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I try my best to keep calm. Rochelle is clearly insane, yet I don’t care. I hate her. I hate him.
Did he know? Did he know she killed my family? Did Ryan know she killed the girl he said he loved? Oh, God. Oh, God, she killed them! She killed them all.
I feel tears coming. I feel my body tremble.
Jason. Oh, God, he thinks his father had something to do with my family’s death. What have I done?
I need him to know. I need to tell him I’m sorry. I need to find a way to get out of this and back to him.
Tonight, he fights in a cage while I will fight just as hard for us.
“You’re right!” I cry out. “He would have loved you.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
“I’m not!” I yell. I can’t yell. I have to keep calm. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He cares for you.”
“I know he does! He loves me.” She covers her face. “He loves me, and if you and that man weren’t nosing around, I would have left you alone. I would have, but now I can’t. I can’t, and it’s your fault!”
“I want to help you. I want to get back to Jason. Then you can get back to Ryan. No one has to know.”
She laughs maniacally. “I killed your family! Do you think I believe you?”
Biting back rage, I try to say whatever I can in order to make it out of here alive. “If they weren’t gone, I would have never met Jason.”
She looks at me curiously.
Oh, please forgive me, Heidi.
“Heidi wouldn’t have let me be with a man like him.”
Her eyes narrow.
“She would have hated him like she did anyone else I ever wanted to date.”
Rochelle nods. “She threatened to tell. She threatened to tell my mother, Ryan’s father.”
“She didn’t understand,” I say as bile fills my mouth.
She shakes her head. “She needed to die.”
I hold back a sob and close my eyes.
She grips my shoulders and shakes me. “She needed to die!”
“Okay!” I cry out. “Okay!”
I open my eyes, and they meet hers. Her eyes are as black as night, her pupils fully dilated. She is fucking gone.
“He knows,” she whispers and smiles. “He knows I killed them. He hates that I killed them.”
“I’m sure he hates the position it puts you in.” I cringe inwardly.
“What position!” she spits, and her saliva hits my face.
“He loves you, right?”
“Of course he does!”
“That position. Putting someone he loves in the position that they”—I pause and try to remain calm through the lie—“kill for love.”
“I did it for love. I did it all for love.” She steps back and starts pacing. “I went to talk to her. After she threatened to expose us, I wanted to make sure she kept her mouth shut. Your parents came into the room and told me to leave. I hit him over the head with the barrel of my stepfather’s gun. I made them tie him up. Then I made your sister tie your mom. She wouldn’t stop screaming, so I cut your mother. I cut her up good.”
I close my eyes and try to focus on something other than her voice as she continues to tell me how she slaughtered my family. I don’t know how I manage, but I do.
“I didn’t shoot them.” She sits at the end of the bed. “It would have been easier, but then Ryan’s father would have gone to jail. It was smart thinking on my part. It all was. No one suspected a twenty-two-year-old graduate student could pull that off.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” I tell her.
“No. No, because I haven’t decided what I am going to do with you yet.” She sneers, “I can’t stand the sight of you.”
“I understand,” I lie. “Can I at least get a drink? My mouth is dry. And maybe a blanket? I’m very cold.”
She stands up and walks out of the room. I pull on the ropes tied to my wrists, trying to break free, but the pain sears through my right wrist, and I know it’s broken from the fall. I whimper and close my eyes tightly.
No, I tell myself. No crying. Be strong, be strong.
She leaves me alone for a long time. I don’t know if I am in shock or if I am just unfeeling. I know my head, my wrists, my whole body hurts, but I don’t let it take me.
I ready myself for a fight. I ready myself for vengeance. I ready myself for any opportunity given to unleash years of fury. And if all else fails, I ready myself for death.
She comes in and tells me to open my mouth as she holds a glass of water in her hand. I do as she asks. I open my mouth for more, and she shoves something in it and holds my mouth shut.
