A Twist of Fate SERIES (Pentatonix)

(33) Distant Face

( MITCH )

I'm staring right into the eyes of my future murderer—I know it as soon as he pulls out a hunting knife. When he sees I'm trembling in fear, petrified and paralyzed and glued to the floor against my own free will, he laughs maliciously, holding his weapon as if it's an everyday object. Well, maybe for a murderer it is.

"Aw, is poor Mitchy scared?" he taunts, making his way around me in a slow circle. I follow his every move with my eyes, and when he goes behind me and out of my line of vision, I squeeze my eyes shut, praying that he's not going to do anything. His evil laugh answers my prayers.

"What?" he says, now standing in front of me. He juts his bottom lip out in a mock pout. "Oh, I see. You're scared because you're all alone, aren't you? No more Scotty to come and save you. Boo hoo." He moves his fists up by his eyes to mimic a crying child.

"Shut. up," I say through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice steady. Maybe if I don't look scared, he won't kill me. Maybe if I pretend he doesn't affect me, he'll let me go. Maybe.

He raises his eyebrows tauntingly. "Ohhh, feisty, aren't we? Well, Mitchell," —he approaches me, and then suddenly takes the knife and starts to lightly trace the tip of it along my jawline. I gulp, keeping my eyes trained on his— "you wouldn't want your last words to be words of hatred, would you? I thought you were better than that."

"I was," I spit out, barely moving my jaw in fear of the knife actually breaking my skin, "until you took my family and my two best friends from me."

He suddenly stops, and then moves the knife a couple of inches away from me. He looks, and sounds, completely innocent as he says, "I don't know what you're talking about."

And then, in a split second, he swoops behind me and his arm is wrapped around my throat before I can even blink. My fingers curl around his bicep as I gasp for air and he pulls me to the ground. The tip of the knife is now pressed to my sternum, a reminder that one wrong move results in its going right through me without any form of regret.

My vision starts to go black at the edges while my killer begins to speak in my ear. "I've spent years trying to track you down, Grassi. Years. And when I finally did, I knew I had to plan accordingly. You were protected like an ancient artifact, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get to you quite as easily as I had hoped. So, I got your Scott and your Avi first. That was easy enough; I just sent in two of my men to pose as security guards." He laughs evilly at my desperate gasps for air, and his grip around my neck only tightens. "And your parents weren't very hard either. Those poor, pathetic—"

"Stop," I rasp, as loud and as forceful as I can muster, though I'm almost positive it comes out as a squeak instead.

I hadn't expected him to actually listen to me, but suddenly I'm able to breathe again. I'm thrown onto the floor, desperately trying to suck air back into my lungs. "All you had to do was ask," he tells me smugly, and through my tear-filled vision I can see his figure standing over me.

He only lets me be for a few seconds, though, and then his heavy boot is pressing against my stomach and turning me over so that I'm on my back, gasping up at him.

"So," he says, an evil smile curling the corners of his lips. He still holds the knife in his hands. "Shall it be slow and painful or quick and painless?" He leans down, his foot pressing deeper into my stomach, making my diaphragm struggle for breath once again. "Slow and painful? Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too."

"SCOTT!" I jolt straight up in bed, whacking my head on the top of my bunk. A slew of incomprehensible profanities leave my mouth while sweat covers every inch of my body, my heart rate through the roof, and a panic attack quickly approaching. "Scott!"