Super•Villainous

XIV

I fought wildly against his grasp, but Shade held strong, as unwavering as stone.

We kept moving, shifting from shadow to shadow, going from dark to darker and back again in dizzying succession. The constant altering light and rhythmic falling and stopping from second to second left my stomach crawling up my throat and my head swimming. It took everything in me not to vomit.

I tried in vain to stomp myself free, but I encountered the steel toed nature of his boots. When that didn't elicit a reaction beyond damaging my decorative flats, I kicked a leg back, trying to hook my foot around Shade's ankle, hoping that by sending us tumbling to the ground he'd be forced to release me. Instead of tripping him, however, his muscular thighs squeezed around my leg, cementing me even further in place.

"Let — me — go!" I hissed, reaching my only remaining free limb behind my head.

My blind, closed fisted attacks didn't faze him. Perhaps he didn't feel it at all, except, as though in response, his bare fingers tightened further around my neck, thumb and forefinger cradling my jaw to ward off illusions of escape. Tears sprung involuntarily to my eyes as oxygen grew scarce, and I was forced to give up attacking in favor of clawing at the fingers squeezing the life out of me, my pulse beating vengefully against his palm. I felt an imprint forming around my windpipe, and I imagined it would leave deep purple bruises on my body for crime scene investigators to find.

Again, Shade might have been made of stone for all the good that effort did me. My vision blurred around the edges, going light and fuzzy, my body suddenly feeling so much heavier than before. An impossible weight to carry.

Sleep, my muscles and the less rational part of my brain whispered. Succumb.

It mirrored the process of falling into the deepest slumber, the last moments of consciousness before letting go, but without any of the peace. I couldn't fight it off if I tried. Unconsciousness fell over me in a flood and I drowned in it.

I was still drowning.

At some point without realizing it, I stopped struggling, my whole body slumping back against his as I fought off a wave of numbness. My head rolled back. With the feeble strength I could muster, I resumed grappling at my throat, trying to force my own fingers beneath his as a weak barrier against his onslaught, just long enough to seek out another breath. Nothing worked, but I had an idea, one last shot. Summoning every vestige of will remaining - everything I had left to give - I slammed my head back into his cheek. My vision blacked. I could barely think beyond the rush of pain and everything else. Worst of all, my last shot didn't work. Everything I had wasn't enough against him. He held strong.

At first.

Then he shoved me roughly away, as though I was suddenly utterly repellant.

I barely had time or the presence of mind to throw my hands out to catch myself from slamming face-first into the ground, small rocks digging into the meat of my palms and scraping against my bare kneecaps.

Distantly, I recognized that we'd stopped moving somewhere; a park, maybe, or some remote nature area. The perfect place to hide a body, not that I imagined Shade particularly minded leaving my corpse somewhere for everyone to see. It would send a message, at least, something along the lines of, Cross me and this will happen to you, too.

While pulling air deep into the depressed recesses of my lungs and coughing it back up again, I managed to flip onto my back, if only to keep the supervillain within my sights. On my best day, I knew I couldn't fight him and today was certainly not that, but I refused to give him another opportunity to grasp my neck from behind. If he planned to kill me, he had to live with the memory of my stare as it grew blank.