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“Gareth,” I muttered his name under my breath. “What are you doing here?” He hadn’t come with us, which meant he’d come on his own. Had he been spying on me this whole time? Had he seen what Rick and I did? I guess I’d have to wait and see.
“I could ask you the same question,” he spoke with a frown, his mouth tight as it curled downward. He was the opposite of happy, so full of that sneer the snickering expression filled his eyes. He had that look down pat, that’s for sure.
Rolling my eyes at him, I tried to walk around him, to leave him be and end this conversation, but I only made it two steps before he reached out and grabbed my arm… my left arm, just above where I’d cut myself. The wound had healed; the stitches were nearly dissolved, but a pang of remembrance still rose up within me when he touched me there, above my hoodie’s sleeve.
“We’re going home,” he growled out, “now.” He sounded pissed. So pissed I had to assume he had, in fact, seen.
Great. Wonder what the psycho had in store for me now?
Gareth started to pull me along, through the crowd, and he was so strong, I couldn’t stop him. The only thing I could do was stumble along after him and say, “Let me go, Gareth. Let me go, or I’ll—”
That got him to stop and whirl on me. We stood in the center of the busy street, people all around us, going on with their lives, totally ignorant of the fact that a damned serial killer was within reach of them.
He narrowed his eyes at me, nostrils flaring, and he hissed out, “You’ll what? Scream? Try it. See what happens. Alistair’s here somewhere. All he’ll have to do is say you’re not well, that you haven’t been well for a long time. There’s a cut on your wrist to prove it.”
Shit. He was right, of course. Everyone respected Alistair here, so all he had to do was say I wasn’t well, and say it calmly, and everyone would believe him. Why would they think otherwise? They had no idea behind his mask lived a cold, calculating mastermind who had apparently stalked me for weeks, if not months.
When I didn’t say anything, Gareth muttered, “That’s what I fucking thought.” And then he turned to continue pulling me along.
He pulled me away from the street fair, away from the crowds. He’d parked his car on one of the side streets near the street fair, and he hadn’t bothered to lock it. He simply opened the passenger door for me, like he was about to shove me in.
After he tore my sketchbook from me and tossed it inside, I slapped his chest. “Let me go, Gareth. You’ve made your point—”
“No, I don’t think I have,” his voice came out dark and dangerous, and his free hand dipped into his pocket. He pulled out a small cloth, and that cloth was pressed against my mouth and nose in the next moment as he finished, “But I will.”
I tried to fight him off harder now, but he still had a hold of my left arm, just above my wrist, so it was really only one arm against Gareth, and that made for an impossible fight. I held my breath as long as I could, hoping someone was around to see this happening, but a quick glance around us told me we were alone. Everyone was still at the street fair.
It got to the point where I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, and I inhaled a deep, frantic lungful of air. It smelled sweet, almost, and immediately a cloudy haze fell over me. It was like I was given anesthesia. My body’s extremities became heavy, my thoughts incoherent. Even my eyelids fought with me.
After a few more inhales, everything went black.
But it didn’t stay black. Or, at least, that’s how it felt. I had no idea how much time had passed before I came to, staring at the ceiling of my room. A small lamp on the nightstand was on, illuminating the room in a dim, yellow light. I groaned, my head hurting, and I tried to sit up, but I found I couldn’t move.
My wrists were tied with… was it rope? Or possibly a sheet? I couldn’t tell, but they were tied together, over my head, attached to the headboard, so I couldn’t loosen them. My left wrist was on the bottom, my right wrist on top so I could feel the remnants of the stitches. My ankles, I noticed, were also tied with the same stuff, though they weren’t tied together like my wrists. No, they were apart, each fastened to an opposite end of the footboard.
It was then, I noticed, I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Meaning: I was naked. Butt-naked, bared to the room.
I heard the sound of metal, a strange sound I couldn’t immediately place, and I turned my head to see Gareth standing against the wall, just beyond the nightstand, holding onto a switchblade. He was toying with it, jerking the sharp blade out before tucking it back in and doing it all over again on repeat, and all the while, he glared at me like he wanted to kill me.
But that’s the thing about Gareth. If he wanted to kill me, he’d already have done it by now.
No, this jerk wanted to scare me, to play with me, to remind me that these past few weeks hadn’t changed a thing. I still belonged to him.
I had no idea if Alistair and my mom were still at the street fair or not. I didn’t know how much time had passed. What I did know were the facts before me, and that included the rage I felt toward Gareth.
“Gareth,” I spoke his name like it was acid on my tongue, like I couldn’t say it quickly enough, and I glared at him all the while, my head turned on my pillow, my bare chest heaving with slow, hard breaths.
He didn’t respond. All he did was glare at me, as if picturing digging that switchblade into my skin, so I went on, “What is this? You going to kill me, hmm? You going to cut me up, torture me, or something? Let’s get on with it, then.” Was I calling his bluff or tempting the monster? I didn’t know. Did it matter?
Gareth pushed off the wall, and in a matter of seconds, he’d jumped on the bed, straddling my hips and kneeling over me. He set the sharp edge of the open switchblade against the base of my neck.
“I should fucking kill you,” he whispered. He leaned down, baring his teeth at me, the anger seeping out of him enough to fill the room and then some. “I should kill you here and now and be done with you, for what you did.”
Ah, so he did know. I decided playing coy would be a mistake, so I owned it instead: “Be specific. Are you talking about Rick, or are you talking about Alistair?” Throwing them both in his face might be a mistake, but if he was going to be a petty psycho, two could play that game.
Gareth’s features twisted in a scowl, and the pressure between the switchblade and my neck increased. “What the fuck are you talking about? My uncle—”
“They’re both your uncles, technically,” I interrupted, acting totally unbothered by the fact that he held a knife to my throat. “But, just so we’re clear, I’m asking you if this tantrum is because you saw Rick fucking me in the woods or because you found out Alistair had me every which way in the shower after he got me out of that cold room in the pool house?” When all Gareth did was glare, I chuckled. “What? Cat got your tongue? Come on, Gareth. React. That’s what you do best, isn’t it?”
