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After a deep inhale and exhale, I ease the wooden door open and enter the murky area.
I can see the light coming from the top.
The stone stairs are ancient but not too risky to climb. I’ve been up there a few times since I started at the academy.
Discreetly, I ascend the steps one at a time until reaching the top. Bright light shines on me.
“You found me,” she gushes, voice triggering nothing but hate.
A lump lodges in my throat when I discern the girl who broke me and has tormented my mind for four years. The girl, now a twenty-year-old, with hair that is still long and jet-black, and a slender frame that hasn’t changed.
Those eyes, her piercing, wide green eyes that looked at me with sick desire as she abused my body, are now darkened by the shadows but still unsettling as she stares at me.
“Hi, Brandon,” Annalise greets in a happy tone, voice making my skin crawl. “It’s been so long.”
I clench my fists as I lower my gaze to Kayla, mouth gagged, hands behind her back while kneeling on the ground. Tears are streaming down her face.
She’s terrified.
Annalise is holding a knife at her throat. The silver blade glistens in the glow of the moonlight shining through the window. Any wrong move, and I could lose Kayla forever.
“Annalise, please put the knife down,” I plead, lifting my trembling hands in peace. “Kayla has nothing to do with this.”
“No,” Annalise grunts. “You let them take me away, and you moved on to someone else. She stole your heart. I want it back.”
Fuck.
A muffled sob escapes Kayla, and it makes me even more determined to get her out of here alive. No matter what.
No matter what?
An idea comes to me. “Annalise, it wasn’t my fault. I told my parents you didn’t mean to hurt me, that you love me. But they wouldn’t listen.”
She falls quiet as if considering my words.
“You told them that?” she mutters, and I feel relieved that I’m reeling her in.
Gradually, I edge forward.
Annalise doesn’t warn me to step back.
Yes. It’s working.
“I missed you, Ann,” I tell her, watching her face that is barely visible in the glow of the flashlight and moonbeams peeking through the window.
“Really?” she confirms, then giggles. “I missed you, too, Brandon. My sweet, Brandon.”
My gut turns from her words. I want to hurl, but I repress it, needing to stay focused on appeasing Annalise to lure her from Kayla.
“Why didn’t you just come straight to me?” I continue the charade. “Why play games? I thought you loved me?”
“I do,” she insists aloud. “I love you more than anything in this world. I just wanted to see what your life was like first. How much you’d changed.
“Then I saw you with her. The way you look at her. Buying art shit, taking her out, driving her home. And your friend told me at a party that you liked to watch her paint.” Her voice is falling again. I have to bring her back.
“It’s nothing,” I lie, feeling like filth for it. “Kayla is nothing compared to you, Annalise. We have a bond.”
“We do,” she agrees flirtily. “Let’s leave together, baby. We’ll go anywhere. No one will be in the way this time.”
