Page 79 of No Control
But as his hand nears my body, I swat it away, anger flushing my face and smothering my cries. “You called me while he was talking to me outside my house,” I say, memories flooding my head. “Why’d you call me? Was it because you could see?”
His silence is everything. It’s fucking everything.
“You fucking psycho,” I shout, trying to split the distance and slip through the opening. He lunges for me, grabbing me, and pinning me against the wall. He does it so gently that it makes me hate him even more in the moment.
“Don’t go there, Lydia,” he snarls, though his eyes are riddled with hurt. “Don’t make me go there.”
But I can’t stop.
“You probably tampered with my phone, didn’t you?” I throw at him, fresh tears rolling down my cheeks as the realization hits me like a freight train. “How’d you kill him, Henry? Did you force him to go to Vermont? Did you call one of your killer friends? Lure him there?”
“He never went to Vermont,” Henry’s voice is low and emotionless. “It’s artificially manipulated footage.”
I can meet you in three hours. The text slams into my brain like a piano falling from a second story window.
“You killed him the morning he left my house.”
Henry’s jaw ticks. “I did what I had to do.”
My brows shoot up. “What you had to do? You had to kill my ex-fiancé? Stop making it out like you had to do it!”
“I’ll brutalize anyone who’s touched your body before me.” His words are like ice, but the emotion in his eyes is anything but, his irises growing stormy. This time, however, I don't find it nearly as mesmerizing.
“Well, lucky for you, you’ve completed that task,” I scoff, shaking my head in disgust. “He’s the only person I’ve ever been with. Congrats. Now let me go.”
His lip trembles, and I don’t know if it’s anger or hurt—or both. He releases me and grabs the backpack from the closet, shoving the mask back into it. I should be running, but instead I watch him, unsure of what he might do.
He looks up at me as he slings the backpack over his shoulder. “I can’t let you leave, darling.” Suddenly, the pet name feels condescending, making me feel small.
“So what? You’re gonna just keep me prisoner?” I exasperate as he heads for the bedroom door, grabbing up his laptop.
“Until you get over this, maybe.”
“What’re you doing?” I demand, my chest filling with panic as he slips from the room, almost shutting the door in my face. I catch the edge, nearly smashing my fingers. “What are you doing?”
“What I have to.” He shoves my fingers back and slams the door.
And then I hear the lock click. From the outside.
thirty-three
Henry
“You can’t expect me to leave her locked in there,” Cher exasperates, chasing me to the garage. “It’s cruel!”
“She’ll run,” I say, my undertone malicious and emotionless. Lydia sees me for what I am now, and if I let her go, I’ll be forced to track her down. Forced to take her back. Forced to screw up the dynamic we have.
“Let her,” Cher screams at me as I rip open the driver’s side door of the jeep. “Let her run from you! Let her choose.”
“Fuck off,” I bark at her. “She’s never had a choice. It’s always been mine to make. She’s not going anywhere. I might have made her think it was her choice, but she was always going to be mine. No matter what.“ I hate the tears I see in my little sister’s eyes. I hate the way they make me second guess myself. I hate that they’re because of me. I want some people to hurt, but Lydia and Cher? Never.
But Lydia called it what it is.
I’m a psycho. Might as well live up to the title.
“Don’t do this,” she pleads, grabbing the door. “Don’t be like him.”
“I’m not like him,“ I shout at her. “I don’t—I don’t do what he did.”
