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I picked it up, still seeing the solid pink line and the second, half-solid, half-faint line. Noticing the box sitting there, I tilted it, letting the instructions slide out, and unfolded the paper. I was reading about the different types of positive results that could show up when I heard the knock on the door.
With a huge grin, I couldn't drop because, yeah, Jack had been right; I was pregnant. I wanted to go to a doctor to confirm for my own peace of mind, but the box boasted an over 99% accuracy rate. I disarmed the alarm and took the chain off the door after peeking through the peephole to see Lock standing there waiting to be let in. I turned the knob and pulled open the door.
"Hey, Lock—"
A loud bang and spray of blood cut off my greeting. I stared, horrified at the wet stain that was growing steadily on the front of Lock's red shirt. It was the same color as his shirt, but the wetness continued to expand as we both looked down at it. Lock looked up at me and opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, a thick stream of blood rolled down his chin.
As I stood there frozen, I watched his wide eyes go blank as if the light went out in them. Then, as if in slow motion, his knees bent, collapsing, and he fell forward toward the open doorway. I jumped back before he could fall into me, still in shock by what I was seeing. Once he was face down on the ground, that was when I saw the hole in the center of his back. And the blood. So much blood. It began to run over the sides of the hole in his back and down until it started to pool on the entryway floor.
I finally opened my mouth to scream, but a voice I had never hoped to hear again trapped the sound in my throat, making it instead come out as a strangled gurgle.
"Ah, Sally, my little patchwork doll. Finally, I found you! You know you are mine, my dear. Why did you run from me?"
Without further thought, I spun on my heel and ran back down the hall toward the bedroom. I had no idea where to go or what to do. My only thought was to escape the monster that had kept me captive and destroyed my life. I let out a scream when my hair was yanked hard, and I was pulled back against the body of the man I hated and feared more than any other.
"Tsk tsk. I won't ever let you go again, Sally, love." He brought his nose to my neck and sniffed there, making me shiver. He hadn't done anything like that before. I had always been more like a doll to experiment on in the past. Having him press his face against me the way he was sent new waves of terror into my soul. "Things have changed, haven't they, sweet Sally? You need to be punished, and I have so many ways to do it."
He started to drag me back down the hall by my hair. I held onto his wrists to relieve the pain of my hair being ripped out by the roots as I screamed and begged him to let me go. He ignored my pleas, and when I told him that Jack would find me and kill him, he just laughed.
"No one is going to take you away from me again. Don't you see? You're all I have left. I have nothing else to live for. A man would do just about anything to keep his one last treasure. Let this Jack come. I'll be waiting."
"No! Please, Dr. Stein, please don't do this! I'm pregnant!" He paused as we reached the doorway and looked back at me. He seemed to stare at my belly for a long moment, then shrugged.
"It doesn't matter. Neither of us will live long enough for it to make a difference." Then he stepped over Lock's body, dragging me with him as I slid in the still warm blood. My bare feet left red footprints along the walkway, then over the rocky ground, until we reached the edge of the house before he pulled me around the corner. The rough gravel of the unfinished yard dug painfully into the soles of my feet, and my neck was beginning to hurt from the odd angle my head was being held by my hair.
I tried screaming at the top of my lungs, hoping that anyone would be able to hear me, knowing that the cabin was too far from the compound, that even if the entire club had been standing outside, no one would have been able to hear me from so far away. But still, I couldn't give up. I couldn't just let him take me without a fight. If I could get my hands on a weapon of some kind if I could hurt him…
A bright spot of white caught my attention through the tears that blurred my vision. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear away the tears enough to see what it was. When I realized what I was seeing, my heart gave a painful lurch in my chest. I cried out and pulled, trying to get to Zero. He was lying still in the dirt, not far from the house.
"Zero! No!" I sobbed, yanking, not caring that I was hurting myself in the process.
"Come on, girl."
"No! How could you!" I screamed desperately as I twisted painfully in his grip, wanting nothing more than to see if Zero was still alive. A sharp jab poked me hard in the side, making me freeze. I looked down to see the gun that had killed Lock was now pointed at my stomach.
"You're coming with me. Now!" He pressed the gun harder into my side, his threat clear.
With another sob, I gave one last long look at Zero and allowed the monster to lead me away from the dog that had saved my life. Inside, I was begging for forgiveness. I longed to go to Zero, to hold him and run my fingers through his soft fur. I wanted to thank him for being so brave and strong. For being my hero.
We turned the corner to the back of the house, which was covered by overgrown bushes. Jack had plans for the cabin; he just had yet to get around to them. Part of those plans he had told me about one night as we were lying in bed together was to put in a swimming pool and a bar-b-que grill. Eventually, there would be a lovely patio where he could hang out with his closest friends, but for now, it was a mess, and no one ever came out this way. Behind one of the large bushes was a small dark car.
The doctor opened the trunk and pushed me inside. Before I could even try to sit up or roll over, the trunk was slammed closed, and I was locked inside the dark. There was little room to move, but I did my best, feeling around in the darkness above my head for the latch that all vehicles come equipped with. I figured it was a long shot, that he'd likely disabled it in some way or even removed it altogether. All I found was warm metal.
The car began to move virtually silently. That's when I realized that I was in an electric vehicle. No wonder we hadn't heard it parking outside the small house. It might as well have been a ghost. Jack was going to be infuriated when he realized all the simple mistakes that were made today. If he even figured them all out since it seemed the doctor had done a decent job outsmarting us all. Apparently, Zero was the only one that caught on, and now he had paid the price.
Before I allowed myself to get swallowed up by grief and fear again, I continued my examination of the stuffy trunk, but it was completely empty. There wasn't even the tiniest crack to allow the smallest amount of light in, so I had to use my hands to feel where the tail lights would be, hoping to break one, thinking maybe I could stick my hand out and signal another car. That was impossible, too. There was no easy access to the lights, hidden the way they were behind a panel. I couldn't find a way to lift the floorboard, and there wasn't a latch to gain access to the backseat. I was completely and utterly fucked. I could only allow myself to be thankful that at least it wasn't summer, so even though it was stuffy and uncomfortable, the heat shouldn't become unbearable.
The car came to a stop much sooner than I had expected, and I held my breath. I didn't know if we'd reached our destination or if he was stopping for another reason after such a short drive, and I wasn't certain what I wanted the answer to be. The man seemed to have become even more unhinged since the last time I saw him. The thought made a shiver run up my spine despite the warmth of the unventilated trunk.
We hadn't been driving for long and couldn't be far from Jack's home. I was afraid to allow myself to hope that being so close would make it easier for him to find me. I lay in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe while waiting to find out what was coming next.
I listened to footsteps outside the car and braced, but nothing could have prepared me for the blinding brightness of the sunlight after being in the dark for even such a short period. Dr. Stein didn't give me a chance to adjust, though. He grabbed the arm I had thrown up to shield my eyes and began to pull me roughly. I cried out in pain as I fell to my knees on the concrete.
"Come, girl. We don't have time for your dramatics." The doctor huffed at me impatiently as he pulled me quickly to my feet. I glanced to the left and right, wondering if I would have a chance to make a run for it, but the sight of where we were had me freezing long enough to have the gun pressed firmly into my side again. "Walk normally, sweetheart. We are just a man and a woman heading into their motel room." Another firm press had me nodding my head in agreement even as I wanted to turn to him with an incredulous look. Normal? He just pulled me from the trunk. What part of that would seem normal to anyone but a serial killer?
I allowed him to lead me to the row of rooms, limping beside him. He was no taller than I was, being a man of short stature, so his strides weren't very long, but my knees hurt from the fall. Not to mention, the soles of my feet were still sore from the walk on the rocky dirt back at the house. When we came up to the row of motel room doors, I nearly laughed out loud when I realized which one he was leading me to.
He opened the door and pulled me inside before shoving me toward the bed. He kept the gun trained on me as I fell facedown, immediately scrambling to sit up, hating to be in a vulnerable position around this man who haunted my dreams.
