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“Leave now before I call the police.”
I turned my head to see the officer sitting in the back corner immediately stand up. He stopped and looked at me, clearly undecided if he should take his attention away from me. I jerked my head in their direction and mouthed, “Go!” I saw him glance at Brent first and rolled my eyes.
Before he could take more than a few steps, the woman pulled a handgun out of her purse. She pointed it right at Grace’s chest, making everybody freeze, and a several of people cry out in alarm.
“Move!” she bellowed. “Get out of the way, or the first bullet is going through you.” She was seething, her chest heaving. Unlike the last incident, when she had been dressed nicely but with her hair disheveled, this time she was a mess. It looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her clothing was wrinkled, and her hair was a mess, standing up in all directions as if she had been yanking on it. “She’s dead, whether you’re in the way or not.”
Grace had her hands lifted, staring down at the gun. Her fingers were trembling, and her breaths were coming in short and fast. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t calm down. Movement from the side had me turning my wide, frightened eyes to look, seeing Officer Michaels moving slowly toward the woman from one direction as Brent and Ethan’s dad moved in from another. They were moving in slowly, likely trying to avoid spooking her while she wielded her gun.
I sat the drinks on the counter beside me and gripped the edge hard, not daring to breathe lest the older woman pulled the trigger aimed right for Grace’s chest.
The low, barely audible voice sounded in my ear. Before I could even take a breath in to scream, I felt a small sting in my neck, and I knew, I just knew, he had come for me.
“Hello again.”
***
My head ached and was pounding. I groaned as I tried to shift positions, wondering why the super comfortable bed I had grown accustomed to so quickly felt like rocks. For some reason, I couldn’t move, and I was so cold…
Suddenly realizing what happened, I tried to jerk myself up, but all I did was choke. Through my coughing, I cursed, wondering what the fresh hell was going on. I definitely wasn’t in a cage. I tried to move my arms, but it only tightened whatever was around my throat. It was rough, scratching at the skin there, and I could already tell it was chafing me raw because of the slight burning feeling. My eyes took in what I could see, but I couldn’t turn my head.
All around me was wood. Wooden beams made up the ceiling, walls constructed of wood from the limited view I had from the corner of my eye. “Oh god,” I whispered hoarsely. Tears immediately pricked my eyes as I fully took in the situation.
I was tied to a wooden table with some kind of rough, rustic rope. My hands were tied above my head, making my shoulders ache with the prolonged position. My legs were spread wide, probably tied to the legs of the table like my hands were, and somehow my neck was connected to my hands, preventing me from even turning my head a single inch. Trying to move my arms only resulted in the rope around my neck tightening further. Every movement caused me to strangle myself.
The hopelessness set in quickly. My heart felt like it was breaking in two, making the pain inside my chest worse than the aches from laying on the hard surface or the pain from the harsh ropes. My breathing became shallow as I began to panic.
I had never been claustrophobic. Even when I had been inside the cage, I hadn’t felt this overwhelming fear of being trapped. My chest heaved as I tried to take in enough oxygen, but the fear was too strong, and I couldn’t calm myself.
In a state of full-blown panic, I began to scream at the top of my lungs, gurgling and choking when I couldn’t hold back my instinct to struggle free. “Help me! Someone help me! Get me out of here! Please! Help me!”
My chest hurt badly as my lungs labored for breaths that weren’t enough to satisfy my body’s needs, and darkness began to creep in around the edges of my vision as I stared with wide eyes at the wooden beams above me. I was inside of a nightmare that I was deathly afraid I wasn’t going to wake up from.
Through my tears and screams, I could feel new pains. My throat was raw on the outside, but on the inside, it felt raw, too. My screams tapered off to whimpers as my voice left me. I couldn’t have guessed how long I had laid there. My panic hadn’t gone away, but my body had already become exhausted from the fight, and the bitter taste of defeat filled my mouth as the adrenaline flowed out of me in a rush.
I lay there, nothing but a pitiful, whimpering mess of tears and blood, when I heard footsteps approach from outside. It sounded like someone was coming up wooden steps. I clamped my mouth shut, biting my lips, not realizing they were bleeding from the abuse of my teeth. My entire body shook as panic receded and terror took over.
He was here.
The door creaked open, and though I couldn’t see who had entered, I could tell. He exuded an aura of pure malice and evil. It filled the room as he stepped closer and closer, overwhelming me.
I blinked as a silhouette came into view. My vision wouldn’t clear enough to let me see who he was. Or maybe my mind was blocking it, protecting me. I closed my eyes and wept.
“My little bird is back in my cage.” I felt his hand slide across the rope along my neck. “Her cage is a little different now, though.” His voice was low, raspy, not as deep as either Brent’s or Ethan’s. There was a small nagging inside my brain that I may have heard his voice at one time, but I couldn’t place it. It brought on a new wave of terror that I may have been face to face with a killer and never knew.
I tried to speak, but all I could do was hoarsely rasp out. “Please, why are you doing this?”
“Look at me.” I clenched my jaw, not wanting to see the monster, and put a face to all my nightmares of the last few months. “Look at me!” His bellow echoed around the room. With a whimper, I cracked my eyes open. I still couldn’t see properly, but his shape hovered above me. “Do you know who I am, little bird?”
My lips trembled as I tried to get the word out. A whispered “no” was all I could get through my painful throat. I blinked again as my vision began to clear. All I could make out were his eyes, the same ones that had been hidden by the mask he’d worn in the basement. I couldn’t focus on anything else and truly didn’t want to. I didn’t want the last thing I saw before I died to be the monster.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, making more tears leak out to roll down my temples and soak into my already damp hair. “All those times I came to you, talked to you, gave you gifts, and you don’t even remember me?” The malice in his tone caused the hairs on my body to stand on end as confusion flooded me.
“You little bitches are all the same.” His head disappeared, and I let my tired eyes close. “I watched you. I left you flowers. But just like all the others, you couldn’t even make yourself care enough to remember me.” His steps were loud as he paced back and forth. Sounds came to me as I listened to him curse and rant. Down by my feet, items were slammed down onto the tabletop.
“You know, I saw you last night. I followed you, watching. You and that man.” He sounded furious. “I had no idea what you were doing. I almost went to you when you were sitting in the dark. Did you feel me watching you?” I knew the dark had seemed menacing. I thought it was just my mind running wild, playing tricks on me. Now I understood. My subconscious knew there was a monster lurking in the dark.
My trembling was so violent that even though I wasn’t pulling at them, the ropes were sawing into my tender skin. My mind frantically raced as I thought back to months ago, before the nightmare began. I remembered seeing flowers show up in the bookstore. The owner had been delighted, arranging them so prettily on the counter next to the register. For a week, a new bouquet arrived every day. But there had been no note to give any indication of who they had been from. We hadn’t even assumed that they would be from a secret admirer. The thought never even crossed our minds.
