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Even if he didn’t look crazy, he was thoroughly insane. Nevertheless, he spoke clearly. His eyes weren’t red or watery or bloodshot—no sign or smell of drug abuse. That scared her more.
At the top of the stairs, she raised her hand.
“Speak, Female.”
“What do I call you?”
“Teacher,” he replied.
In bright red, the digital clock on the counter of the old-fashioned, well-worn kitchen told her it was 9:37 a.m. She looked around for a phone but didn’t see one. She didn’t see anything she could use as a weapon, either. No knives, no guns—as if he’d leave them lying around.
“I have something to show you,” he said. “We’re going outside. You will do what I say, or you will be punished. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said.
The house was two stories, an old farmhouse. The furniture was old, from the 1940s or 1950s. His grandparents’? It was clean, covered in plastic, and there were plastic runners on the floors.
You’re going outside! You can run.
She had no shoes.
And she couldn’t leave Carolyn.
He opened the door and they stepped out onto the porch. The snow had all but stopped, a few stray flakes falling to the ground, but more was to come. The air was cold and damp, the light from the farmhouse reflecting on the thick gray mist that surrounded them.
“Walk,” he said. “We’re going to the barn.”
She couldn’t see anything in this thick mist. At her first step into the snow, she winced. She would get frostbite just walking to the barn. If there was one farm, there had to be another, right? She didn’t see a car as she walked, her bare feet burning from the cold, then numb.
She could barely walk. She hugged herself, trying to get just a little warmer, but the more she tried, the colder she felt.
The barn loomed in front of them, a towering unpainted structure. When he opened the door, a familiar stench hit her—blood. Was this a slaughterhouse? It was a farm; the blood could be from cows or pigs…
“Go to the fifth stall on the right.”
She raised her hand. He seemed pleased that she followed his command.
“You may speak.”
“Why are you doing this? I don’t know you, I don’t understand—”
He hit her with the whip against her neck. The lash burned and her eyes teared.
“You don’t get it because you are stupid. Women like you need firm guidance. You need to be kept in line because you don’t know any better.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from spitting on him.
“You know exactly who I am. You think you’re better than me, because you can order pussy-whipped bastards to hunt down men you don’t like. If you had been one of my students, you would have learned how to be a proper and obedient female.”
The sudden wave of recognition washed over Lucy. She didn’t recognize his face, but she’d only seen his picture once.
If you had been one of my students…
Peter Miller. The teacher who had gone to prison for statutory rape. He’d been one of the parolees WCF had tried to lure, but was a no-show.
“H-how did you find me?”
“I’m smarter than you. I’m better at working through the Internet than you are. But I didn’t have to hack into the organization that tried to have me sent back to prison. I read the papers and learned about other parolees who’d been arrested. I put two and two together. That’s above you, isn’t it? One day, I slipped into the office. It was easy. I befriended one of the volunteers, you remember her. Stacy Swanson. We came in to stuff the invitations for the fund-raiser you had last week. And I listened. I listen well. And that’s when I realized it was you.”
