Chapter 76
CHAPTER 76
SARAH
The ropes binding Phil’s wrists unwound, slipping to the ground.
Phil was free now.
But Sarah felt as though she’d been imprisoned. Chained. Bound and gagged. Unable to move. Paralyzed. Confused.
What had Jason said? Had she heard him right? No, she couldn’t have. Could she? Jason couldn’t have said…
Sarah’s heart slammed as she fought the disgusting, damning words slithering through her mind, vile and repulsive, like a curse.
I raped Sarah.
Fear battled fury as a scream rose from the pit of her gut. Jason had raped her? How? Why? It didn’t make any sense. Why would he … ?
Her head pounding, Sarah struggled to remember the night at Phil’s party.
She’d come to, groggy and disoriented, staring in shock and horror at the blood all over the sheets and the bruises on her arms. She’d thought she was dying. Thought that she’d been stabbed. Slashed over and over by some sadistic psycho.
But despite the wounds and the pain, the blood had been easily explained.
Sarah had gotten her period.
While she was being violated.
While Phil raped her …
No. No, that wasn’t right.
I raped Sarah.
It hadn’t been Phil. Alex had told her it wasn’t.
You can’t go to the police because Phil didn’t rape you.
Alex hadn’t told Sarah who’d really assaulted her. He’d told her it didn’t matter. But had he known? Had Alex known that Jason had raped her? Had Alex … protected Jason?
Sarah groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. No. Alex hadn’t tried to make sure Jason didn’t end up in prison. Alex hadn’t wanted her to go to the police because he’d come up with that revolting idea to scam Phil’s father. A scheme Sarah had agreed to and gone along with …
Cautiously, Sarah opened her eyes. From her position, she saw Jason walking, pacing back and forth in front of Phil, ranting and raving. Her gaze drifted to the headless corpses lined against the cave wall. Hardly recognizable as human, they were grotesque and macabre, like desiccating dolls, moldy and broken .
Jason had killed them. Alex, Mia, Grace, Chris.
He was a monster. Reprehensible. Had he always been that way? Sarah tried to remember what he was like in college. He’d always been an acquaintance. Never a real friend. Someone she saw around campus and waved at. Someone she saw at bars when she went out with Grace and Mia. They exchanged polite conversation. Sarah didn’t remember the two of them being alone. They didn’t even have any classes together. He was just Alex’s shy friend, intelligent and introspective. Cute and quiet.
Jason was the very last person she would have expected to rape her.
Sarah pressed her lips together, praying her sobs wouldn’t escape. Wouldn’t alert Jason to the fact that she was conscious. After he’d hit her, she must have been out for a few minutes because she remembered waking up, realizing she was being carried into a cave.
He’d dropped her on the ground like something that didn’t matter, something he planned to get rid of, and Sarah had known he was planning to kill her. She’d known he was a murderer. Chris’s gasping, garbled words made sense now.
Jason … killed them … all …
But that wasn’t the only thing Chris had told her.
Take the knife …
Sarah stared at the weapon, lodged in the dirt, the tip of the blade stuck in the ground.
Gritting her teeth, Sarah dug her nails into the damp, fetid earth, and reached her right hand toward the knife.