Chapter Thirty
“Hi, Matt.”
Dani locked eyes with her aunt as she walked through the front door of the cabin. She was relieved at first to see that Lisa was still alive, but that relief was short-lived as Dani sized up the situation. A monolith of a man stood behind her aunt, holding a switchblade to her throat.
“Hi, Dani.”
A tremor danced along her spine as his voice cut through the quiet of the morning.
Matt Vickers sounded just as she remembered, only huskier.
Rougher somehow. The years in prison hadn’t been kind, and his appearance was just as grizzled as his voice.
He looked nothing like the cocky, preppy young man she remembered aside from his massive frame.
Gone were his gelled blond curls, replaced by a more mature salt-and-pepper buzz cut.
A long, vertical scar ran down the left side of his face, his skin leathery from too much sun.
The exposed parts of his neck and arms were graffitied with prison tattoos, but there was one piece of artwork that stood out amongst them all.
In big block letters on his forearm was the name DANI.
“Where’s Missy?” he asked, the knife still pressed to her aunt’s throat.
Dani tore her gaze away from Matt’s shark-like stare to Lisa’s face. As usual, her aunt remained calm under pressure. She raised an eyebrow and glanced toward the kitchen table. All of the weapons they had laid out were gone.
“Let her go, and I’ll tell you.”
“Fine.” Matt released the knife from her aunt’s throat. He placed a hand at Lisa’s back and shoved her toward the couch. “Where is she?”
“She’s in the van.” Dani said. “Headed back to Florida without you.”
“Liar.” Matt snorted and nodded toward the kitchen table. “I saw your little security system footage. She chased you into the woods.”
Dani shrugged. “You’re right. She’s dead.”
“That’s fine. I didn’t really care about her anyway,” he said. “She wouldn’t ever shut up about you.”
“Sounds like something you both have in common then,” Dani said. “Why, Matt? Why come back after all this time?”
“Spent a lot of time thinking about you over the years.” He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck with the knife blade. “Ever do any time in jail? Probably not, you’ve got a perfect fuckin’ life.”
“You pretty much ruined my life, so no, I would say I don’t have a perfect life,” Dani said. “Answer my question. Why did you come back?”
“I dunno. I was lonely, and I wanted to get out of prison. Missy promised to help me get out if I helped her get you.”
“She told me you were over me,” Dani said, nodding to his tattoo. “What’s all that about then?”
Matt glanced down at his forearm and chuckled. “This? This is old. I was still hung up on you for a while in jail, that’s true. But nah. I’ve had a few girlfriends since then. You should never get a girlfriend’s name tattooed on you, know what I mean?”
“I was never your girlfriend.”
“If you had just given us a chance, things could have been so different,” he said. “I was wrong, though. I know that now. I’m different, you’ll see.”
“You need help. For your sake, I’m sorry you never got it.”
“Too late for all that now.” He smirked.
“Answer something for me, Matt,” she said, his name sour on her tongue. “Why did you have to kill them all?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I hit my head on the football field one too many times.”
“Hitting your head doesn’t make you a killer,” she said. “Okay, then. Why me?”
“Huh?”
“I wanna know.” Dani kept her gaze locked on his. “I remember you in high school. You always had a girlfriend. Everyone thought you were so great. I was a nobody, there was nothing special about me. So tell me, after all these years, why did you bother coming after me?”
He snorted and rolled his shoulders back. “I guess it was because I couldn’t have you.”
“We don’t always get what we want in life,” Dani said.
He smiled, his shark eyes sparkling. “I do.”
Matt lunged toward her as if in slow motion.
The sight of him sailing toward her transported Dani back to the time of his first attack.
Back to a time when no one had cell phones, when her favorite movies were on VHS, when she recorded one-hit-wonders on the radio.
Her heart ached for who she had been in those carefree, teenage days.
This had all happened before, and it was all happening again.
Only this time, Dani was smarter. This time, they were ready.
Without skipping a beat, Lisa stuck out her foot and caught Matt by the shin.
He yowled and toppled like a stack of blocks, weighed down by his top-heavy frame.
His dark eyes bugged wide in surprise as he crashed into the cabin floor, his knife clattering against the boards.
Dani lunged on his back, pinning him with her weight as she held her knife high.
Before she had a chance to plunge the blade into his spine, he bucked her off.
“Yee haw!” Matt said. “Oh, darlin’. I’ve been looking forward to this!”
Dani sailed through the air into the kitchen, her ribs cracking against the sharp corner of the table.
White hot pain radiated at her side as she gasped, the wind temporarily knocked out of her.
She still had her knife, but as Matt wrapped his hand around her ankle, she struggled to regain her strength.
He whooped and hollered as she wriggled beneath his grip.
“I always loved a girl who could fight!”
He dragged her along the floor, straddling her torso and pinning her with his suffocating weight. She gagged and breathed in his horrible scent as he positioned himself on top of her, his breath hot in her face. He held his knife under her ribs, wheezing droplets of spittle on her lips.
“We can still be happy together, Dani,” he said. “It isn’t too late.”
“Never,” Dani said. “I’d rather die.”
“Suit yourself.” Matt plunged his knife into her side.
Dani screamed as a searing agony tore through her flesh.
Pain. Yes. This was what she deserved. After all this time, her pain on the inside finally was met with pain of the flesh.
The ominous memory of Matt Vickers had held her back for over two decades, weighing down almost every aspect of her life.
He had taken almost everything from her except for her will to keep going and her desire for revenge.
Now as he attempted to take her life, he weighed her down again for what would be the last time.
“Hey, asshole.”
Matt turned his attention away from Dani at the sound of Lisa’s voice. In the struggle, he had either forgotten about the older, unassuming woman, or simply didn’t think she was a threat.
Lisa met his gaze down the barrel of her shotgun. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that ‘no’ means ‘no’?”
He let out a full-chested laugh. “Fuck you, bi—”
Matt gurgled as his dark eyes bugged in surprise.
The hilt of Dani’s knife stuck out from the side of his throat like a horizontal ‘T’ as he choked on his own blood.
Rivers of hot, thick fluid gushed from his neck onto Dani’s chest as she twisted the knife.
The sinews in his throat popped against her blade, his trachea wheezing against the wound as he turned to face her again.
Tommy’s hoodie soaked up rivers of red as Matt bled out on top of her.
Dani kept her gaze fixed on his, never looking away for a moment.
She held on and watched, never blinking as his body convulsed and grew limp.
She didn’t even breathe, holding her ground, bleeding him dry until the light dimmed from his eyes.
She waited until she was certain that he was really and truly dead before pulling the knife out of his neck and shoving his body off.
“Dani!” Lisa dropped the shotgun and reached down to help her up. “You okay?”
“He stabbed me,” Dani said. “I think he might have punctured a lung. You?”
“Nah. I’m a tough old bird,” Lisa chuckled. “I think my ankle is a little twisted, that’s all.”
“Good.” Lisa helped Dani to her feet. “He’s dead, right?”
Dani delivered a swift kick to Matt’s ribs. He didn’t move. A circle of black blood spread beneath his face. “Yep.”
“Let me see that wound,” Lisa said.
Dani pulled the blood-soaked hoodie over her head, then moved her t-shirt aside to assess the damage. The cut looked bad but could have been much worse. She pressed the hoodie against her bleeding side and winced.
“I think my lucky hoodie saved me again,” Dani said, a ball of regret forming in her throat. “Thanks, Tommy.”
“I almost had to shoot that fucker in the face,” Lisa chuckled. “I knew you would want to finish the job though.”
“Thanks,” Dani said. “I love you, Aunt Lisa.”
“I love you too, girl.”
The wail of sirens echoed through the dawn as the sun rose above the forested mountain range.
Dani and Lisa walked, arms linked, out of the cabin and down the driveway to meet the police.
Dani knew there would be a lot of questions, a lot of interviews and news cameras.
A lot of digging up the past again. But for now, Dani knew that so long as Matt Vickers was dead, she could finally rest. Dani Kincaid was back, and her life could finally begin again.