As I was talking to the 911 operator, there was a loud crashing noise and the sliding glass door shattered. Both of us screamed.
Patrick kicked away the remaining glass and then stepped inside of the house, holding an ax. Before I could grab the rifle from the counter, he lunged toward me.
Screaming, I ran like hell toward the front door, but wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me against him.
“Hey, hey, hey. Relax! I’m not trying to hurt you. Just… quit struggling!” Patrick snapped, dropping the ax.
“You… you let her go!”
We both turned and found Marcy holding the rifle.
Patrick snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Even I had to admit, Marcy looked far from menacing wearing her unicorn onesie, even with the .22.
Marcy glared at him. “No. I’m not.”
Still holding me, he pulled out a handgun and held it against my temple. “I guess if it has to end this way, then so be it…” He inhaled the scent of my hair. “My beautiful, Sophia, you smell so sweet. We would have been so great together. In life. But that doesn’t mean we can’t share eternity together.” He looked at Marcy. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger. I’m ready.”
Shocked and frightened, Marcy lowered the rifle. “Oh, my God!” she sobbed. “Please… just let her go.”
“Never.” His grip on my arm tightened.
Where in the hell was John?!
Hadn’t he noticed the lights?
The noise?
“Drop the gun,” Patrick ordered.
Marcy looked at me.
“It’s okay.” As little as I did know about Patrick, my gut told me the last thing he wanted was to kill me. Not now, at least. Not before he tried winning my love again.
Marcy set the rifle down and Patrick kicked it away with his foot.
“Smart move. Now, get out of the way or I really will kill her.”
Torn, Marcy just stood there. “Please, don’t hurt her!”
“Then get the hell out of my way!” he hollered.
Flinching, she stood aside.
Patrick maneuvered us out into the darkness. It was then that I noticed the squad car door was open and John was slumped over in the front seat.
Gasping, I froze. Was he dead? “Did you kill him?”
“What does it look like?”
I felt sick to my stomach. What a monster! “How did he not see you?”
“Oh, he saw me. He just couldn’t outwit me.”
A sob threatened to choke me. “Why did you have to kill him, though?”
“He put his nose into our business. Nobody is ever going to come between us.”
“My God… You barely know me! How can you think that we’re supposed to be together? We’re strangers!”
He turned me around to face him. The lovestruck psycho smiled at me as if I was the answer to all of his dreams. “Love doesn’t always make sense, Sophia. It’s not anything one can truly control.” He touched my hair lovingly. “You know, the first time I saw you, I just knew you were the one.”
“I’m not the one, Patrick!” I snapped.
His smile faltered. “Yes. Yes you are. The psychic confirmed what I’d already been feeling. We are meant to be together, whether you believe it or not. Don’t worry. In time, you’ll see it, too.”
I was about to argue this when Marcy struck him from behind with the rifle. Gasping in pain, he fell to his knees.
“Come on!” she screamed, grabbing my hand.
We ran toward the woods just as Patrick started firing his gun in our direction. The shots were followed by the sound of sirens in the distance. As the cops drew nearer, we hunched down, hiding behind a fallen oak tree.
“Look, there’s where he parked,” Marcy pointed toward the other side of the woods, where a pair of headlights had popped on. We watched as the car began to move through the woods, away from the sirens, until it eventually disappeared into the darkness.
10
Sophia
Patrick managed to evade the cops, and John… well, he died from a gunshot wound to the head. I felt so horrible, especially learning that he’d been recently engaged and in the process of building a house.
Patrick’s fingerprints were lifted from several places and he was later identified as Patrick James Lovell. The creep was from Michigan and apparently had a history of harassing and stalking people. One of them, a woman named Leah, who eerily resembled me, disappeared over two years ago. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been enough evidence to convict him of any crime, so Patrick wasn’t convicted. Since the incident with Leah, he’d somehow kept his nose clean and no other reports had been filed against him.
Until now.
There was an APB out for him and a warrant for his arrest. Deputy Billings vehemently assured us that Patrick wouldn’t get away with his crimes.
“Don’t worry. He killed a cop,” Mitch said a few weeks later while we were making a late dinner at his place. It was Halloween and we’d decided to skip the parties and just stay home. “So, they won’t rest until they get this guy for murdering one of their own.”
“I can’t believe he killed John without batting an eye. It was like he’d shot a bird or something. No guilt or remorse at all.” I swallowed hard, trying not to think about that horrible night.
“He’s psychotic. I just keep thinking about what he might have done if he’d gotten you out of there. Thank goodness Marcy did what she did,” he murmured, sliding his hands around my waist.
I thought about how hard she must have swung the gun to knock him down the way she had. She was a small, petite woman who I knew I’d never underestimate again. “I’m just glad he didn’t kill her in the cabin.”
Mitch, stirred the pasta into the water and put the spoon down. “Your .22 wasn’t even loaded at the time, right?”
I swirled the wine around in my glass and stared into liquid. “Not at that point. The funny thing is, she hates guns but ended up saving me with
