AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked inside her purse, but found it completely empty. She didn’t even care about her keys and wallet at this point; she was just so desperate to get out. She looked under the bed, shoving aside the pizza boxes and empty soda cans, but came up short also.
“Hey, Declan,” she said. “Have you seen my phone?”
“Yeah,” he replied, biting into a protein bar he magically pulled out of the air. “Saw it. Burned it.”
“You did WHAT?!”
She couldn’t believe what he had just said. Not only was he clearly clinically insane, but he was also a psychopath. She fumed, her face turning red. How could someone so charming and handsome turn out to be such a monster?
“Burned it,” he repeated. “Didn’t think you’d need it. Besides, you said you’re staying here. Who cares if you’re a no-show?”
“I care! You had no right to do that!”
Rage overcame her, and she grabbed the nearest vodka bottle she could find and hurled it at him. It missed, but the glass shattered against the wall around him, temporarily disabling him. Tara quickly threw her clothes on, tucked her shoes underneath her arm, and headed out the door. The one-story apartment wasn’t that big, and the front door was in plain sight. All she needed to do was make it a few more steps, and she’d be free.
But the lock was jammed. Of course, of all the times this could’ve happened, the lock was jammed. She jiggled it, twisting and turning it in all possible ways to try and free herself. She was usually so skilled at figuring these things out, but her sweaty fingers were definitely her enemy right now. After a few more tries, she heard a click, and then her world turned dark.
TARA WOKE UP SEVERAL HOURS LATER, her wrists chained to the frame of Declan’s bed. She tried to tug one loose, but the sharp metal cut against her skin instead, sending a trail of blood dripping down her arm. She looked down at her body, naked once again, with only a single pink collar wrapped around her neck.
“Declan!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. She knew she should never have trusted Ashley. That dumb app turned out to be nothing but her own personal nightmare. “One night of fun, my ass,” she grumbled.
Her stomach soon growled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since early yesterday. The little she had stored as nourishment in her stomach turned into nothingness when she hurled everything left inside her straight into the monster’s toilet bowl. Her head was still wobbly from when he’d whacked her across the skull with what felt like an extremely heavy textbook, and she could feel the crusted blood on where it had dried up.
While she was knocked out, she reminisced back to when she lived a stable life with a stable partner in a stable relationship. It was six months after she said her vows to Rowan, and life couldn’t be better for the both of them. He was gentle yet strong, understanding yet spoke up about his own opinions, and she saw in him herself. They loved each other, spending night and day together, promising each other they’d be in each other’s lives forever.
But then it all changed. She changed, at least. Her world was turned toward the side of a necessary evil when she discovered Winks, the hot new social media platform that came charging into town on an angry bull. She’d never cared much about the Internet or an online presence before, but when her cousin introduced her to it, she became instantly hooked, building a large following and refusing to quit even as she saw her marriage quickly drift apart.
“Who’s hungry??” Declan interrupted her memories as he came charging into the room, a platter of tea and biscuits in one hand and a couple napkins in the other. The pure irony.
He knelt down and handed her a biscuit, but she turned her head away. He then tried to feed her, but she bit down on his hand instead.
“Ouch!” he yelped as he winced and pulled back.
He ran out of the room to run his hand under cold water, soothing the wound. When he returned, he stared deeply at the sight of his own blood dripping down her chin, and she spat out the remains onto his rug.
“Feisty, are we?”
Instead of the anger she had expected from him, from any normal person in this situation, he smirked. He leaned down next to her and stroked her hair, planting kisses along her shoulders and neck.
“Get away from me, you fucking PIG!” she yelled, jerking her body away, but he was too strong.
He pinned her against the bed and tugged hard on her hair. “Don’t you dare fucking talk to me like that!”
His face was growing hot, and his eyeballs looked ready to pop out from their sockets. But then it turned. As quickly as his expression turned from passion to anger, it now turned… turned… almost maniac.
He cackled as he stood up, slapping her across the face and walking away. He moved over to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a picture.
“Ah, I remember this day.” His expression now turned soft and mellow. He ran his fingers over what looked like two people in the photo. “I had just gotten my job offer, one of the happiest days of my life, when I saw you, wearing the sexiest red sequin dress I had every laid eyes on. Your curves were in all the right places, your breasts plump. It was just too bad that you were still with… him.
“What?”
But then Tara remembered. The night of her two-year anniversary with Rowan. Winks had been on the market for a little over a year, and Tara’s following skyrocketed to unreachable numbers. Rowan decided to take her out to the fanciest restaurant to celebrate, a night of champagne and lobsters.
Had he seen me?
“You… you were there?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Declan gave her a smile that sent chills up and down her spine. “Oh, darling. Of course, I was. I’m always there.”
