Page 114 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

The figure of a man.

A man I recognise.

Only it’s not Cort.

It’s Travis.

‘Kitty,’ he says.

But before I can ask him anything, there’s a blinding pain across the back of my head.

And then everything goes black.

61

Somewhere, California?

It’s the need for water that wakes me up.

My throat is absolutely parched.

How much did I have to drink last night?

But as I force one of my eyes open, I remember that I wasn’t out drinking last night and the pounding head and raging thirst are not a hangover.

I was hit over the head.

‘Hey, sleeping beauty. Weren’t you supposed to rescue me? You don’t look like you’re in rescue mode.’

I open my eyes fully and see that I’m not alone, wherever the fuck I am. Antoinette is here too.

She’s alive.

And as snarky as ever.

I’ve never been so happy to hear sarcasm in my life.

‘Antoinette!’ I say, pulling myself up into a sitting position. It’s not the easiest of manoeuvres with my hands cable-tied behind my back. I wriggle my feet. Yep, ankles too. My mind flashes to Aidan Ward in the wine cellar. How the tables have turned. ‘You’re okay.’

‘Well, no thanks to you. But yes. I’m fine.’

I’m so pleased to see her that I think I might cry.

‘Where are we?’ I ask, looking around for clues.

‘In the cellar of Little House on the Scary,’ Antoinette says.

‘We’re still in Cort’s cabin?’

She nods. ‘Yeah. He brought you down a little while ago.’ She peers at me. ‘Are you okay? Think you got quite a nasty smack on the head.’

That’s right. Someone hit me. ‘Where’s Lauren?’ I say but Antoinette looks at me blankly.

‘Lauren?’ she says and I explain that it was Lauren who remembered this place, that Cort used to bring her here on dates.

‘What a romantic,’ she says, screwing up her nose in distaste. Then her face goes serious. ‘He hasn’t brought Lauren down here.’

Anxiety courses through me. Where is she? What’s he doing to her? If he thinks she brought me out here … well, I can’t even think about how angry he’d be. And what that might look like for Lauren.