Then footsteps.
Heavy. Hollow. Footsteps.
My hand darts out. I barely manage to control myself before sliding open my nightstand drawer.
He’s getting closer.
Oh my God, he’s almost here.
My hand quivers, knocking around the various knick-knacks inside my drawer as I search for the knife I’ve kept in there ever since I was released from the hospital.
Ten months it’s been, and I still can’t get to sleep without it. It doesn't matter where I live—I’ve been hopping from apartment to apartment like a fresh set of walls around me is all I need to stop replaying my week of hell.
Seven days. Almost, nearly, seven nights. But he made a mistake, and I gathered every iota of courage I possessed, and I escaped.
Malnutrition. Shock. Cut and bruised all over. I almost didn’t make it to safety. He was on my tail for the last mile I had to run. But then there was a car, and the middle-aged couple stopped for me.
I would be dead if they hadn’t stopped.
Or worse.
Or fucking worse…I’d still be there in that special room.
My heart shudders in my chest as I wrap my fingers around the knife’s handle. I draw it out and slide my legs over the side of the bed at the same time. I try and move fluidly, like a snake, so nothing creaks or squeaks, or groans.
Hand tight around the knife.
Thump. Thump. Footsteps right up to the door.
The handle turns.
I slip under the bed in a rush as the intruder pushes open my bedroom door. I clamp one hand over my mouth, the other holding the quivering knife beside my head. Ready to jab out at his ankles if he comes close. Ready to stick it right through his fucking eye if he bends down to peek under my night frill.
This time, I’m ready to kill.
But he just stands there by the door. Not moving, not coming closer. Is he looking for me? Wondering if I’m in the closet or under the bed? Those are the only two options. I couldn’t very well have climbed out the fucking window.
I barely hold back a cackle.
It’s as if I didn’t take my medication. As if I didn’t smoke that blunt. I’m right back there on the edge of the world, rocking, rocking, rocking as I stare down at the black abyss of my hollow mind.
It would be so easy to tip forward and just let go. Just let whatever is going to happen, happen.
It’ll be over soon anyway, won’t it? One way or the other.
A tear flashes down my cheek and tickles its way over the back of my hand.
The intruder steps into my bedroom.
And then he closes the door behind him.
It’s when he’s standing less than two feet away from the bed that I smell it. Rich, metallic. It fills my bedroom like an expensive perfume.
Blood.
And that scent, so strong I can taste it in the back of my throat, whips my frantic mind into a frenzy.
I lash out with the knife, screaming hoarsely.
The man steps back with a demonic calm, the knife whisking as it brushes his pants. And then he brings his shoe down on the back of my hand, crushing my bones. My hoarse yell disintegrates into a pathetic whimper as I fight through the pain.
He wrenches the knife from my unresisting fingers and then reaches under the bed and grabs a fistful of my hair. My lungs claw for air as he hauls me out with that grip alone, but before I have enough for a new scream, he spins me around and shoves me against the wall.
Lights flash and dance in the darkness of my room.
The smell of blood lies thick in the air.
Something cold and hard touches my throat. The flat of the knife—not the edge. A warning. Just a twist of his hand and my throat is sliced.
It’s too dark in here to make out anything but his shape, but I know he’s big.
My frantic mind conjures up the only person I know who could logically be standing here in the middle of the night with a knife to my throat…and my bladder releases a rush of warm urine down the inside of my thighs.
Peter Monroe.
An architect, once. But something had happened in his life, something had triggered a change in him.
That led Peter to start work on a top-secret project at his lake house out in the Waspwood forest. When he was done, he had a playroom no one knew about, that no house plans would ever show and no one—especially his victims—would ever be able to escape from.
I was victim number three.
They still haven’t found the bodies of the other two girls he kidnapped, but as far as I’m aware, they searched every inch of his land for their graves.
It’s him holding me against the wall. It must be. And that blood I smell in the air? Could only be the blood of another hapless victim. He’s come to finish the job, even though he doesn’t need to anymore. Come to make sure I can never testify against him if some kind of miracle made that possible.
I’m convinced of all of this right up to the point where Peter ducks his head and presses his lips against mine.
Then everything changes.
Everything.
Chapter Seven
He doesn’t care that I’ve pissed myself. He grips me, squeezes me right through that wet fabric. Maybe it even turns him on, because the sound he makes when he massages my pussy through my clothes is urgent and fierce.
He yanks down my pajama bottoms and uses his knee to part my legs. He keeps his leg wedged between mine so I can’t close myself up, so I’m bare and exposed.
His breath is warm and sweet on my face. I’m squeezing closed my eyes so I can try and vanish from this moment, but then he searches out my mouth with his.
My lips bruise
