Chapter Thirteen
FRANKIE
The blaring of an alarm startled me awake.
My eyes opened, immediately finding Turner’s. Then, his hands were all over me.
“I’m okay,” I assured him. My hands landed on his cheeks, mirroring his. “You’re okay, too. Are you?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “It’s the fire alarm. Can you smell that?”
“Smoke,” I whispered. The stink was as piercing as the shrill noise filling up the room. “Oh my God, Turner. There’s a fire in the Inn.”
Turner’s hands were gone. His lips captured mine rapidly, in a rush.
Then he was moving. Away from me, off the bed.
I blinked, my eyes adapting to the darkness.
The fireplace was engulfed in it too, explaining the chill I could feel on my skin.
When I zeroed in back on him, he was zipping up a pair of jeans, striding to the closest switch.
He flipped it. “Nothing,” he said with a curse.
His head whirled, and now I could see him a lot clearer.
There was a strange brightness, though. It was coming from somewhere outside.
Filtering into the room. What time was it?
Turner braced his hands on my shoulders.
He was bare-chested. I was still completely naked.
“I want you to put on some clothes. Boots. As fast as you can. And be ready for me. I’ll be back—”
“No,” I rushed out. “You’re not leaving me. No.”
“I need to make sure he’s not waiting in the hallway, Frankie. I’m not getting you out of here unless I know he’s not there.”
I swallowed. “I’ll go with you.”
He shook his head. “Clothes. Shoes. Two minutes tops.”
“Rule number one in horror culture. Movies. Books. Also thrillers. You don’t split into groups.”
His jaw clenched. He knew I was right. “I’ll be back. I promise you.”
Dear God. That was rule number two. You don’t make promises. They always end up broken.
“Turner—”
He kissed my forehead, and I closed my eyes for an instant, realizing stopping him was fruitless. I remained quiet, refusing to say I love you, or be careful, or any of the lines I’d seen used and used myself. It always meant something bad was coming. That was rule number three.
When my eyelids fluttered open, there was no trace of him by my side.
The alarm was still blaring, and there was still that strange glowy texture to the darkness.
I dragged my feet to the ground and searched for clothes.
Any clothes. I couldn’t find anything, so I ran to my suitcase and pulled it open, snatching the first thing my hand caught on.
I threw a pair of leggings and a hoody on, not stopping to put on underwear or socks.
Time was pressing, and Turner would be back any second now.
He would be. God. Were the two minutes up already?
And where were was my phone?
Or my boots?
I swirled around, lifting things that made no sense moving. A chair. A small bin. A pillow. No trace of my phone or footwear.
The image of last night, the hot tub, flashed behind my eyelids. Shit. We never got those clothes back inside. But our phones … Our phones had been inside the room, right?
Right?
The strangest feeling hit me in the gut. Like foreboding. Or instinct.
I ran to the glass doors and pulled the curtains to the side.
My heart sunk to my bare feet. The source of the orange buttery glow.
It had been coming from outside. From right outside the Inn.
And it wasn’t the sunrise, although the sky was starting to clear up.
There was a fire outside. I could see it through the glass panels of the solarium, now tinted by the red burgundy flames that licked at the air, melting the white cloak that covered everything hours ago.
A message from Enzo. No. Not Enzo. Him. The stalker. Only this one wasn’t accompanied by anything except pure, utter terror.
Jesus Christ, what had I got myself into? What had I gotten all of these people into, and how could I fix this when I didn’t know what any of this meant?
That sick familiarity flooded my chest, making my stomach knot.
That final twist. I’d placed myself so many times in these shoes from the other side of a keyboard.
In Eden’s. Only I wasn’t the writer this time.
I was the final girl. This was the last dance.
He was harvesting what he’d sowed. There is nothing more terrifying than the unknown, I’d written in one of my books.
That’s why we fear death. Villains, heroes. It comes for all.
Turner. I needed to get him out of here. Where was he? And where—
Something lit up a few feet in front of me. On the other side of the doors that opened to the solarium.
It was my phone. I couldn’t understand how it had gotten there, but I knew why.
Come outside.
I only realized I’d slid the glass door to the side and stepped into the much colder wooden deck when a vicious shiver curled down my arms. We were breaking all the rules, falling into all the traps he’d set on our way, doing justice to all the clichés, but what was the alternative?
He wanted me, and as much as I’d leaned into Turner’s protection, I’d brought that man here.
If he wanted me dead, he would have done that already.
He wanted something else first. Me. And I knew—with a terrifying kind of certainty—that he’d rattle the cage until he got that.
With shaky legs, I heard my feet pad through the deck as I advanced towards the end. The crackling of the fire roared so loud that it was almost impossible to ignore, but I kept my eyes on the phone, laying on the ground.
My arm stretched, shaky fingers retrieving the device. The screen lit up. There was an airdrop notification. I accepted.
It was a photo of us. Last night. Turner and I stood on the solarium, and it was taken from outside.
Another ping.
The outline of our upper bodies through the steamed-up glass, in the hot tub. My arms around his neck.
Ping.
The shape of my body as I sat on the edge, Turner’s head between my legs.
Ping, ping, ping.
Us running back inside. Turner peeking through the curtains. Us in bed, only partly visible through a slit in the drapes.
Nausea hit me like a truck. I heaved. I was going to be sick.
Ping.
Turner bare chested. On his knees, head lolling forward, chin to his chest.
I gasped sharply. My phone slipped from my hand, dropping on the ground and sliding a few feet away from me.
“Pity,” said a voice. “I had more of those.”
I turned around slowly.
My eyes widened.
Turner was on his knees, hands behind his back, with a man standing over him.
Enzo, my mind screamed. Only he wasn’t anything like the character I’d spent so long with.
He wasn’t fictional. He was real. The man was slender but tall, with a sharp chin, and a sharper nose, covered head to toe in technical gear.
As if he was on his way to a hike. Or just gotten back from one.
And I’d seen him before. I couldn’t place where or when, though, but I could swear I had.
“Let him go,” I rasped out, hearing my voice wobble. “Let him go, and I’ll do anything you want.”
The man laughed, and Turner grunted a pained, “No.”
“It’s funny,” the stalker said, meeting my gaze.
“He said the same thing. I didn’t even need to use this.
” He pulled a gun from his belt. A gun. Jesus Christ. “All I had to do was say that if he didn’t let me tie his hands behind his back, I’d tell my accomplice to kill you.
Hitting him upside the head was unnecessary but a nice bonus.
He’s been an unexpected complication that has driven me a little insane. ”
My head whipped around, checking Turner for visible injuries. I found none, but he seemed dazed. How hard had he been hit? Could he have a concussion? Where was this accomplice?
“You two are so gullible,” the man continued with …
disappointment? “It’s just me. And I expected better from you, Frankie.
Last night in the hot tub? Come on, you’re a seasoned writer.
That was idiotic. Makes me wonder if everything I’ve been doing was worth the trouble.
You had so much potential when we met. Now you let yourself be distracted by …
men. Don’t you see that they take away from your craft? ”
A rocky breath left me. When we met? My craft?
I wrecked my head for an answer, a way to piece those two things together but Turner moved.
His head had bounced up, as if he was trying to stay awake.
I needed to get him out of here. Fast. To distract this person so Turner could leave.
No. He wouldn’t walk out of here without me.
God. What if Turner tried to fight him? I needed to keep this person’s focus on me, to avoid Turner getting hurt again.
I took a step towards my stalker. “You talked about that. In your letters. About my craft. You made me think I was special, and for a while you were the only one who believed that.”
His head tilted in thought, musing, and left Turner behind when he took a step forward. “You are special. You’ve always been.”
It disgusted me to hear words Turner had said coming from this man’s lips, but I pushed through. I moved to the side, trying to lure him further away, but he brought me to a stop with a tsk of his tongue.
He raised the hand that held the gun. “Stay right where you are, Frankie, baby.” His smirk was mocking.
“Should I call you that too? Feels corny. Trite. But you always walked that line. Your books have plenty of love. Sex. Good stuff, oftentimes. I can think of so many writers who would kill to be able to do that. Have that kind of duality.”
The word kill echoed in my ears. A new wave of unease cascaded down my body. “Writers? Are you a writer?”
“I was once,” he admitted with a shrug. He took a new step. Then a second one. And a third. Relief flooded me with the space he placed between himself and Turner. “You don’t remember me, do you?”