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Prey.
You’re his prey.
“You’re a fucking psychopath,” I cry out, my whole body instinctively flinching, straining against the ropes.
Another abbreviated smile. “So they all say.”
Then his eyes flutter closed and he breathes in deeply through his nose, his muscles stiffening.
I watch him, my heart tripping with fear, the rest of me succumbing to torrid fascination. If he wanted me to be afraid, well, I am afraid. Because I don’t think I’m coming out of this alive. And yet the mystery of why he wants me, of what he’s going to do with me next, has me curious as a cat. A cat with only one life.
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck, and then he opens his eyes, staring at me even deeper than he was before. My nerves go on high alert again, that feeling of being watched, stalked, seconds before the pounce.
“You’ve tasted my blood,” he says softly. “I’ve tasted yours. I suppose we’re even for now.”
“What is your sick fascination with blood?” I nearly spit the words.
His forehead creases, mouth making an elegant O in surprise, remnants of my blood sitting on his soft lips. “Oh, Lenore,” he says imploringly. “Surely you’ve figured it all out by now.” He licks his lips. “I heard you’re a smart girl. Very smart. Have to say I’ve been a bit disappointed by you in that department. Not even any guesses?”
I do have guesses, but they’re batshit crazy and I’m not about to egg this man on or give him ideas.
“There is so much you don’t say,” he comments after a moment. “Has your brain always been like that?”
I press my lips together, refusing to speak.
“That’s fine if you don’t want to talk,” he goes on. “I’m used to being the one doing all the talking. Most of the time, people can only stare at me, their brains being reduced to a lump of grey matter. You, on the other hand, aren’t like that. And I know why.”
Don’t ask him why, don’t ask him why.
“You don’t have to ask,” he goes on, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll tell you. Why am I so interested in your parents? Because they aren’t actually your parents. They stole you when you were two years old. You remember it, don’t you? You remember them taking you. You remember your original mother, your father.”
My mouth parts, his words colliding in my brain with mini explosions. “No,” I tell him, my breath catching. “No. That’s insane. That’s not…my parents are my parents.”
“You were born on Orcas Island, in Washington State. The middle of nowhere. Beautiful place, right on the ocean, surrounded by trees.”
I swallow, shaking my head, but the lies are hitting me like the truth because I’m remembering my dreams. “You’re a liar,” I whisper.
He bites his lip for a moment. “Am I? I can still feel your blood inside me, singing your truth. There were rumors about you, from the moment you were born. Rumors, but no one really knew, no one had the evidence. I knew though. I felt you across time. You’re a myth to everyone but me.”
My eyes pinch shut. I don’t want to listen to this. I don’t want to even indulge this madman in his weird fantasy. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know where I came from. I was born in San Francisco to my parents, that’s it, that’s it…
“I knew your real parents,” he says, his voice going quiet and soft, enough so that I have to look at him. There’s something gentle about his expression, apologetic, even. It’s unnerving after all of this. “Alice and Hakan Virtanen. I knew that they wanted you so badly. A child was all that Alice could talk about. I lost touch with them before you were born. We had our…differences. I wish we could have worked through them, because sometimes I think I could have stopped what happened.” He looks away, eyes grappling with something heavy. “Then again, I’m used to causing death, not stopping it.”
He brings his gaze back to mine and exhales sharply, straightening up. “Twenty-one years ago, when there was talk that Alice and Hakan had a child, I was happy for them. Then the three of them were killed. Burned alive in their house. Murdered. By Elaine and Jim Warwick.”
I can’t help but laugh, though it feels like I have acid inside me. “My parents? Murdered people? What the fuck are you talking about? You’re even more messed up than I thought.”
“They were murdered,” he goes on simply. “And then the rumors started. That the little girl they called Lenore wasn’t fully theirs. That she had another father, not Hakan. That there was a reason they lived on such a remote island, cloaked in secrecy. Because she, the girl, you, was…forbidden.”
“You’re insane,” I manage to say.
His eyes narrow, sharp enough to take my breath away, make my skin prickle with fear. “I was insane, for a very, very long time. Be grateful that I got better.”
My god.
Who the hell am I dealing with here?
“And then the other rumors started,” he says, eyes still boring into mine. “And those rumors were about the Warwicks. That they didn’t kill the child. That they stole the child, recognized something of themselves in it, and took her into the city to raise as their own. They made sure that no one knew the truth, did all they could to cover all their tracks. They knew if others found out the child would be taken and killed. She was forbidden, remember.”
