Chapter 49
The zip ties bite into my wrists as Piper drags me toward my own fucking house, like the dumbest criminal on earth.
I stumble a few times on the way to the door; my head is throbbing.
The ride over was spent drifting in and out of consciousness, and I remained slumped over the entire time, even when I was faking sleep.
Every so often, I peeked to note what roads we were on.
It’s hard to stay awake with alcohol and sedatives swimming in your system, but doing it while keeping your eyes closed makes it nearly impossible.
I had to listen to her inane ramblings every waking second, and one thing I know for sure is that she doesn’t plan to leave me alive.
The only thing she hasn’t figured out is what to do with my body.
Apparently, my dead weight is too heavy, and she already wasted too much time getting me into the car after knocking me out and dragging me from her house—oh yeah, apparently that wasn’t a rental.
It was her actual fucking house. No wonder it was so close to Logan’s loft.
I’m smart enough to know that secondary locations are bad news, however; as soon as I recognized the familiar roads and realized she was taking me to my house, I did everything in my power to start planning. I know my house better than she does. I was raised here. I’ve got home field advantage.
She shoves me through the back door, and I stumble in with exaggerated clumsiness, just enough to make me look weaker than I am.
I pretend to trip over my feet and veer toward the hallway, smashing my shoulder into the switch that lowers the attic door.
That fucking sensor I was so pissed about just might save my life.
I’m leaving breadcrumbs in hopes Logan is picking them up.
Fuck, we should really bring back landlines.
I lie motionless on my side after falling, my elbows slightly bent as the zip ties dig into my flesh, and feign a loss of consciousness.
Piper is too obsessed with herself to just kill me while I’m unconscious.
She wants to teach me a lesson. If I can stay “asleep,” it buys Logan more time.
Logan is on the east side of town, and I’m on the west—we’re about twenty minutes apart.
“Goddamn it!” She drops to her knees and yells in my face. “Get up!” I pat myself on the back for not flinching at the boom of her voice.
Buying time is my objective, it’s all I have right now.
Just twenty minutes.
“Get up!” she screams again, then slaps me. I react without thinking; my fists, joined at my wrists, shoot out, slamming into her face. The diamond ring on my hand slices through her cheek. It’s poetic, really.
This only pisses her off. She stands up and kicks me in the stomach.
The blow to my ribs feels like it rearranges my insides.
The painful impact isn’t dulled by the drugs.
I fold into the fetal position. She reveals that damn paring knife, and I freeze, keeping my eyes trained on her.
She cuts the zip tie around my wrists while I visualize everything in my vicinity that could be used as a weapon.
I brace my palms on the ground to push off.
“Don’t move a fucking inch,” she says, pointing the knife at me. “Or I’ll let you bleed out in this fucking hallway.”
I don’t breathe.
“Roll on your stomach. Hands behind your back,” she says, then shoves my face into the floor.
“Get up slowly.” I feel the point of the knife in my back, near the bottom rib that’s probably fractured.
She presses it deeper, then rips it lengthwise, slicing into my skin.
It’s not too deep, but it’s deep enough.
I grit my teeth. “Fuck!” I wait for another slash, but it doesn’t come. I lie still and catch my breath while my face is shoved into the floor.
“I said slowly,” she says.
“I can’t get up if you’re holding my head to the floor,” I growl through clenched teeth. My lips are numb, and my enunciation could use some work.
She retreats enough to give me room to move while keeping the knife pressed to my skin as a reminder. My reflexes aren’t fast enough to snatch something without her burying that blade into my back. Now that she has me awake, I’m going to have to find another way to stall time.
She shoves me into a nearby wooden dining room chair. It belongs to my kitchen table, but I keep it over by the bookcase to use as a step stool. “Sit.”
She zip-ties each of my arms to the rear posts of the chair, just above the seat.
I saw a TikTok video once about how to break out of these, something with shoelaces.
Unfortunately, my shoes don’t have laces, and I doubt this bitch would just sit there and watch while I saw through my restraints with some half-assed MacGyver trick.
I shake my head. “It was never Jason.” All the notes pointed to him. The flowers. The photos. And the whole time my stalker and I were out getting cocktails and giggling like it was a goddamn slumber party. She got me there, I’ll give her that.
“It was sometimes Jason.”
What? I blink at her, heat crawling up the back of my neck. “He wasn’t your boyfriend, he was working.”
Memories of long conversations and uninspired sex flash in my brain. He was a stranger. I want to throw up when I think of the times I let him touch my body. Nothing was real, the sex was probably a perk for him. Bile rises up my throat in disgust. “It was always you.”
She grins at me. “And it always will be,” she snarls. She lunges for my ring.
I ball my hand into a fist, reopening the cut, and my palm fills with fresh blood. “No!” She cannot take this from me.
My strength can’t compete with hers when I’m sluggish. She pries my fingers open, and I fight to keep them closed, but the slick blood helps the ring slip off easily.
Now I’m pissed.
“What’s your plan here anyway, Piper?” She’s been pacing the floors in a paranoid frenzy like an animal, bolting from one stupid plan to the next. Every few seconds, she’s peeling back the curtains to peek out the window as if she’s expecting red and blue flashing lights any second.
“Once you kill me, I’ll be too heavy to move,” I remind her.
She ignores me, wiping my blood off the ring.
I burrow deeper into her anxiety; it’s her turn to feel afraid.
“And you’ve got your fingerprints all over the fucking house because you keep touching my shit—is that my paring knife?
Or did you steal that from your house—you know, the house with my blood all over the floor?
Then there’s the digital footprint . . .
” I huff out a breath and wince at the pain in my rib. “You’re getting sloppy.”
Her hand twitches. “Who are they going to arrest? Piper? Piper is dead. I’m Rosa.”
“Arrest?” I smile at her. The second Logan sees the blood on my clothes, she’ll be begging the cops to arrest her. “You stalked, drugged, kidnapped, and slashed his wife . . . You really think he’s going to just let that slide?”
“If Logan knew I was alive . . . he wouldn’t be with you.”
“He didn’t want you before you were even dead!” I spit.
She backhands me, and I taste pennies. That’s just one more punishment for later.
I hang my head between my shoulders and laugh. “You’re only mad because you know I’m right. Tell me, how’s it feel to be a fucking ghost?”
“I loved him first! I earned this!” She holds up my ring. “I deserve this!”
“Love isn’t something you’re entitled to, Piper, it’s chosen . . . And Logan didn’t choose you. Get over it.”
Her breaths quicken as the pulse in her neck tics faster.
“You could leave right now and still escape—give yourself a fresh start. Forget Logan and the rest of the bullshit from your past,” I offer. “Why are you even doing this?”
She stops her pacing to stare me down. “If I can’t have him, no one can.”
I roll my eyes—what a fucking cliché. “Real original. Your villain schtick is played out.” I’ve seen television dramas with more subtlety. “These things never end well for the bad guy.”
She jabs a finger into her chest. “I’m not the bad guy!”
“You’re a fucking case file.” I chuckle. “So, what’ve you got? Anything? You still don’t have a plan, do you? You’re running out of time.”
“You can’t do anything,” she seethes. “I’m not afraid of you.”
I bark out a laugh. “Yes, you are! You’re fucking terrified,” I say, grinning.
I lean forward, letting the ties cut into my arms and ignoring the pain in my ribs as I stretch closer to her.
I drop my voice to a whisper. “Because I know what keeps you up at night. You’re scared to death that I’ll replace you.
” I smile wider. “I’m your worst nightmare come true. I’m Mrs. Logan Teller.”
Her expression contorts—filled with rage, or sorrow, maybe both. “Shut up!”
I laugh in her face because fuck her. “Which is worse . . . that he married me instead of you? Or the fact that he wanted to be my husband so bad he did it without even asking?”
She paces back and forth. Looking for something. Anything. “There’s too much evidence,” I say. She shuffles through the house, then walks out the door.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to return, but there’s silence. No more incessant pacing and inane ramblings. She better drive fast because after Logan comes in and gets me, he’s going to go after her.
The back door opens again, and she storms in with a big red gas can like it’s filled with the solution to all her problems. I filled it up yesterday at the gas station.
I was supposed to mow the lawn. Funny how tasks like cutting grass seem so absolutely pointless when you’re watching your life flash before your eyes.
Defeat creeps in, and I swallow down my fear. He’ll be here any minute.
She lifts the can, sloshing it back and forth, and sickening fumes quickly fill the space. Don’t panic, don’t panic.
Think.