn't be so easily messed with, but her brain was completely blank and her mouth utterly speechless. She just tremblingly held the hairbrush up towards the woman with a determined expression.
"Aw, did I embarrass you?" the woman mocked, starting to walk closer to August's bed, her boots clicking on the wooden floor.
"Get the fuck away from me!" August screamed. Her own voice shocked her.
But the woman ignored her, stepping closer to the bed until she was at the very end, sitting down on the edge. Her eyes never left August. It was like they were locked in on her, incapable of being pulled away. She stared at August's face, at her scrunched eyebrows, at her eyes that so obviously showed her fear, and her lips that lay slightly parted as her quick breaths moved between them. She could see her chest moving up and down with fright, and the hairbrush she held so tight that her knuckles turned white tremble in her grip.
"I don't think I can do that," the woman slowly spoke in a low monotone. She was sitting scarily still, and the amusement previously in her voice and face had left, being replaced by a blank seriousness—the one August was met with in the classroom.
"I-I think you should do that," August stammered, but put a firm emphasis on her words even through the trip-up. She wasn't going to let this woman kill her the way she killed that man last night. She was going to at least put up a fight.
The woman didn't respond, her expression still blank. She let her alarmingly calm eyes stay on August, never moving. It was like she was a statue, frozen and made of stone, incapable of any movement or response. This somehow made August feel bolder.
"How did you get in here?" the girl quietly inquired, her voice lower than a whisper. She didn't understand how the woman could have made it there before she did, or even knew where her dorm was, or even got into it considering the door was locked.
"You really think I wouldn't own the capabilities of picking a lock," she let the last word hang in her mouth, emphasizing the enunciation of the last two letters before letting them roll off her tongue.
August's mind flashed back to the night before, and the sound of the knife stabbing flesh again echoed in her mind, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut. But she opened them once again, being sure to leave them on the person sitting a few feet in front of her, who definitely could not be trusted. Her bravery that she had started to get a grip on began to falter as she realized she was face-to-face with a murderer. Even worse, a murderer who knew that she knew she was a murderer.
"H-How did you even know this was my dorm," August whispered, her eyes slightly widening as the fear in her throat gathered into a painful bundle.
The woman tilted her head ever so slightly to the left, studying the young girl in front of her. "I followed you here last night." Her low voice almost sang the words out.
August's hands went cold. It took effort to swallow the lump in her throat. The killer had followed her home. Why hadn't she just killed her then?
All of a sudden, the frozen facade the woman had been putting up exploded, and before August could even blink, the hairbrush she had been holding up was slapped out of her hand, the plastic loudly slamming the adjacent wall, and the woman lunged on top of the girl, pinning her wrists down against the pillow and forcefully placing her knee over August's legs to keep her down.
August screamed from both the fear and surprise that came from woman attacking her, and from the pain of the woman's knee digging into her thighs. Her scream was quickly muffled by a large, slender hand covering her mouth.
"Shut the fuck up," the woman hissed, her lips curling with anger and her eyes only inches away from August's.
August's whimpers continued under the woman's hands as she stared into the stranger holding her down's frightening green eyes, the ones who had caused her so much paranoia over the last 13 hours. But her whimpers halted as she heard the shling of a knife being whipped out, and her throat went dry as the glare of the knife shined right in front of her eyes, reminding her of how it did the night before. It was the same knife the woman used to stab the man.
Her breathing fast and heavy, August's eyes flickered between the knife and the woman holding it up, who sneered at the sight of August becoming so frightened.
"Scared?" the woman taunted, slowly bringing the knife down towards August's neck.
Involuntarily, August's body began to violently thrash, her whimpers returning loudly as the woman's hand accidentally slipped from her mouth.
The woman replaced her hand over the girl's mouth and pressed her knee harder into her legs, grunting from the surprising amount of effort it took to hold the tiny girl down. She then pressed the knife right against August's throat.
August froze, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt the cold metal pushing against her warm throat. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted the woman to get it over with, if she was really going to do it. She just wished she could have said goodbye to her dad and to Daisy first, that she could have finished her studies at Cornell and became an accomplished writer, that her life wouldn't have been cut so short at the age of barely 18—literally cut.
"Do you want me to hurt you?" the woman darkly growled, looking down at the girl whose beet red face was centimeters from hers. She was angered by the fact that the girl was not cooperating.
August shook her head as much as she could under the force of the woman's hand.
"Then shut the fuck up before I slice this thin neck of yours right open." The woman lowered her eyes to the girl's pale neck, watching how the silver blade pushed the girl's soft skin inwards. She could tell the girl was young—most definitely a freshman. But there was something deeper about her than just "young." The girl was so innocent. Her body trembled beneath hers, and she could feel the girl's heart pounding against her chest, even with just her elbow pressed against it. It felt like there was a rabbit trapped in her chest and thumping to get out. Her deep blue eyes looked up at her, pleading for mercy, as if they were searching for just a stroke of grace that they could pull out of her to convince her to spare the young girl's life. That stroke of grace had left the woman years before.
But she wouldn't take the girl's life—not yet. The girl had done nothing wrong, except see something she shouldn't have. The only problem was that she couldn't be trusted. Her youthful innocence gave her the advantage of not being slain without a second thought, but it also gave her the aura of the lack of composure. Could she really be trusted with such a secret, one that could cost the woman her own life?
She pressed the knife harder against the girl's throat, but careful to not press too hard. She could feel the knife stop against the harder muscles of her throat, and she knew that if she pressed any harder, she would either crush her windpipe or slice her blood vessels open. The girl recoiled the harder she pressed.
Green eyes flickered back up to blue ones. "You shouldn't have seen what you did," she said quietly, but clear enough that the girl could hear. "You must be watched now."
August dreaded the woman's words, knowing that her life would drastically change now, but she felt a sense of relief that the woman is hinting at her life even continuing after that point.
The woman's jaw visibly clenched as she looked down at the knife pressed against the girl's vulnerable neck. Her breath grew heavier through her nostrils, blowing onto the girl's chest and causing goosebumps to grow on her skin.
August had thoughts of just pushing her off, of catching the woman off-guard in this very moment, but she wouldn't risk it. She felt the pressure on her neck; she knew one wrong movement could end her life. Plus, she wouldn't be able to move a single muscle. The woman was very tall and very strong, pinning her slender body down with ease with only one knee. The woman's hand tightened on her mouth, as if she heard her thoughts.
"Listen very closely," the woman growled, staring at the girl through her arched eyebrows. "If you say anything—if you even think of telling anybody about what you saw last night, you will end up like the man that we killed, except your death will go down a lot more brutally."
August's body went cold at the sound of the woman actually admitting to killing the man. She said it with no guilt and without hesitation, as if it was normal.
"And don't think the police can protect you, either. Even their lives are at our hands." She spoke with confidence, her eyes never leaving August's.
August took note of how she said "our." She knew she must have been referring to the other people that were at the scene the night before.
"You are being watched—24/7. By me, and by my gang. And we are more than just the three you saw last night. There are many of us, and we are everywhere." Her voice was a whisper, as if she was speaking so no one could hear her even though they were the only two in the room. Although, the scariness in her voice never left her.
"Now... I need you to tell me if you understand," the woman began, her lips parting as her eyes traveled the face of the girl below her before glancing back up to the blue eyes. "Do you understand?" Her voice was hard.
Nodding adamantly, August whined a little. The pressure of the knife on her neck seemed to be growing every second even though the woman wasn't pressing it any harder. She wanted nothing more than to be released from the woman who was holding her body down painfully.
"Good," the woman said with a small, fake smile. "Because it would be such an awful shame to hear that a poor girl was killed in her college dorm."
August just eyed her, not reacting, but watching her intently and with fear, waiting for her to release her.
The knife was taken away from her neck, but she could still feel its indent in her skin. The woman backed away, taking her hand away from the girl's mouth and standing up. August let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding, grabbing at her neck and letting her fingers run over the indent.
The woman watched the girl's chest heave up and down with relief. She stared at the indent on her skin, at how the muscles at the smooth curve of her neck were tightening with fear. "Remember you're being watched. The slightest mistake, and your life will be gone."
The woman left as soon as she left her cold words with August, slamming the door shut which caused the shaking girl to jump. She sat still, holding her neck and feeling the remains of pressure on her legs and neck that the woman had inflicted on her. She didn't know what to think or what to do. Her life was from then on going to be constantly on the line, and her every moves were going to be constantly watched. The pressure placed upon her was worse than the pressure on her skin.
She leaned forward, letting her face fall into the soft duvet and relishing in the comfort it brought her. Sighing, she bit her lip and regretted ever peeking around that alleyway corner.