Chapter 26 Charlotte
TWENTY-SIX
CHARLOTTE
I spin around. My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Adrian stands about ten feet away, near the windows that face the parking lot. The sunlight filters through the glass behind him and casts his face in shadow.
“Adrian.” I force my voice to sound light and casual, even though every instinct I have is screaming at me to run. “You scared me. I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.”
He doesn’t move from his position by the windows, but his head tilts slightly, like he’s studying me.
“Sorry about that. I wanted to catch you before you left.”
My eyes dart around the darkened lab and look for my trophy. The fluorescent lights are off, leaving only the pale glow from the parking lot to illuminate the room. Beauty stations sit like sleeping giants in the shadows. Their mirrors reflect distorted fragments of light.
“Where’s my trophy?” I ask him. “I thought you said it would be here.”
“I’ll give you the trophy.” Adrian’s voice carries a strange undertone I’ve never heard before. “But I want to talk to you first.”
The word ‘first’ sends ice through my veins.
I take a small step toward the door.
“Well, I can’t stay long. Koda’s expecting me back.”
Something flickers across Adrian’s face at the mention of Koda’s name.
“Right. Koda.” He says the name like it tastes bitter. “Your boyfriend.”
The way he emphasizes the word makes my skin crawl.
“You know what? I think I’m just going to go.” My pulse races as I take another step toward the exit. “I’ll come back for the trophy some other time.”
Adrian’s voice drops. “I don’t think so.”
That’s when I see it. The glint of metal in his right hand. My brain takes a second to process what I’m looking at.
A gun.
Adrian has a gun.
My mouth goes dry and my legs start to wobble.
Fuck, I’m such an idiot.
“Adrian, w-what are you doing?” I whisper.
“What I should have done weeks ago.” He raises the weapon slightly, not quite pointing it at me but making sure I can see it clearly. “What I would have done if you hadn’t been so stubborn about him.”
My back bumps against one of the beauty stations.
“Adrian, you’re scaring me. This isn’t you.”
“This is exactly me, Charlotte.” Adrian snaps. His eyes are fever bright with something that makes my stomach turn. “This is who I’ve always been. You just weren’t paying attention.”
Then he gestures with the gun toward the storage closet at the back of the lab.
“Move.”
I swallow hard. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Adrian’s expression darkens.
“Move, now. Or I’ll drag you.”
The quiet certainty in his voice tells me he means it.
I think about the baby growing inside me, about the precious life I need to protect. Fighting him here, in the open, with a gun in his hand isn’t smart.
Stay calm, I tell myself. Think. Find a way out.
I walk toward the storage closet on unsteady legs.
The small room is barely ten feet square and lined with metal shelves holding beauty supplies and old equipment. But what stops me cold is what sits in the center of the cramped space.
A single plastic chair.
My blood turns to ice.
The chair wasn’t just conveniently there. Someone put it there recently. Along with a pack of zip ties that I can see peeking out from behind a container of bleach and a roll of duct tape.
“Get in,” Adrian barks.
I step into the closet and my legs barely support me. The space feels impossibly small with both of us in it. Adrian reaches behind one of the shelves and pulls out the zip ties and tape.
“Sit down.”
“Adrian, please.” I try one more time to reach whatever part of him used to seem normal. “You don’t have to do this. We can talk. Just put the gun away and we can—”
“I said sit down, Charlotte!” Adrian roars.
Baby girl starts to flutter inside me, as if sensing my distress.
I place a hand on my bump and sink slowly down into the chair.
Adrian’s eyes follow the movement with an expression I can’t read. For a moment, something almost like tenderness crosses his features.
“Hands behind your back.”
The zip tie bites into my wrists as he pulls it tight. Not tight enough to cut off circulation, he’s being careful about that. But secure enough that I’m not getting out of it without help. He moves efficiently, like he’s rehearsed this.
“I’m pregnant, Adrian.” The words tumble out desperately. “You know I’m pregnant. This stress isn’t good for the baby.”
He pauses in his movements with the duct tape half-unrolled in his hands.
For a moment, hope flickers in my chest. Maybe mentioning the baby will snap him back to reality.
Then his expression hardens again.
“I know exactly what you are, Charlotte.” He tears off a strip of tape. “And what you’re not.”
I try to turn my head away, but he grabs my chin with his free hand and forces me to look at him. His fingers are surprisingly strong and press into my jaw with enough force to bruise.
“This will go easier if you don’t fight me.”
The tape covers my mouth and seals away my voice. It pulls at my lips and the adhesive burns against my skin. Adrian steps back to admire his work and tilts his head like he’s looking at a particularly interesting art project.
I test the restraints carefully and try not to let him see. The zip tie around my wrists has no give, and the angle makes it impossible to reach with my teeth. My legs are free, but in this tiny space, with Adrian blocking the only exit, there’s nowhere to run.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment?” Adrian starts pacing the small space with an unhinged expression on his face. “How long I’ve been watching you throw yourself away on men who don’t deserve you?”
I strain against the zip ties, but they don’t budge. The plastic cuts into my skin when I pull too hard.
“From the first day you walked into my parents’ school, I knew we were meant to be together.”
Adrian’s voice rises with each word and takes on a dreamy quality that makes my stomach turn.
“I used to watch you between classes,” He continues as his pacing becomes more erratic. “The way you’d tuck your hair behind your ear when you were concentrating. The way you’d bite your lip when you were nervous. I memorized everything about you.”
The casual admission of stalking makes me feel sick. How many times had I felt eyes on me and dismissed it as paranoia?
“And then there was that job of yours.” Adrian’s voice turns bitter. “The Summit. Serving drinks to all those disgusting old perverts who looked at you like a piece of meat.”
He stops pacing to look at me directly and his eyes are bright with indignation.
“Do you know how it felt to watch you waste yourself on men like that? To see you smile and flirt with them for tips when you should have been with someone who actually cared about you?”
Adrians eyes are wild now.
“I wanted to save you from that place,” he continues. “I kept asking you out. Kept trying to show you what a real relationship could be like. But you kept turning me down and kept insisting we were just friends.”
Because we were just friends. Or so I thought.
Now I can see how every rejection must have felt like a challenge to him and every friendly smile a promise he was sure I’d eventually fulfill.
“And then I found out you quit your job. And I thought maybe you’d finally realized you deserved better. I thought maybe you were finally ready to let someone take care of you.”
He resumes his pacing.
“But instead, you found an even worse one. That old bastard who’s been using you like his personal plaything.”
Rage burns in my chest, hot and fierce. I make a sound behind the tape.
Adrian’s eyes light up at my response.
“There she is. There’s the fire I fell in love with.”
Love. He thinks this is love.
“I’ve been planning this ever since I figured out what was really going on between you two.” He checks his watch, like he’s on some kind of schedule. “I followed you to his cabin a few weeks ago. Watched you through the windows.”
My stomach drops.
“You looked so beautiful,” Adrian continues and his voice takes on a disturbing breathless quality. “So perfect. But wrong, Charlotte. So fucking wrong.”
Tears of rage and humiliation leak from my eyes. I can’t stop them and can’t wipe them away with my hands bound behind my back.
“That should have been me. That should have been us.” His voice breaks on the words. “I could have made it special for you. I should have been the one to—”
The possessive way he talks about my body, my choices, makes me sick. Like Koda took something that belonged to Adrian.
“I know you think you love him.” Adrian crouches down in front of my chair and his hands grip the arms. “But love isn’t supposed to hurt, baby. Love isn’t supposed to make you hide and sneak around and lie to your dad.”
I lean back as far as I can and try to get away from him, but there’s nowhere to go.
“I can give you everything he can’t.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Respect. A real relationship out in the open. A proper father for that baby who won’t have to explain why his daddy is old enough to be his grandfather.”
The way he talks about my unborn child, like he has any right to an opinion about my baby’s future, sends a fresh wave of terror through me.
“I’ve been watching you struggle with the guilt,” Adrian continues and stands up. “Watching you tear yourself apart trying to choose between him and your father. But you don’t have to choose, Charlotte. You don’t have to hurt anyone anymore.”
He reaches toward my face like he’s going to wipe away the tears, but I jerk my head away violently.
The chair rocks with the motion.
Adrian’s expression darkens at my rejection.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Charlotte. I would never hurt you.”
The irony would be laughable if I weren’t tied to a chair. He’s terrorized me and violated my privacy for months, but he claims he’d never hurt me.
He doesn’t see this as hurting me, I realize. In his mind, this is saving me.
That makes him infinitely more dangerous than someone who knows they’re being cruel. You can reason with someone who knows they’re wrong. You can’t reason with someone who believes they’re being heroic.
“I just need you to understand,” Adrian says. “To see what we could have together.”
He reaches for the tape covering my mouth and slowly peels it away. My lips feel raw and sticky where the adhesive pulled at my skin. I work my jaw carefully and try to get the feeling back.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Charlotte?”
I look him straight in the eyes and draw on every ounce of strength I have.
Then I spit at him.
“I understand that you’re a sick fucking creep.”
Adrian’s face goes still.
“What did you say?” he whispers.
“You heard me.” The words come out stronger than I feel. “You’re sick, Adrian. This isn’t love. This is obsession. This is stalking and kidnapping and assault.”
“I’m trying to save you—”
“From what? From being happy?” I lean forward as much as the restraints allow. “From being with a man who actually loves me instead of some fantasy version of me you created in your head?”
Adrian’s hands clench into fists.
“He doesn’t love you. He’s using you.”
“Koda loves me more than you ever could.” The truth of it burns bright in my chest and gives me strength even in this nightmare situation. “He sees me for who I really am, not some innocent little girl who needs saving.”
“Stop.” Adrian’s voice is shaking now.
“He makes me feel beautiful and strong and alive.” I pour every ounce of conviction I have into the words. “When I’m with him, I’m not some prize to be won or some broken thing to be fixed. I’m just me, and that’s enough for him.”
Adrian’s control finally snaps. “Stop talking about him!”
His hand comes up fast and connects with my cheek in a sharp crack that echoes off the small walls.
The slap is so hard it makes my ears ring. Pain explodes across my face and my head snaps to the side from the force of it.
For a moment, we both freeze.
Adrian stares at his own hand like it betrayed him and his eyes are wide with shock. I can taste blood where my teeth cut the inside of my cheek.
“Oh, fuck.” Adrian’s voice comes out in a whisper. “Charlotte, I—”
I turn my head back to look at him and he flinches at whatever he sees in my expression.
“Look what you made me do!” He shouts. “I didn’t want to, you made me. Why couldn’t you just listen?”
This loser.
Even now, even after hitting me, he can’t take responsibility for his own actions. It’s my fault for provoking him. My fault for not being grateful enough for his attention.
“I would never hurt you,” he says again, but now the words sound hollow. “I love you too much to hurt you.”
The taste of blood in my mouth says otherwise.
Adrian runs his hands through his hair.
“We can fix this. You just need time. Time to think about everything I’ve said. Time to realize that I’m right.”
He moves toward the door. His movements are jerky and agitated.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. That should be long enough for you to come to your senses.”
The tape goes back over my mouth before I can respond, but this time Adrian’s hands are shaking as he applies it.
“This is what’s best for both of us,” he says, but he won’t meet my eyes. “You’ll see. Tomorrow, you’ll understand.”
The door closes behind him with a soft click. I hear the scratch of a key in the lock, then his footsteps moving away down the hallway and fading until there’s only silence.
I’m alone.
My cheek throbs where he hit me. My wrists burn where the zip ties cut into them. The tape pulls at my skin every time I try to breathe through my mouth.
The baby shifts restlessly inside me and responds to my elevated heart rate.
But I’m alive. We’re alive.
I start working on the tape over my mouth and use my tongue to find the edge where Adrian’s shaking hands didn’t press it down quite tight enough. It’s slow, painful work. The adhesive burns my tongue and I have to be careful not to swallow any of it.
As I work, my mind begins to clear from the shock and terror of the last hour. Adrian thinks he’s broken me with that slap and thinks he’s proven his power over me.
But all he’s really done is show me exactly what I’m fighting against.
The baby flutters inside me. A gentle reminder of what’s at stake. Not just my life, but the future growing within me. The family Koda and I are building together.
Koda.
For the first time since Adrian revealed the gun, I let myself think about him fully. By now, he knows something is wrong. I should have been back hours ago. He’s probably called my phone a dozen times, maybe driven to the school looking for me.
When Koda realizes I’m missing, he won’t just sit around worrying.
He’ll tear this town apart to find me.