Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pain pulsing through my skull wakes me. I blink at the dim space, trying to get my bearings. I’m on something soft—a couch?—in a small, open room.
Fear wraps its cold tentacles around me as the memories flash. One minute I was leaning over my engine, and then?—
“Oh good, you’re awake.” Jeremy carries a folding chair toward me.
I flinch, which jerks something on the floor. Something cold and heavy around my ankle. “Jeremy!” I cry out, wishing I could control the waver in my voice. “What is this? What are you doing?”
“I need to keep you safe, Ava.”
My breaths are coming too fast and the sizzling panic is eating through me. “No, Jeremy, please.” Hot tears prick my eyes.
His smile falters, and he shakes his head. “It’s for your protection.”
I gulp air and scream so hard my eyes and throat burn, making me cough.
Jeremy tilts his head, watching me like I’m some kind of specimen. “Nobody can hear you down here. I made sure of it. ”
I scrabble from the couch, but the chain on my ankle trips me and I go sprawling. Lurching to my feet, I sprint forward, but the chain jerks me back and I fall again, landing on my knees. My kneecaps erupt in pain, shooting daggers down my shins.
It’s then I notice the bed in the corner and the vase of white roses.
I scream again until I’m shaking and coughing.
Jeremy walks to a shelf unit along the right of the room that’s stacked with cases of water and boxes of food. He tears open the plastic around one of the cases and sets one of the bottles on the floor near me.
That he didn’t bring it closer makes me feel like an animal. Like he’s afraid to get too close.
Alarm bells clang so hard in my head that the pain feels real. “You can’t keep me here.”
Jeremy sits down on the chair again, the hinges squeaking under his weight. “In time, I won’t need to. You’ll see.”
In time.
My stomach lurches but I coax a breath through my mouth. If I’m going to get out of here, I need to be able to think logically. How did I get into this room? I wince as the memory of the two of us bending over my engine returns. Did he hit me? Drug me?
“Where are we?” I take another quick scan of my surroundings. The walls are decorated with pictures, some in frames, some?—
I swallow my panic.
The pictures are all of me.
“My grandma’s house,” he says. “She left it to me when she passed.”
I never went to his house back in high school. Did he live with his grandma? Think, Ava! Where are we? Where did his grandma live? Are we still in Finn River? Once I escape, I need to know where to run.
My brain snags on a missing detail. “Why are there no windows? ”
He laughs, like I’ve said something funny. “We’re in the basement.”
A shock wave of dread spears my chest. I force my mind to focus on the details. Where is the entrance? How do I get out of here?
“How did you get those?” I squint at the pictures. There’s one blown up from robotics class, our senior year of high school. Jeremy has his arm around my shoulders as we proudly display our final project. We’re both smiling. Did he have some kind of crush on me back then?
“I’ve been watching out for you for a long time, Ava.”
“You mean stalking me.”
His eyes darken with hurt. “Don’t talk like that.”
“You broke into my apartment,” I say in a rush.
“Your windows were always unlocked.”
Not the same as an invitation! I shake my head, but it just makes my head pound harder.
“The bunny,” I whisper. “Why?”
His sudden angry look sends an icy flush down my spine. “It’s a dangerous world out there, Ava. You’re so much safer with me.”
I try to make sense of this, but the threads lead nowhere. He’s crazy.
But how crazy? The kind that kills?
“Jeremy, I need you to let me go.”
He shakes his head, his lips a tight line. “How can I protect you unless you’re with me?”
Frowning makes my eye sockets throb so I force in another breath. “I don’t understand.”
Jeremy stands. “It’s going to take some getting used to. That’s okay. We have lots of time for that.”
He walks to the corner of the room near a bookcase crowded with books to a seam in the wall. “Are you hungry? I could go fix us a snack before we settle in for the night.”
Icy chills fire over my skin. I press to my feet, jangling the heavy metal chain affixed to the middle of the floor. “Let me go, Jeremy. My parents—” I start to cry again “—my friends…Hutch…”
Just saying his name makes me sob. This isn’t happening. Hutch was coming to my house. He’ll know something is wrong when I’m not there. But will he know where to find me?
Jeremy’s lips curl into a sneer. “He’s never been good enough for you. Don’t you see that? He only cares about himself.”
I picture Hutch at the cemetery, racing from his truck to grab me in his arms and hold me. “That’s not true.”
“Has he ever chosen you over the others? Over his precious career?” Jeremy’s eyes flash. “Soon he’ll leave, just like he always does. He’ll forget about you.”
I shut my eyes to block the pain surging up through me. “No.”
“He doesn’t love you. Not like I do.”
“Stop!” I grit my teeth but the pain tears through me. I try to get away from him but the chain jerks, making me hop on my foot to keep from falling.
“I gave up everything for you, Ava.”
The pictures of me with my family and friends pinned to the walls stare back at me. Summers in Finn River, me walking through the UCSF campus, at the café with my colleagues, shots of me and my parents at my medical school graduation ceremony, and many of me since I moved home: running at dusk, walking into my office, loading groceries into my car, filling my hummingbird feeders.
He’s been there all this time, watching. “That’s why you left the Air Force?”
Understanding softens his sickly eyes. “Now do you see? I built this for us. For you. So you can be safe. And we can be together.”
“But I don’t…want to be here, Jeremy,” I say, my voice shaky.
“You’ll change your mind.” He turns away, and the wall opens inward, revealing a narrow, dark corridor.
“I’ll see you soon.” He disappears into the space.
“No!” I scream. “Jeremy!”
The door shuts, sealing with a soft thump.