Chapter 4
ARIA
I’ve never felt my heart beat so violently, each thud like a lightning strike to my ribs, knocking the air out of my lungs.
Without thinking, my hands fling up to the arm clamped around my throat, nails digging into cold, leather sleeves as if that’s enough to pry him off me. He doesn’t budge. Not even an inch.
My fingers curl even deeper into his arm, knuckles blanching with the brute effort. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to suppress the burn behind them as I buck and twist, a faint plea rising in my throat.
“Please.”
My voice sounds weak. Fragile.
My arms stiffen. Irrational hope surges. Every part of me now rocks with convulsive force as I latch onto him with everything I have.
Holding onto this stranger. This criminal.
This killer.
My veins go cold, terrified he’ll drag the blade across my neck before I even finish pleading.
Soot-colored specks cloud my vision when I dare to glance back at the limp body swaying in front of me.
Mrs. Shaw. Kelsey’s mom.
I choke on a cry that breaks apart the moment pressure tightens against the pulsing vein in my throat, cold steel digging into delicate skin.
I don’t stand a chance.
The shushing in my ear makes me flinch, another cry swallowed by the blade. “Don’t fight. You’ll only make it worse.”
My insides shrivel at the deep baritone of his voice. Cold. Ruthless. Certain. I try to stifle the sobs, but a few slip out, wet gasps tangled in tears and hopelessness, my body trembling with every breath.
This is the end. There’s nothing I can do.
I can’t fight him off. I’ll die before my next breath if I even try to scream.
It won’t help. Nothing will help.
Even if someone hears me, it won’t matter. I’d only drag my friends into it. I can’t let that happen.
Sheer, black terror sweeps through me after he wedges a knee into the backs of my legs, forcing me to stumble forward. His blade-free arm clamps around my bicep to stop me from tripping or bolting as he steers me away from the kitchen.
No.
God, please—no.
The double doors loom ahead, massive and imposing, coming into view as we round the final curve of the spiral staircase.
Their grandeur feels monstrous in the dark, like I’m staring into the gate of hell itself.
With every step closer, the threshold swells in my vision.
Once I cross it, there’s no coming back.
I know it. I can’t just leave like this. Not without a trace. Not without a fight.
My stomach twists.
Do something, Aria. Anything.
Please.
My chest tightens, the pounding close to fracturing my ribs.
Every step brings me closer to my impending doom.
I can feel it in my bones. Whatever waits beyond these doors will strip me down to nothing.
Resistance wells up inside me, but it’s fleeting, dissolving like steam into the night as we reach the front of the house and he wrenches the door open.
No. No. No.
This can’t be happening to me. It just can’t.
I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to look, to acknowledge that this is real. Tears leak past my clenched eyelids, soaking my tongue with the taste of despair as I find myself praying for the first time in years.
God, if you’re out there…please. Just this once. I won’t doubt you again. Please. God. Please.
I pray with everything in me.
Then a sharp gust of wind sweeps between my legs, icy and merciless. My body shudders, but I don’t collapse. Not yet. I needed to stay strong.
My brief burst of faith rapidly diminishes to nothing.
Nobody is going to stop this.
The moment we step into the open air, the cold hits me hard.
Sharp. Biting. Relentless. It cuts through the thin silk clinging to my body, offering no protection.
The wind licks at every inch of uncovered skin, seeping through my dainty sleepwear until I’ve frosted over like one of the overthrown members of the Titanic, but even that doesn’t chill me like the sight of the car parked two houses down, waiting across the quiet road.
A vaguely familiar BMW idles in the shadows, its headlights flashing once as he jerks me in its direction.
“Start walking,” he says, tightening his grip on my arm as he urges us forward, not wanting to spare an extra second out in the open.
My legs stay rigid, hesitant, but I’m forced to conform as I stutter forward.
My stomach flips at the deep rumble of his voice when he speaks again. I know that voice.
That black car.
It can’t be. But it has to be.
A bitter film coats my tongue. Somehow, that makes everything worse. If my thoughts are right, it means none of this is random, and that idea fills me with something far beyond dread. The implication is terrifying.
What does he want with me?
Where is he taking me?
He reaches around me and yanks the door open. “Get in.”
I shake my head hard, blinking forcefully as I try to will the tears out of my vision, but instead, they rush forward with a burning force. I need to reason with him. Convince him this is a mistake.
With a strangled breath, I turn to face the threat behind me. Ice clamps around my chest as our eyes meet.
The confirmation clicks. It really is him.
He pins me with a look that halts every muscle in my body, my spine arching back as far as it can go without toppling into the car.
I thought I was ready to brace for this, to confront whatever emotion I’d find swirling in those almost translucent irises I once thought of as beautiful.
I was prepared to face aggression, rage, maybe even contempt.
But instead, emotionless gray eyes bore into me with cold indifference.
Bile rises again, bitter in my throat. Somehow, the emptiness in his expression strikes my nerves deeper than fury ever could.
The absence of feeling means he’s in control. It also means I have nothing to hold onto, nothing to provoke or twist in my favor. It doesn’t just mean I’m screwed. It means I’m finished. This is the final nail in the coffin. No way out.
So many questions cut through my panic.
How long has he been following me?
Am I the reason Kelsey’s mom is hanging dead inside?
Am I to blame?
Will he hurt me next?
Terrible regret assails me as I recount the moment we first bumped into one another, although now I wonder if that was even his first time seeing me.
“Please don’t,” I begin to plead, the words sounding small as they scrape past my quivering lips. He leans into me, my back bowing, arms stretching across the car’s sides to keep me from falling.
“Get the fuck inside,” he grits, gripping my arm and hoisting me up before shoving me inside the passenger seat, slamming the door and circling around to the driver’s seat.
My lashes clump together from excessive moisture, partially obscuring my view. I cringe in my seat when I hear him settle beside me behind the wheel.
Then all the doors lock. My fingers tense in my lap.
Acid burns cavities in my throat. Claustrophobia manifests until my chest tightens and my vision dims. I feel like I might black out.
Maybe then I’ll wake up from this nightmare and find myself back in Kelsey’s room, where it’s warm and safe.
Ignorant to the atrocity downstairs. I should have never left her room.
When he leans over the console, my shoulders jerk, instinct forcing me to press back into the seat as far as the padded cushion allows.
Since disappearing into it isn’t possible, I revert to squeezing my eyes shut and bracing myself, a thin whimper slipping out of me.
Seconds later, I hear the click of a seatbelt as he buckles me in.
Then he retracts into his own seat, his body heat dissipating from my vicinity.
I breathe out a shaky breath, but the relief doesn’t last long.
The engine hums to life, and despite its gentleness, I jolt.
Things are escalating. I’m not dreaming.
He pulls out of the curb and drives us away.
Panic skyrockets in my chest. It feels like my heart might implode at any moment.
I feel useless, anxiously peering through the window and watching the houses in the neighborhood blur past us like falling dominoes, fading into the distance, into nothing but tiny blobs.
My limbs lock in place. Everything’s set in motion now.
Maybe I should’ve fought back while we were still inside, but I couldn’t live with the devastation it would’ve caused. It’s not enough that Mrs. Shaw’s blood is on my hands; I couldn’t add two more to that.
What would a couple of high school girls do against a lethal man with an iron grip and death glimmering in his eyes?
If they were smart, they’d call the cops before anything else, but I’m no fool to think they’d show up in time to save any of us.
Fact is, I’m doomed. Even now, I know it as I choke back broken tears of surrender. It’s over for me.
It feels like there aren’t any right choices to make. I’m reduced to a badly scripted character in a horror film who’s making all of the wrong decisions while we shout at her through the TV screen. But things change once the unthinkable happens. None of the hypotheticals matter then.
Against all odds, I latch onto hope that I'll somehow find a way out of this. Even if that hope is minuscule.
He hasn’t killed me yet.
Whatever the reason, maybe I can use it to my advantage.
He knows me. Not well, but hopefully well enough to see me as human.
If the reason I’m still alive is because he feels even a sliver of regret, then I’m not a lost cause.
Guilt is a powerful emotion, maybe only second to fear.
And I can do a lot with guilt. He might not be showing it outright, but his actions tell a different story.
Anxiety gnaws at my insides as we keep driving into the empty void. I dig my fingers into the sides of my thighs and look away, choosing to hyperfocus on the indents my nails leave behind instead.