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There’s nothing remarkable about him. Black hair that’s cropped close on the sides with light waves. An unremarkable face. Average height and build.
Just plain.
Except his eyes. His eyes are cold and calculating. The way he smiles at me now sends fear racing down my spine.
What the hell did I ever see in this awful man?
“That’s better,” he says, stroking my cheek, “Can’t have you a mess on our big day.”
Big day?
“What are you talking about?” I ask, jerking my head away.
The slap is instant, fire blooming across my cheek from the strike.
“What did I tell you about attitude?” he hisses in my face so close I can smell his rancid breath. “Now I’m going to have to apply extra makeup to cover your clumsiness.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask again as my face throbs.
Chad cups my face in both hands, a vicious smile transforming his face into something sinister.
“Our wedding, of course, silly girl.”
Oh. Fuck.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck, fuck.
He can’t be serious.
“We’ve had to wait so long,” he begins as he releases my face and steps back. “Everything has to be perfect. Now, it won’t be as elaborate as the one you missed.”
That I ran from, you mean. Literally. Packed up my animals and fled like a thief in the night.
“But it’ll have to do,” he says with a deep sigh and a face of mock sadness.
Chad steps back into my face, threading his fingers in my hair, then yanking brutally to the side. My head swims at the sudden motion, another wave of nausea hitting me full force.
“Do you know how bad you made me look, leaving me standing at the altar like a fool? How many people looked at me with pity? Me. People don’t pity me; I pity people because they’ll never be as good as me.”
He’s so close, droplets of spit hit my face. I try to adjust my head so he doesn’t scalp me, but he yanks violently. “When I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”
When I don’t respond, he pulls my hair harder, making me cry out in pain.
“You left me, Cordelya. My soulmate left me broken-hearted on what should have been the happiest day of our lives. But I know now, you were just testing my commitment to you.”
“I wasn’t testing anything, Chad. I didn’t want to marry you. You didn’t even ask me! Just shoved a ring on my finger and planned the whole thing.”
My ears ring from the force of the second strike.
Chad’s face has turned a bright red, rage burning brightly in his eyes. “Stop lying! You don’t need to test me anymore. Can’t you see? I found you once, but that wasn’t enough. You had to make it harder, and you did. Changing your last name, that was clever. But I found you. It took time, and greasing a lot of palms in the police department to set up an alert system, but I found you. Now we can start our lives together.”
Ice runs through my veins. He’s completely lost it. As Chad continues his monologue about the future that he has planned for us, one that I have zero interest in, I try to think of a way out of this mess. Between the likely concussion and Chad smacking me around, it’s hard to come up with an escape plan. I’m contemplating the likelihood of a window in the bathroom when Chad says something that makes my heart stop.
“Everything will be perfect once that monster is out of our lives.”
“What?” I ask as terror builds painfully in my chest.
Chad's smile is something from a nightmare. “I saw you with that thing. Trying to make me jealous. He’s touched something that doesn’t belong to him, and he has to pay.”
