A few minutes later I heard the sound of a heel scuff against the flag stone and bracing myself to face Jake again, I turned. But something heavy hit my temple, and I was falling, Jake’s jacket landing in a pool of black next to me, the stone so cold against my face and arms.
As the light dwindled and I dropped into darkness, my heart called to him.
***
Fractured, muddled fragments of awareness floated through my mind. The buzzing sound of a male voice, the words blurred together. I fought against the vertigo, my head spinning, the throbbing in cadence with my heart. I opened my eyes. It was a bedroom in an unfamiliar house, and I was on a soft mattress. The room was decorated in a sunny yellow with touches of green. My head cleared and dread turned instantly to panic. The walls…they were covered with pictures of me. Every single inch of them plastered with my face, my body, my hair, my smile. Working with customers, shopping at the market, kayaking, talking to Jake at the festival while eating pie. We looked so involved with each other. It was like a mad scrapbook played out in large, living color.
Finally the words from a man whose voice sounded so familiar but I couldn’t place it at first became as clear as a bell.
“I had to do it. Of course, I did. I did the right thing. I’ll take her to the cabin and we’ll live happily ever after.” His voice held a hysterical edge to it, like a man who was on the verge of losing it.
I tried to push up on my hands, but with horror realized they were tied in front of me. I turned my head and saw…Adam Myers?
He rushed over and grabbed my hair and yanked my face to his. He glared at me, his mouth twisted in anger. “I saw you. You cheated on me! You’re always cheating. First it was Seth and now this guy. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
“Let me go,” I said, pushing against him, his hold burning my scalp, but his fist was too tightly woven into my hair. “I’m not cheating,” I screamed. “I barely know you.”
He laughed softly, like a lover would when a partner is teasing. It was so creepy, it made my skin crawl. “You know me. You love me,” he said, his voice a whiney purr. His eyes narrowed. “You’re just trying to make me jealous.” His voice hardened and he slapped me hard, my cheek stinging. “You’re a whore. That’s why you flaunted your relationship with Seth, and why I had to take him out of the picture.”
I froze, sick dread twisting in my stomach. I turned my eyes to his, immediately fearing for Jake’s life. “What? You killed Seth?”
He smirked. “Yes, we both know you’re mine.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped, my mouth dry, my heart stuttering. “I thought he left.”
“That’s what I wanted everyone to think.” He released me so violently my head cracked against the headboard and spun all over again.
His eyes were wild and he started pacing and gibbering again about how he had to do what he did.
He turned on me again. “The same thing with your brother. He caught me, you know. I had to make that go away, too. He threatened to call the police. I couldn’t have that. They would have kept me away from you. All it took was a little push.”
“Oh, God, no,” I moaned, grief and guilt washing over me in a black torrent.
He ran both hands over his face so hard it stretched his skin, his face contorting at my reaction. He pointed a finger at me and shouted, “This is your fault. If you had run away with me when I asked you to, none of this would have happened.”
He was completely delusional, thought we had some kind of relationship. He’d barely spoken to me in high school and had never asked me to do anything. I needed to get calm, talk him down and find some way to escape. When I saw the gas can, the blood in my veins froze. Gasoline, on the dress that Anna Kate wanted me to wear and…oh God, oh God. My parents. Arson…oh, God, the implications of that one small object reverberated through me, realization dawning over me in horror, overwhelming grief.
“You killed my parents,” I sobbed.
“Yes, of course I did.” He said it like it should be common knowledge and no big deal. “Your parents wanted to send you away. I couldn’t have that.”
“It was you who pulled me out of bed, set me on the lawn, but you left my parents to die!”
“You sound upset. You have to agree they were being unreasonable. You’ll see. Everything will be great when we get to the cabin. It’s isolated in the mountains. It’ll be just you and me.”
“Unreasonable?” I whispered. “And, Anna Kate...” My voice was strident, but my heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear over it, and hysteria edged up my throat, squeezing it tight. So many people all because of me.
“She got information out of me,” he said through gritted teeth. “She was going to hurt you with it.” His voice took on a pleading tone. “I had to stop her. She was a nasty bitch.” Then a strange look of glee gleamed in his eyes. He simpered and paced. “You didn’t want to wear that ugly dress anyway,” he said, my stomach twisted with sick dread.
“No,” I said, agreeing with him. “I didn’t want to wear that dress.” Placating him might get him to let down his guard and then I could try to do something, get away.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. His sharp gaze studied me.
“Do you? Or are you trying to get away from me? I spent a long time tracking you down. You disappeared, and I couldn’t find you. It took me years. I’ve been living here right under your nose for eight months.”
I closed my eyes. I hadn’t noticed. That was too true. Adam had been an awkward boy on the edges of my memory and all this time he’d been in love with me, obsessed with me, my face looking at me from every corner of the room, reminding me how close to that unbalanced edge he was. It was quietly terrifying to realize I’d been stalked for years.
He rushed at the bed and grabbed me by my bound hands and hauled me up. My feet hit the floor, and I stumbled into him. The bulge in his pants telling me that I was in much more physical danger than his slaps and hair pulling.
