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No way, no how.
Almost as if I conjured him, I could hear the door handle to the room rattle, making me curse myself a bit for not forcing myself to work through the pain to see if there were any loose bits around the HVAC and water heater systems that I could break off and use as a weapon.
But it was okay.
If he only wanted to kill me, I'd be dead already.
It was a small consolation, but one nonetheless.
I was alive because he had plans for me.
I just needed to figure out what those might be.
If they were to date me in some warped way, then I could play the dutiful girlfriend until I could catch him unaware and vulnerable.
If he wanted to punish me for some slight, I was sure I could find a way to show him he'd been mistaken, that I hadn't rejected him.
I might feel like vomiting the whole time, but I could play along.
I had to.
That was how I would get through this.
"Figured you'd be up by now," Blake said, reaching up toward the ceiling to turn on a single fluorescent bulb whose harsh light only managed to make my head pound all the more as I struggled to keep my eyes open, knowing I had to be as aware as possible.
I could be upset later.
I could feel my pain later.
Right then, I needed to be tuned in.
"Yep, just as I expected," he said, clicking his tongue as he reached out into the other side of the basement, coming back with a five-gallon bucket as he moved into the utility room, going over toward the other side where I'd thrown up, and shoveling what looked like sawdust over it.
"Blake?" I said, not needing to fake the quiet uncertainty in my tone.
Kidnapping, rape, all the acts against women were about power. I figured that if I made myself as small and powerless as possible—right up until the moment I jabbed something into his carotid, that is—that it would be less likely to trigger him to attack me.
Look at little old me. I'm no threat to you. You could easily overpower me. No need to demonstrate just yet.
"Headache's a bitch," he said, nodding as he moved to get rid of the bucket again, then leaned back against the closed door. "Tried to use that shit on myself once. Didn't work, of course. Self-preservation and all that. But I had that headache for a solid ten hours."
"How did I get here?" I asked, voice a little whisper.
"Cut the shit, Poppy," Blake said, but his tone wasn't harsh. "We both know chloroform doesn't cause memory loss."
"Why am I here?" I said instead, reaching one hand up to cradle my temple.
"You know, Poppy. I am really just disappointed in you. Oh, I've been all the things. Angry. Bitter. But, really, it all just boils down to disappointment."
"Disappointment? What did I do?"
"Enough with the sweet and innocent routine, Poppy," Blake said, raising an unimpressed brow. "We both know you've already tried to figure out if you can break some metal off the HVAC to slit my throat with," he said, shrugging. As if it didn't bother him that I wanted to hurt him.
This was a Blake I'd never seen before. Not even a hint of it. If this was the real Blake, and the one I'd known for well over a year was the mask, well, then he'd never let it slip. Not once.
I finally understood how people like Ted Bundy fooled people for so long. How they could live with women who had no idea that in their free time, they were brutally raping and murdering other women.
Because this Blake? If I'd seen him for even a split second, I would have known how dangerous he was.
There was a coldness in his tone and in his eyes that I instantly knew was evil. It sent a shiver down my spine when he looked at me.
The Blake I'd hung out with in the past, the Blake I'd laughed with, shared food with, worked on fake murder cases with, he was warm and fun and funny.
"Fine," I said, dropping my little girl voice, angry that I'd used it at all. My chin angled up, and my gaze held his. "What the hell do you have to be disappointed in me about?"
"I had some hope there for a little while. You finally started to clue in. Then you gave up on it again. For what? For him? Fucking typical. A little dick, and your mind is scrambled."
I hated that, to an extent, there was some truth to his words.
Sleeping with Finn had clouded my judgment, had made me oblivious to who he really was, what he did on the side.
"Clue in to what, Blake?" I asked, wiggling my jaw, trying to ease the ache that had spread there from my temples and down my face. I swear my teeth hurt.
