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Even at Joshua’s worst, he always gave me choices. Do what he said, and he wouldn’t torture me. He might indulge in light whipping or a hard spanking, because it turned him on to make me squirm and cry out, but if I obeyed him, I wouldn’t suffer agonies or the threat of death.
Joshua’s world was Old Testament brutal but rational. Survivable. Behave and live. Slide your toe over the line and it will be chopped off. The men he hunted down, they chose their own death by virtue of their evil actions.
With Micah, there will be no choices, no safe harbor.
I struggle not to cry in front of Micah.Joshua will find me. He’ll tear the world apart to get to me. He won’t let me die.
I just have to survive whatever Micah’s going to do to me until he gets here. Horrifying pictures flash through my mind, images of mutilation and agony, but I quickly sweep them aside before hysteria can overwhelm me.Live in the now. Live right in this minute. He isn’t hurting me in this minute.
I force myself to look at him, even though inside I’m quailing away from him. He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans and sneakers, and is watching me with amused interest. He’s got Joshua’s handsome face—the same sharp cheekbones and sensual lips—but when I look in his eyes, I see two pits of slithering serpents. How could I not have seen the depth of his evil when I first met him?
He gestures impatiently, and I see he’s got a bottle of Gatorade in his hand. He gives it to me without a word, and I drink it slowly, drawing it out so I can delay whatever he has planned for me. I’ve learned the hard way, from Joshua, that every second without pain is a blessing and not to be taken for granted.
The sweet, salty liquid feels like heaven running down my parched throat. Reluctantly, I hand him the empty bottle, and he throws it into a trash can sitting next to the tray table.
“Why is Heather chained and I’m not?” I ask, my voice raspy and weak.
“Do you find that reassuring?” His voice is laced with cruel mockery. “Do you think that means I’m going to be gentle with you, Tamara? It doesn’t. I didn’t chain you because I didn’t need to. You were drugged and unconscious. Now you’re awake, you’ll be restrained as needed.”
I take a deep breath and let it out. “I’d find it reassuring if you just let us go. Your fight is with Joshua, not me. Or her.”
He reaches out, and I flinch, expecting a blow. He laughs, a harsh cawing sound, and strokes my hair out of my eyes. I force myself not to shudder away from his light touch, but my skin crawls where his fingers brushed against me.
“As I recall, Joshua’s got an annoyingly high pain tolerance.” His cold blue eyes drill into me as he speaks, and I feel like I’m staring into the void. “I’ll get my hands on him at a time of my own choosing, but for now, I’m going to hurt you very badly, every day, and I’m going to videotape it. And I’ll send him the videos. And then I’ll kill you, and I’ll send him that video too. That’s going to cause him more pain than if I took a branding iron to his pretty face.” He announces my terrible fate with threads of malice weaving through his calm voice.
I refuse to quail in terror or beg. That’s an aphrodisiac for men like him.
“Pretty face? Quite an ego,” I say coolly, since he also has Joshua’s pretty face. If I can just get my hands on something sharp, I’ll make his face a lot less pretty.
His lips move into the shape of a smile, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, just like the night I met him at the nightclub.
“Quite a mouth,” he retorts. “I see what Joshua liked in you. You know, you should have just gone home with me that night when I asked you to.”
“So you could have butchered me then instead of now?” I scoff.
“Tamara. Sweetheart.” He says it with mild reproof. “I’m not that kind of serial killer.”
Sweetheart. I’m going to torture and kill you, sweetheart.
I rake him with my hateful gaze. “All right then. What kind of serial killer are you?”
“The kind who kills for revenge.” His lips curl again in that imitation of a smile, and his voice is light and cheery. “That’s why I’m going to kill you. For revenge.”
A wave of panic threatens to sweep me away. I let out a shaky, hysterical laugh. “You’re sitting there, perfectly calm, not angry at me, having aconversationwith me and telling me you’re going to torture and murder me, when I’ve never done a thing to you.”
“Yes.” He cocks his head to the side, and he’s staring at me in a creepy way. There’s a sly feline look of cruelty in his eyes, the look of a cat batting a mouse between soft paws. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and every instinct in my body screams for me to run. But there’s nowhere to run.
I shudder and slide down the bed a little to get farther away from him. “You’re studying me, aren’t you? To see what my reaction is? To try to learn what normal human behavior looks like so you can mimic it?”
“Yes. I’ve almost got it down, I think. I’m a pretty good actor.”
“You’re a lousy actor. You’re as human as a scorpion, and I’m glad I turned you down that night, you freak.” I spit the words out with venom.
The insult bounces off him without impact. Calling him names may make me feel a little better, but ultimately it’s a waste of my breath. Harsh words can’t hurt him, as he’s completely unconcerned about what anyone else thinks about him. Like all psychopaths, he’s an extreme narcissist, and his opinions are the only ones that matter in his world.
“I’ve always wondered. Why did you turn me down?”
I look away. Why should I share information with my executioner? “Because I just wasn’t that into you.”
