Chapter 13
Greer
Waking up, I find that I’m alone. The house is silent other than Bear’s low moans as he stretches. Every bit of anger from last night is still seething through me as memories fill my head.
My body aches, and I’m furious.
By now, Allison has to be going out of her mind at finding me missing, and I’m sure she has a search party looking for me.
Tiptoeing through the house, I check every room, the ones that aren’t locked, anyway.
With a quake of fear in my gut, I step onto the porch.
His truck is gone.
He left me here? Unattended?
Bear bounds down the steps, finds the same tree he marked the night before, pees, and then sniffs the yard.
“Don’t go too far!” I tell him.
A breeze whistles through the surrounding trees, and I take a moment to take in the property. It’s truly astounding.
The cabin sits in the thickest swath of trees I’ve ever seen. Looking at it, it seems like civilization is a world away.
Running seems futile.
Which is precisely what my stalker probably thought, too. Hence, why he left me here alone.
Well, fuck him.
Decision made, I storm through the house, leaving the front door ajar for Bear.
I shove into my jeans and a T-shirt, slip on shoes, and braid my hair in defiance of the fucker who thinks he owns me.
Leaving my bag, I snatch a protein bar, a banana, and a bottle of water from the kitchen before leashing Bear.
His being with me is going to pose another obstacle.
Getting myself lost is one thing. Getting my dog and me lost in the woods with a bottle of water to share isn’t ideal.
But we can’t just sit around and wait to see what the psychopath who has me plans to do.
One look at the ankle monitor, which my jeans had barely fit over, gives me pause, but I decide I still have to try.
So what, he can find me again.
If I get back into town and get to safety, the cops can use the fucking thing to lure him in.
Plan solidified, I rush out of the house and down the steps. I don’t want to walk down the driveway, in case he appears randomly and spots me, so I walk the inner treeline, close enough to see the driveway that should lead me back to the clay roads we drove in on.
From there, I should be able just to flag someone down who isn’t my stalker and get a ride back into town. That is, if other people live out here.
When I get a reasonable distance from the cabin, the monitor on my ankle starts beeping and sounding an alarm. I can’t help the quake in my hands when I keep going, gripping Bear’s leash firmly and jutting my chin up in fake pride as I continue.
An hour later, my banana and protein bar are gone, and Bear and I share the only water we have, but I found the end of the driveway in a fair amount of time. I have to remember how he turned into the drive now, so I don’t go the wrong way.
I think it was right…
So, I need to turn left.
Hesitating for a minute, I question my memory.
The monitor on my ankle goes off every few minutes, increasing my urgency to find town. With my pace and any stroke of luck, I’ll find it by nightfall tomorrow.
Hopefully, we make it that far.
I take a deep breath as I prepare to cross the driveway to the trees on the other side, where I can follow the road tucked away in their safety until I spot passersby.
I feel more confident once I get back into the opposing trees, which is stupid because I’d been so focused on figuring out which direction to go in, I didn’t notice that I was being followed.
“Wrong way, poison.”
Bear growls, and I freeze.
Turning, I find my stalker standing behind me. He’s leaning against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest, and he’s not even breathing hard.
I’m winded as fuck and sweating my ass off, and yet he looks like he’s out for an afternoon stroll.
“Where are you going?” he asks, his lips lifting in the corners to taunt me.
Bear realizes it’s someone he knows and clearly doesn’t hate and tugs on the lead to go to him.
I pull him back toward me.
“I told you I know your every move, and I even tagged you so that you couldn’t wander off and get lost, and yet I get a text that you’ve left the cabin, anyhow. Some balls you’ve got there, G.”
“Don’t call me that!” I snarl.
“Can’t call you G. Can’t call you poison. What can I call you?”
“Why do you have to call me anything?”
He ignores my question. “Where’d you think you were going?” Pushing off the tree, he walks closer.
When he gets close enough, he snatches Bear’s leash from me, disconnects him, and lets him loose.
“Don’t do that! He’ll run off and get lost!”
Bear takes off as if on cue.
“He’ll be fine. Answer the question.”
“I was going home.”
“Going home.” He nods at my audacity. “With one protein bar, a banana, and one water bottle?”
Anger fills every pore of my body, spattering through me like buckshot. “I would’ve made it!”
“Would you?” he taunts, still the picture of calm, which is pissing me off even more.
I’m on the verge of more tears and don’t want to shed them. I’m sick of crying. “Just let me go. Please. I won’t tell anyone where you are, I won’t say a thing. I’ll call the cops off.”
“You could’ve done that before. This could’ve all been avoided, G.”
I grit my teeth at how he emphasizes Allison’s nickname for me. “I know, but I—”
“But you, what?” He steps closer.
I back toward a tree, nearly tripping over the roots to grab onto it for stability.
He never falters. “You didn’t believe my threat?”
I swallow.
“Answer me!” His scream carries through the surrounding woods, ricocheting off all the angles and branches.
“I didn’t believe you.”
“That was stupid.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He leans down, his dark eyes narrowing as his thick brows tug together. “Is this because of last night?”
I’m sputtering. “What?!”
How dare he! He thinks because he didn’t make me come, I ran.
Any sane person would run away from a fucking killer; What’s wrong with him that he thinks otherwise?
“Is this because I left you hungry?” he asks, and the gravel in his tone has my fingernails digging into the tree bark behind me. “Because you know you deserved that for lying, right?”
He’s caging me in, his massive, tattooed arms surrounding me and flexing as he awaits my answer.
“I don’t know what I know anymore.”
“Oh, so last night was the issue. You’re not mad I left you unsatisfied, you’re mad that you don’t like how you felt last night,” he says, as if he’s made some life-altering revelation.
“Nothing about me trying to escape a killer who kidnapped me has to do with his touching me or not making me come. It’s got to do with that you’re a fucking killer!”
“Takes one to know one,” he spouts back, a playful grin making his face transform into something even darker than it was before.
The afternoon light is bleeding through the trees from a different angle than earlier, warning that nighttime is approaching.
I never would’ve made it, I realize.
The realization only makes the anger bubble in my gut even more.
“I didn’t kill you,” I whisper as he invades my space, dipping his forehead to mine.
“You thought you did and carried on as if nothing happened.”
“I have been at war with myself ever since that night! I’ve also been a prisoner to your whim for two fucking years!” I yell, pushing my hands into his chest.
He holds firm, his eyes narrowing. “I’m not angry with you, pretty poison. Calm down.”
His nonchalance makes me want to scream. “At this point, I don’t care if you’re mad at me. I wish—” I realize what I’m about to say and startle, closing my lips tight to prevent the admission from falling from them.
“Say it,” he growls, his hand encapsulating my throat. “Fucking say it.”
Shaking, I bite my lip.
His other hand grips onto my shirt at my right side, gripping it like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded.
“I wish I had killed you that night,” I finally say, feeling a weight lift off my chest as my words are free in the world, becoming part of the ugliness in the universe, proving he was right about me all along.
Some twisted part of me is like him.
“There she is,” he says, his index finger pressing into my pulse point, quivering, testing. “There’s the kindred spirit I saw in that fucking mirror.”
A tear burns as it falls from my eye. “You’ve made me this. For two years, I’ve been under your thumb. I didn’t know who you were. I still don’t, yet I had to mind what I did.”
“You still got them killed.”
“I didn’t know you were killing them until recently.”
He knits his brows in disbelief. He, of all people, knows how introverted I am.
I go to work and home, unless Allison talks me into going on a date that she already set up before telling me about it.
“Last night,” he starts, and it makes me feral.
I’m sick of talking about how he fucking tricked me for his own sick game.
“I don’t care about last night. It won’t happen again.” My voice is cold, colder than he expected, because he finally straightens out of my space.
“Oh, it won’t?”
“No. It won’t.” I try to keep the idea of him drugging me and taking what he wants out of my head, because he could do it easier now; I don’t want to give him any ideas.
I also can’t starve myself to keep myself safe; I’ll die sooner than I can escape or be found.
I flinch as he crouches before me in a flash, not knowing if he’s going to hit me. Instead, he hefts me over his shoulder, lifting me easily as he turns back for the driveway I just crossed.
Fighting him is futile, but I still try my damnedest. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I beat his back and flail my legs wildly.
If he falls, we both go down. I don’t honestly care, though.
“Put me down!”
He growls, flipping me from his shoulder to the ground. “Knock it off!”
Dropping to his knees over me as I’m catching my breath, he grips my jaw in his hand. “Why are you being so difficult?”
“What am I supposed to do? Lie down and let you have your way with me? I already did that.”
Rage flickers in his dark eyes, enlivening them for a split second. Standing, he storms up the driveway, leaving me lying in the clay, heaving through sobs of tears that wrack my body.
Part of me wonders if he’s going to get whatever he uses to kill to come back and chop me to bits. I decide that I don’t care.
I close my eyes and lie there in the middle of the driveway, crying, resigned to my fate, until I hear the calling card of night around me.
Cicadas call, and the wind gets colder as I open my eyes and watch the stars above. Without the city to pollute the sky, it’s so beautiful.
I could get up and go back to the cabin. I should get up, find Bear, and ensure he’s alright. But I don’t want to move.
And even if I don’t want to admit it to him, it has everything to do with last night.
With how my body felt like it knew him, carnally. Like our souls knew one another.
It felt as though it was beyond some drugged half-ass connection, too.
Shaking my head at myself, I get off the ground and dust myself off as I hear an engine roaring.
Not the truck, though.
Fear trickles through me as I think of the kinds of people who could dwell in these woods if my stalker feels comfortable enough to call it home.
Moving toward the treeline, I watch headlights getting closer from the direction of the cabin.
Not headlights… a headlight. Singular.
When he gets closer, my stalker stops, leaning onto one foot as he flips up his helmet’s visor. “Get on.”
“No.”
“Poison,” he says, pulling something off his hip and pointing it at me. A gun, I realize. He’s pointing a fucking gun at me. “Get the fuck on the bike.”
I swallow.
I don’t know if he’s taking away my option to lie here and be stubborn knowingly or accidentally, but I’m thankful. I’m tired and hungry, and probably sunburnt.
He shows me how to get behind him and tells me how to hold onto him and where to put my hands on the gas tank when we’re slowing down.
It’s unnecessary if we’re going home, I think.
Until I realize we’re not going home.
Holding onto him from behind, I close my eyes as the world speeds past, and since he can’t see me, I let a smile lift my lips against his back as thrill races through my veins.
When he leans, I lean. When he slows down, I do as I’m supposed to. For a fleeting second, it’s as if we’re not killer and hostage, but something… more, which is stupid to think.
He doesn’t take me anywhere. We ride and ride, and somehow, a renewed sense of calm has washed over me before I realize we’re back on the driveway, headed toward the cabin.
When we pull in, he taps my leg to get me off first, offering his arm for stability.
Bear lifts off the porch from a nap, stretching before bounding down the steps.
“You’re a traitor, you know that?” I whisper, kissing his head as I crouch to pet him.
“There’s food on the stove. Eat. Shower. I’ll be in soon.” With that, he closes his visor on his helmet, driving off toward the back of the property, leaving me standing with my mouth agape.
Remembering how he held me at gunpoint has me moving back inside the house, more confused than when I left this morning.
I move through the motions of showering before dressing. When he walks into the cabin, I’m peering into the pot at what looks to be chili.
“It’s not drugged,” he says, stepping next to me with a spoon in his hand, taking a bite in front of me to prove he’s not lying.
He’s just as covered in clay as I was from the bike ride.
“What was that about?” I ask him.
“What?”
“The bike.”
He shrugs. “Looked like you needed it.”
I did.
I won’t admit shit to him, however.
“Eat. Then, we’ll deal with all the details of your stay here.”
As he walks off, I realize my gaze is on his ass as he moves toward the bedroom, and I turn around, closing my eyes.
Get your shit together. He’s a fucking murderer.