Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Stepping inside, I could hear my younger self say, “I’m home.”
The first thing I noticed when I came in was the smell. It smelled like rotting meat, and I had the overwhelming urge to gag. Apart from the stench, nothing was unusual. It was quiet. The lights were off, but it was the middle of the day and light was coming in through the windows.
I left the door open behind me as I moved farther inside. Why not? If Mr. X wanted it closed, I was sure he’d close it. Because I couldn’t resist, I took a few steps to the left to look in the living room. As expected, the furniture was covered with white cloth.
Unexpectedly, I found the reason for the terrible smell. It took a lot of effort not to scream. I quickly looked away from the horrific sight and took a second to restrengthen my ability to bury what I was feeling.
I made myself look back into the living room and took in the scene Mr. X had recreated for me. Laid out in the same spots my parents had been killed in were Gabe and Amber. Gabe was laid in the same position on the couch and butchered in the same exact manner as my dad had been. Amber was on the floor. There wasn’t blood surrounding her, but it was obvious that she had been stabbed to death as my mom had been. They were both wearing the costumes they had been wearing on Halloween. Their faces were permanently etched with fear.
Even though they had done awful things to me, they didn’t deserve what Mr. X had done to them.
I glanced up the stairs. If Gabe and Amber were where my parents had been killed, who had Mr. X placed where Shayla had been killed? Gun still held out in front of me, I began making my way up.
Before I reached the top, the hall came into view and there stood Mr. X with Logan kneeling in front of him. Mr. X was holding a knife to Logan’s throat. As I came to stand on the landing at the edge of the hall, Shayla’s death replayed in my mind.
Logan looked half dead already. He was severely beaten and bloody. His face was cut, purple, and swollen. There were large cuts on his arms, and he looked like he had been stabbed in his stomach. He appeared so weak that the only thing holding him upright was the grip Mr. X had on his hair.
Mr. X was in all black like me, wearing another Desert Stone hoodie. What I noticed now that I hadn’t at the gym was that he had put on some muscle. It appeared I hadn’t been the only one working on making myself stronger. There was also a small scar on his cheek where I had stabbed him with the pen.
An ominous smile stretched across his mouth, causing that scar to wrinkle. “Welcome home, Shiloh.”
“Shi,” Logan groaned.
Mr. X fisted his hair and pulled his head back, exposing Logan’s throat. “Did you like what I left you downstairs?” Mr. X asked me.
I didn’t answer. All I did was hold my gun aimed at his head and stare my monster, my demon, my boogeyman right in the eye. I was not who I had been. I was stronger. I was smarter. I would not give him my fear any longer. If he were to try and take from me again, he would only have my rage.
I didn’t know what I showed on my face, but his evil smile shrank a little. “At first, I thought I’d put that horrible girl here where I killed your sister. Then, when your uncle fell into my lap, I decided that it would be more fitting to cut the truly last tether holding you back from me.”
I lowered my gun with a sigh. “How boring.” It may have been my voice, but it was Shayla’s tone and words I was conjuring.
Mr. X’s smile dropped completely.
“I don’t think you truly love me,” I said.
The surprise that showed on his face told me what I was doing was working. What I had learned when Mr. X had stabbed me and again when he’d almost raped me in the middle of the night was that when I played into his fantasy, I gained the power.
“Why couldn’t you have done something new?” I asked with a somber look. I took a few steps forward and pointed the barrel of my gun to my temple. “If you really wanted to recreate the death of my sister, then maybe I should be the one to die here. After all, I look just like her.”
Mr. X’s knife fell away from Logan’s neck and he let go of his hair. Logan fell forward on his hands with a grunt.
Mr. X took a step toward me. “I do love you.”
I smiled. “I know you do.” I moved the barrel of my gun away from my head and aimed it at Mr. X’s. There was no doubt or hesitation when I pulled the trigger.
Mr. X ducked, but my bullet grazed his cheek and ear. I didn’t know if he felt the pain because right away, he threw his knife at me. I too had to duck, and in that time, he charged for me while pulling another chef’s knife out from the pouch pocket of his hoodie. He came at me too quickly to bring my gun up to aim at his head. In a split second, I came to the decision to drop my gun and brace. He lifted his hand, clutching the knife as if to strike as he came at me. I caught his wrist as he was bringing it down with one hand, fisted his hoodie with my other, and pulled him down to the ground. As I brought us down, I brought one foot up and shoved it into his stomach. When my back slammed down onto the carpet, I thrust my leg—the strongest part of my body—up into Mr. X and propelled his body over my head, which was where I knew the stairs would be. Mr. X flipped and tumbled down the stairs. I prayed to whatever deity would listen that his neck would break.
Halfway down the stairs he dropped his knife and caught hold of the banister. At the speed he was going down, combined with his weight, the newel he’d grabbed snapped and he continued tumbling down to the foyer.
I scooped up my gun and got to my feet. Running to Logan, I shoved my gun in my shoulder holster. I quickly grabbed his arm and put it around the back of my neck. “I need you to help me,” I said to him as I pulled him up to stand.
He helped me a little to get him to his feet. “You need to get out of here.”
“Not without you. Now walk,” I ordered as I led us farther down the hall, away from the stairs.
He walked, and better than I’d thought he would, which would make what I was going to make him do next easier. In the ceiling in front of my parents’ bedroom door was the pull-down ladder that led to the attic.
“Can you reach that?” I asked Logan as I pointed to the small metal ring that dangled a few inches from the ceiling.
Logan reached up and hooked his fingers in the ring. When he yanked down, the ring pulled a rope out of the ceiling until it went taut, and the attic door opened.
I took over for Logan and opened the attic door enough to pull down the ladder. “Climb, Logan, and hurry.”
While Logan struggled but did his best to climb up the ladder, I took my knife out of my boot and cut the ring and rope from the door, all while staring toward the stairs.
As soon as Logan was far enough up, he pulled himself into the attic by rolling his body inside. “Hurry, Shi,” he said between pants.
I returned my knife to my boot and started to push up the folding ladder. “I’m not coming up.”
“What?” he said and tried to roll over to look down at me.
“Stay there until I come for you. If you try to come out, I will shoot you in your legs and lock you in a closet.”
“Damn it, Shi!”
I ignored his arguments as I finished closing the attic door. Without the rope to pull it down, he should be safe up there. Turning to face the other end of the hall, where the stairs were, I pulled out my gun from my shoulder holster and headed in that direction.
When I reached the stairs, I glanced down at the foyer. Mr. X was nowhere to be seen and it looked like he’d shut the front door. Which meant he was hiding somewhere downstairs. I racked my brain on what to do as I went down a few steps. This house was so big and boxy. The moment I started to look for him, he could come upstairs and try to look for Logan.
The sun coming in from the windows above the front door made the crystal chandelier that hung above the foyer sparkle. Then I eyed the lights on the top of the hall wall leading to the kitchen. I aimed my gun at the chain that anchored the chandelier to the ceiling and pulled the trigger twice. The chain snapped and the beautiful light fixture fell. Glass shattered and scattered, covering the foyer floor.
I moved down the stairs. “Ooooh, Mr. X!” I shouted through the house. I was no longer the mouse in this terrifying game he forced me to play; I was the cat. I paused my descent to aim at the light fixture on the hall wall and shot it. More glass hit the ground. “Come out! Come out, wherever you are!” I shot the next light farther down the hall.
As I stepped off the stairs, my boots crunched on the glass. Gun out in front of me, I looked into the living room. He wasn’t in there. Beyond the living room was my dad’s office. It was dark because it didn’t have any windows. Going in there looking for him would be too much of a risk. It would be better to draw him out into the open. So I moved across the foyer to my mom’s office. Glass crunched under my boots with each step. I glanced into the Jack-and-Jill bathroom before moving to the other side of the office. My mom’s desk faced the foyer. I knelt behind it. From my vantage point, I could see into the foyer, a little bit of the living room, and the entrance to the bathroom.
Now we’d see who would catch who.