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I won, not him.
With them.
My crew.
My stepbrothers.
“I-I was stalked,” I blurt, and Bray blinks as I roll my lips inwards. “It started in school with random, weird text messages that I would delete, thinking they were from jealous girls. I was popular, happy. I had friends and an amazing boyfriend. We were planning a life together; we were gonna get married.” Cyrus flinches. “We had picked out a house, and we were going to travel. I was happy, so fucking happy. Then the flowers started. I thought it was just my boyfriend or an admirer, but he knew nothing about it. Then I felt like I was being watched. Pictures would turn up on my phone or laptop. Some of me walking out and about or at parties… and then in my room while I was asleep. I reported it, but the police did nothing. I was so scared all the fucking time, and it only got worse. I’d wake up to find the sheets next to me mussed. He’d break in and leave presents. Sometimes, I’d come home to my panties used and on my bed.
“One day, Lucas was almost hit by a car, and I knew it was him. I went back to the police, and I begged and pleaded for help. They couldn’t do anything. They couldn’t protect me, and then a week later, it happened. We were on our way back from a party when I started to feel funny, the others too. My friend who was driving passed out, and we flipped off the road. That’s when I realised we had been drugged. The last thing I remembered was hanging upside down with blood dripping down my face before everything went dark.”
“Blair,” Asher whispers as I drop my eyes to the bedding.
“Please, let me get this out,” I beg, needing to carry on before I choke on the words. “He kidnapped us. He was mad at me, at them. He thought they were stealing me from him, especially Lucas. He was angry that I called him my boyfriend, that I kissed him, touched him. He told me I was cheating on him. I was so fucking scared. He tied us up in this old, abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere. I was hanging from the ceiling, barely able to touch the floor. My friends were tied to chairs in front of me, and I woke before them. I can still remember the smell of the hay and rain. When they woke up, they screamed, their eyes wide and mouths gagged. They tried to get free, and he laughed, watching the entire time, before he stepped into the light…”
“S-Sir?” I stutter, eyes wide. My fingers curl around the rope holding my hands, trying to lessen the strain and stop my short dress from rising. I cut my eyes to Abigail, Cara, Jones, Jack, and Lucas. They all look as confused as I feel.
Lucas freezes, his eyes narrowing.
“Call me Ryan, won’t you?” he purrs, and I blink.
“Mr. Andrews?” I say, unsure if what I’m seeing is real. Why is my English teacher here? What’s happening?
“Ryan!” he roars, rushing over to slap me. My head jerks to the side as I cry out, and I hear the others yelling behind their gags, but my breath freezes as his cold hands turn my face back to him. In those once kind brown eyes, I see nothing. How could I have not noticed that before? The crazy hiding within? He grips my cheeks so hard my lips purse. “Say it, say my name.”
“Ryan,” I mumble out of my mashed lips, and he lets me go. I suck in a breath, blinking away tears as my heart pounds. “Please, what’s going on? We were in an accident—”
“Yes, well, I couldn’t knock you all out, unfortunately, but I didn’t expect you to drive so soon,” he grumbles and wags his finger in my face like he did during class when he caught me laughing or talking. “Very naughty, Blair.”
“Blair!” Lucas yells around the gag.
“Shut up!” he snarls, turning to them. “Unless you want me to be done with you now!” His body trembles as he stares at them, and my eyes slide to Cara as she cries. I see the moment she releases her bladder in fear. He steps closer. “What a disgusting—”
“Ryan,” I call, trying to keep his attention on me, knowing he wants me, not them. Everything finally clicks together. “It’s you,” I whisper. “The flowers, the pictures—”
“Did you like them?” he questions, turning back with a smile, one that freezes my blood. “I couldn’t resist. You are just so beautiful, and when you sleep…” His hand drifts down to his trousers where I see his cock hardening. “Always teasing me, but it’s okay now. I’m here and we can be together. I know you were scared of showing you cared, worried about my job and what people would think, but I’ll keep you safe from everyone.”
“I-I am safe.”
“You’re not! They are using you! Hurting you! I’ve seen you cry because of him. They are just in the way. Don’t you see that we can be together now?” he screams in my face.
“Please let us go, I won’t tell anyone!” I implore, sobbing. I try to think of a way out of this as he places his hands on my ribs and stops the swaying of my body.
“I’m never letting you go, Blair. You’re mine now.” He turns away. “But first, I need to get rid of them. You don’t need them, only me. Forever.”
“Baby girl.” Cyrus’s voice brings me back as I wipe my face.
“H-He made them suffer. They screamed, they cried. I remember it all. I tried to distract him from them. I played along, pretending he saved me and that he was what I wanted even as bile clawed at my throat. He bought it, blinded with infatuation. It gave Lucas the chance to break one of his hands free, but somehow, he heard. He got mad—” I suck in a breath. “He stabbed Lucas. I screamed, I cried, and I raged. I told him I hated him, that he was a sick fuck, that I loved Lucas. I said shit I shouldn’t have, about how I was Lucas’s and that I would never be his. He didn’t like that.”
I meet their eyes again for a moment. “He raped me in front of them to show me I was his.” I snort bitterly. “Lucas… Lucas cried. I remember the sight of his tears. I kept my eyes on him the whole time to try and get through it. But it hurt him more than any stab wound because he couldn’t protect me. Afterwards, he decided to go back to my friends to get rid of them so I would only have him. I kept hoping someone would find us, or that I could get free. Even if it meant enduring...enduring that again, I’d do it to keep my friends alive.”
“I tried to get my hands out of the ropes while he was distracted, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get free. I couldn’t save them,” I admit. “He killed them, Cyrus. He killed them all. He left Lucas for last, but he was already bad. He’d lost so much blood. God, the things he did to him. For touching me, for loving me. Yet even as he was dying, Lucas tried to save me, to tell me everything would be okay.”
I can’t help the sob that escapes as I shiver at the memories. “And then it was just him, their bodies, and me. I passed out at some point, and when I woke again, the sun was rising. Their bodies were still there, and I could see them clearly. Fuck, I-I can still remember their empty, dead eyes and the way they screamed for me to save them. H-He had a plan. He was going to burn the warehouse and make it seem like we went there to party and had an accident so he could run away with me. I knew if he did, I would never be free again, so I played him again like he had finally shown me the light with their deaths. I made it seem like he saved me, that I wanted to be with him too, and that night—that night when the sun set as he was spreading the gasoline, I got free.
“I had been working the ropes on the hook all day, and they finally snapped. I snuck up behind him. He turned just as I grabbed a shovel, and I hit him over the head, again and again, until I couldn’t hold it anymore. But I couldn’t leave them. I got his phone and rang the police, but I couldn’t leave them,” I whisper. “I got them free, and I covered them as much as I could. I sat with Lucas in my arms, telling him I was sorry, that I loved him. But it was too late, they were all gone, all dead... because of me.”
“What happened after?” Bray asks softly.
