Chapter 33
ABI
All I can feel is a constant, throbbing pain in my head.
I blink my eyes open, trying to make sense of my surroundings. They’re a dark blur. Everything’s dark. The last thing I remember—
The oak tree. Wet grass. Sea wind.
A man with a familiar voice, his face covered by a stocking.
I shriek and try to sit up, but I’m stopped short by my wrists, which are pinned in place above my head. No, not pinned. I’m tied down by thick, rough ropes, one around each wrist.
I slump down. I’m on a mattress, I think.
A thin, lumpy mattress. I’m inside. I can tell that much.
There’s a window across from me that’s covered in a thick but transparent plastic tarp, enough to let in some yellow light from outside.
It’s bright enough that I can make out the edges of the room.
The surrounding walls seem unfinished. I can see bare beams, the occasional tangle of wiring.
I twist against my bindings, trying to push myself up by shoving my feet against the mattress for leverage. It works, although I bang my head against the wall behind me. A finished wall, I think, and I manage to twist around to look at it.
It is finished. It’s also covered in overlapping sheets of cheap printer paper, each with a photograph on it. For a moment, I can’t make out what I’m looking at. Just blobs of light and darkness. But then one of the images comes into focus—
It’s a blonde woman, stretched out naked on a pale mattress, her arms tied to hooks in the wall above her, her face twisted in fear.
Ms. Staunton.
I scream and jerk on the ropes, scraping them against the printed photographs.
One of them comes detached and floats down and lands beside me.
It’s a close-up of a woman’s face, her eyes red from crying, her lips smeared with a pale, creamy liquid.
I can’t tell who it is, if it’s Heather Staunton or Olivia Pearce or someone else.
All I know is I can’t look at it, and I flop my body around until the picture crumples beneath me.
I slump down, my chest heaving. Panic courses through me like a riptide.
I think of Olivia Pearce lying on my examination slab, her head split open. I think of the photograph of Ms. Staunton that came through my fax machine.
“No,” I whisper, tugging on my constraints, my hands twisted up into fists. The rope burns against my skin, and that pain burns into me the whole, terrifying truth of my situation:
I’m going to die.
“No!” It comes out louder, a wet, miserable scream. My vision blurs with tears, and the printed picture crumples beneath me, a reminder of what I know is going to happen.
I arch my back, trying to leverage against the ropes. I can almost feel them slipping against my wrist. Almost. But then I flop back down. Defeated.
Nameless’s mask flashes into my thoughts, and I bite back a swell of tears. It’s my fault for trusting him. For assuming he was always out there, watching me in the dark.
But despite his betrayal, my memories of him keep washing over me.
The way he would step into the light like he was announcing himself.
Or the sensation of his gloved hand running up my bare thigh as he pressed his mouth to my cunt.
His breath on my throat as he filled me, over and over. His lips dry and chaste against mine.
May I touch you?
I know it’s pathetic, but all those memories calm me. I can feel my breath steadying as I focus on him. He asked if he could touch me, and I said yes. Everything he did to me, I let him.
The last man who touched me without permission is dead. I shoved him down a flight of stairs and never once did I feel guilty about it.
I shift on the mattress, pushing myself up to sitting, the printed pictures sticking to my sweat-damp skin. I don’t have to look at any more of them to know what they are:
A glimpse of my future if I don’t fucking do something.
I’m afraid, but I was also afraid when Nameless broke into my examination room. When he kissed me. When he fucked me. But that fear just spurned me on and let me take what I wanted, as dark as it was. Nameless forced me to face the truth of what happened ten years ago—
That I can kill when I need to.
Now, another killer has me trapped in this room.
But why the fuck should I be afraid of him when I know how fucked up I am, even if I buried it deep down inside myself?
Fucked up enough that I let a serial killer fuck me on top of a corpse?
That I dream of a murderer’s soft touch when I go to sleep at night?
Maybe Nameless did abandon me. But he also showed me I’m not afraid of monsters.
That I can be a monster myself when I have to.
I twist my body around, this time not to look at the picture but to look at the ropes around my wrists.
They aren’t that tight, and they’re only looped around once, then knotted into a metal ring fixed into the wall.
I brace my legs against the mattress, shoving myself up until I’m crouched on the bed. The ropes won’t let me go any further.
So I can’t stand all the way up. But I can still twist around and grab at the knot with my teeth.
It tastes like salt, like the sea. I bite back a gag and gnaw at it, trying to work the knot loose with my teeth. Rope fibers flood into my mouth, and I spit them out, then try again.
At first, I don't think it’s doing anything. Part of me expects the killer to come in, and I do listen for him. But all I hear is the wind outside. The wind and the ocean. I think this place is on the beach.
But then I’m able to hook my teeth around one of the loops of the knot and drag it backward. And when I do, the knot loosens.
Excitement flares inside me. I attack the knot with more fervor, sliding my tongue into the rope to drag it upward. It already feels looser, and I wriggle my wrist around.
And then, like petals dropping off a flower, the rope unravels.
I yank my wrist away and stare down at it, slightly stunned. There’s a red mark from the rope. But otherwise, my wrist is fine. I’m free.
Immediately, I grab at the other rope, tugging and plucking until that rope comes undone, too.
It’s easier work than the first, and as soon as both of my hands are untied, I scramble off the bed.
Sheets of paper stick to my sweat-drenched skin, and I rip them away.
Terrified eyes stare up at me. Olivia’s eyes.
Heather’s eyes. Two women who helped me when I needed it.
I couldn’t be there to help them. But I can save myself. And I can make sure that the monster in this house gets what he deserves.
I try the window first, ripping the plastic away. But the window is welded shut; I can see where the metal frame has melted into itself. I crane my head, trying to get a view of what’s outside. I can’t see much in the darkness. Rippling seagrass, mostly. I was right. I’m near the ocean.
I dart over to the door. Locked.
“Fuck,” I whisper, and the triumph of earlier starts to fizzle.
I’m not going to give up, though. I spin around in the room, peering through the yellow-tinged darkness for something I can use as a weapon.
There isn’t much. The mattress is on the floor, and it’s mottled with dark stains I don’t want to think about.
I could maybe pry off one of the loose beams—
Or the ropes. Maybe I could use the ropes.
But then I hear something, out in the hallway. A heavy, decisive thud. Another.
Footsteps.
Hot panic surges through me, and I leap back onto the mattress and frantically wind the rope around my wrists so that I look as if I’m still tied up. I squeeze the end of the rope in my fist, though. It’s not much of a weapon, but it’s something.
The footsteps stop outside the door. I hold my breath, staring through the darkness at the glimmering doorknob.
It turns.
“Wakey, wakey,” says that rough, masculine voice. The door swings open, and I brace myself against the wall, my heart hammering so hard in my chest that I can barely hear anything else.
My kidnapper steps into the doorway and turns his gaze toward me—
And my stomach falls out from beneath me.
Because my attacker isn’t wearing his stocking anymore. And I realize why his voice is familiar. Because I’ve heard it thousands of times over the last two years. Chiding me. Criticizing me. Telling me I’m not good enough.
“There she is,” says Sheriff Kaplan. “Are you ready to play?”