8. June
Chapter 8
June
Every cell in my body froze over as the ties dug into my wrists, making my trapped pulse thump in my hands and fingertips.
Tears trickled down my face—the haunting memory of that night blasting my neuropathways.
“Carter... I... um, need to tell you something.”
He spun on me with his goat’s face mere inches from mine. “Finally.”
“Can you take off the mask, please, just for a second?”
With an irritated huff, he swiped the mask over the top of his head, letting it rest like sunglasses.
“What?”
“Two nights before the party, you kissed me. Do you remember what you told me?”
“Yeah, I remember.” He stalked towards me, walking me backward into a tree. “I said you were a mistake.”
I winced and hung my head, glancing at the ties, then back to his dark brown eyes. “Yes, but that was after you told me how much you wanted to do it again and to meet you later.”
I’d been eighteen for a cool ten minutes, and given our seven-year age gap, he’d shown no interest in me. But something happened the night of my birthday, and it sent excitement down to my toes.
“What’s your point, June?”
My teeth ground against one another as the bitter memory pervaded. “You told me it was a mistake and that you shouldn’t have kissed me. You were going back to medical school in a few days and didn’t have time for a relationship.”
He laughed. “Don’t tell me you still have feelings for me?”
My bottom lip sucked into my teeth, and I bit down as I glanced away from him, blinking away the tears. “I never lost my feelings for you, Carter. But you’ve changed.” I sucked in a staccato breath. “So much so, I didn’t recognize you on the street.”
“It’s been eleven years. People change.”
“Not like this. You’re consumed with hatred.”
“You have no idea.” He pulled the mask halfway over his face .
“Wait. I wasn’t taking a trip down memory lane for kicks.”
He glanced at his watch. “Make it quick. Time’s ticking.”
“That night...at the party, I met Ethan. I wanted to forget all about you.” My throat tightened, and the bark dug into my back as I shifted. “That’s how I know there is no possible way I blanked anything from that night because I remember it all in vivid detail.”
“So...you’re bragging about your sex life as a way to exonerate yourself?”
I shook my head, my chest compressing.
“That’s really quite pathetic, June.” He slid the mask over his face as the words locked on my lips.
Tell him.
Say the words.
Carter grabbed the ties between my bound wrists and dragged me through the trees.
“He raped me.” Bile hit the back of my throat.
He stopped mid-stride and turned back—the mask acting as a barrier.
“Who did?”
“E-Ethan.” My hands trembled in his grasp as I drew in a slow breath. “That’s how I remember that night. He... he raped me.”
“Wow.” Carter flung his mask to the ground and glowered. “Do you know how many women out there really went through that?” He shook his head. “And you want to use that to your advantage against a dead man who can’t refute it?” He tipped his head back in disgust. “Unreal. ”
My heart banged into my chest, my stomach dropping as though it’d jumped out of a moving vehicle. “I’m not—“
“Save it, June. That’s low, even for you.”
“My dress.” I reached out. “H-he ripped it up the side and—“
“And you didn’t say anything?”
His features softened, and I gave a subtle shake of my head. “No. He... said he was sorry and that it would never happen again. He didn’t mean to.”
He scoffed. His brows pulled down, his upper lip snarling as he stepped toward me and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck—his touch feather-light.
My chin trembled, and his hand moved around the front of my throat, his thumb pressing into the tense flesh.
“Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know.” He pulled in a breath, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “It doesn’t explain the video.”
Shaking my head, my mouth bobbing as though if I opened it, the answer would come falling out. I stared into the dark depths of his eyes. “I-I don’t know anything about the video, but...”
My brows furrowed as the movie replayed in my mind.
The ponytail, my ankle socks, and low-top white Converse.
Did I own a white pair?
“Why did you stay with him?”
I shrugged, his question pulling me out of my thoughts. “He changed. I genuinely thought he was sorry, and it had been a mistake.” I screwed my lips to the side and puckered. “I thought he could...maybe... replace you.”
“Fuck, dollface.”
He dipped his head and pressed his forehead into mine, his breath tickling the small hairs on my wet cheeks. His hand released my bindings and joined his other on my face, cupping both cheeks. “I’d kill him all over again just for that.”
A sob broke through my lips, and he swallowed it down with his own pressing against mine in a sensual, fevered pitch.
Swirls of warmth invaded my belly, spiraling out of control, my bound hands trailing up his chest.
His tongue slid across my lips, and ice flooded my veins.
I pushed against him and struck his cheek with an open palm, my hand smarting on contact.
Carter turned away and cupped the reddening flesh. “What was that for?”
My heart dropped into my belly, which twisted and churned as though stuck in a blender. “You-you can’t just kiss me after everything that’s happened.” I bit into my lip as he turned on me.
Taking two steps away, my butt hit a bulging burl jutting out at the bottom of a gnarled tree, my head bouncing off the hardwood. “Especially after confessing to being—“
He held his free hand up, his palm open as his other fell away, and gave a subtle nod. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Silence fell between us, and I took a deep breath of rotting wood mixed with fresh pine needles. A heavy dew hung in the warm, not-so-typical, October night air.
“Carter, I need you to stop and think for a second. If I had killed Amber, don’t you think I would have left town?” I pulled away from the tree—my nightgown clinging to the bark. Sticky sap marred the delicate, torn fabric. “Wouldn’t the police have found all this evidence years ago?”
“Not if they didn’t care.”
I shook my head and stepped toward him. “They cared, Carter.” I reached out again but dropped my numbing hands before I touched him.
“They scoured the towns fifty miles in each direction. Questioned everyone who was at the party that night. Went over every camera available to them. And still... nothing.” I cocked my head to the side. “They cared, but the killer was better.”
His thick brows furrowed, his jaw pulsing as he pulled out his phone from his pocket. “You said Ethan ripped your dress?”
“Yeah. I had to tie his letterman jacket around my waist to keep it in place.”
His fist clenched around his phone, the whites of his knuckles gleaming in the moonlight.
“Why?”
He turned his phone towards me. “This dress is intact and covered in blood.”
My gaze narrowed on the flowered material—the design much too realistic for my tastes back then. I snagged the phone from his hand and brought it closer to my nose, zooming in on the fabric. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice this before. ”
He tore the phone from my grasp and looked at the screen. “What?”
“The dress and shoes...” I groped my side and tipped my head back. “ Ugh ...I don’t have my phone.”
“You’re practically naked in the forest.”
“Thanks to you.” I looked around as I wracked my brain.
How can I prove it?
I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “Amber’s socials.”
“What?”
I jumped with glee. “That night, Amber and I took a bunch of pictures together. She posted it to her socials. It should still be there.”
Unless they removed the account.
Carter thumbed through his phone as I moved closer to him, my heart racing, his musky cologne mixing with the faint scent of burning wood floating in on a breeze.
“This one?”
Amber and I stood together, my arm wrapped around her shoulder, our cheeks pressed together as she took a high-angle selfie with her new phone. Tears burned my eyes.
It’d been a long time since I’d seen my best friend, her image bringing in a flood of anguish.
“Look.” He flipped back to the video. “It doesn’t match.”
“I told you.” I slapped his shoulder with giddy glee, then held out my hands. “Now, release me.”
He shook his head. “This doesn’t prove much of anything, June. You could have gone home and changed. ”
“I was with Ethan until six in the morning. You just have to check the hotel security cameras.”
“Like they’ll keep them this long.”
“Look at my social then.“ I snagged the phone from his hand in a back-and-forth tug of war over the evidence-rich device. “My mom demanded proof of life at five A.M.” Thumbing through his phone, I entered my name in the app search bar. “I posted it to my pages, too, ragging on my parents for being nosey.”
“They were seeing if you were okay.”
I scrolled to my page and typed in the date, the image of my tattered dress, causing my eyes to burn. “I was an eighteen-year-old brat who thought they were encroaching on my newfound freedom.”
“Amber died at four-forty.” Turning the screen toward him, I pointed to four-fifty-one A.M. in bold lettering. “I wasn’t there in those clothes, and I certainly wasn’t covered in blood.”
A heaviness left my chest, and I sucked in a full breath of air. “There’s no way I could have gotten to her, returned to the hotel, which was twenty-five minutes away, scrubbed up and changed so I could take this picture.”
“You could have taken it before you posted.”
“Dammit, Carter.” A weary tear dribbled down my cheek as I dropped to the ground, sitting on my haunches. “Your brain will do anything to validate the truth you think you know. But I’m telling you, that isn’t me, and I didn’t do it.”
I cupped my face—the pine needles poking into the soles of my bare feet and sobbed.
There’s no getting through to him.
He’s going to kill me, and the last memory I’ll have of him is him terrorizing me to the end.
“This doesn’t make any sense. Then what about the pictures and video of you doing it?”
My hands fell from my face, and I sniffled. “I don’t have an answer for that.”
He ran his hand through the shadow of a beard, scratching at his cheek with a slight growl.
“Come on.” He snagged my ties and hauled me to my feet, picking up his mask once again.
“Where are we going?”
I stumbled after him, the trees whizzing by until we stepped onto the dirt road just shy of the man lying on the ground with his car door ajar.
“Back to the cabin.”
My stomach twisted in knots as the dead bodies hanging from the ceiling flashing through my mind. “Wait. Carter.” I dragged my feet behind him, kicking up dust, my toes scraping against small pebbles. “I thought—“
“I need to think.”
“Think in the car.” I tugged on my restraints, his hand jerking behind him as he placed his mask over his face. “I can’t go back in there.”
He spun on me, his hand wrapping around my throat and tightening, my weight settling on my toes. “I said, I need to think.”
“They’ll kill me.”
“No one will harm you.” His mask moved side to side. “Because you’re mine.”
A swarm of butterflies hit my belly and fluttered, erasing the rational side of my mind.
I always wanted to be Carter Morgan’s.
His hand slipped away from my throat as I nodded, then dragged me around the gate, up the stone driveway, and to the porch, where a man scanned his neck.
Do they all have microchips in their necks?
Why?
We zigged and zagged through people, my stomach turning on end as he pulled me toward a doorway with a small group of people lounging on an expensive sofa and loveseat, their masks in place.
Carter sighed as he stopped near the entrance of the room. “Paul.” He waved two fingers toward a man in a hyena mask.
The man stood from his seat beside a pink-haired flamingo, tapping her on her bare thigh. “Showing her a good time, it seems.” The man glanced up and down my body, his beady eyes in place of the hyenas.
I took a step behind Carter, hiding my exposed flesh from the onlooker.
“Only what she deserves.”
My brows pinched together.
I thought we had an understanding.
Carter pulled me from behind his back, exposing me to the leering man. “Where is your guest?”
Paul pointed to the death dripping from the ceiling. “Contributing to the art.”
My stomach churned and I leaned into Carter.
“Aw, squeamish?” Paul chuckled, his fingers gripping my chin, pulling my gaze toward him.
He lashed out, swiping Paul’s hand off my chin. “Don’t touch her.”
“Have you taken a liking to her?” He backed off with a partial grin peeking out from beneath the mask.
Carter shook his head. “And if I have?”
He tilted his head at me. “That’s not how this works, Carter. She’s a sacrifice. Nothing more. She killed your sister. Or did you forget that for a little pussy?”
Carter released my hands, gripped Paul by the collar, and pushed him away. “Is that right?”
He laughed, matching the hyena he portrayed. “I’ve seen it all too many times.”
“I’m not them.”
My stomach clenched, and my heart thundered in my chest, perspiration bubbling up under the thick coating of dirt.
What does that mean?
Is he still planning on killing me?
“You’re all sick.” My body ran cold and littered my skin with goosebumps. “What’s the point of all of this?”
Paul tilted his head at me, swiped Carter’s hold off him, and moved him to the side. “You’ve never thought about killing someone? Someone who betrayed you or broke your heart, maybe?”
There was only one person who popped into my head. But if that man died, then a little girl would be left all by herself with the system to neglect her.
“I could never take someone’s life.”
Paul grinned and patted my cheek. “That’s what I thought.”
I jerked out of his touch and rushed into Carter’s. My arms pressed over my chest, my bound hands under my chin as I dug my face into his chest.
He pressed his hand to the back of my head, holding me tight, his arm wrapping around my waist.
“What a shame. I expected better of you, Carter.
“Forgive me for not caring.” His chest rumbled with a low growl as he spun us around, pulled away from me, and gripped my bound wrists.
He pulled me through the cabin, up the black wooden stairs, and through the bedroom door I woke up in.
A whoosh of air slammed out of me as the door banged shut. My back hit the wall as he pushed my shoulders and towered over me.
He tossed his mask to the chair he’d sat in when I first woke. “I’ve waited so long to use this.”
I glanced down at his body and focused on the shining knife in his hand.
My stomach lurched, and a cold sweat blistered my skin. “ Wait. Just wait, Carter.” Tears burned my eyes.
He brought the knife forward, and darkness hit my mind like a power outage during a tornado. My hands jerked and sprung apart, causing my brows to lift.
I glanced down at my freed hands, and a staccato breath left my lips. “Does this mean...”
Carter tucked the knife away and drew closer, his body pressed against mine, his hands cradling my cheeks.
“I used to watch you like a moth drawn to a flame, unaware of how much your touch could burn me.” He bent closer, his breath caressing my lips. “You have no idea how hard it was to walk away from you all those years ago.”
What is he confessing?
Laughter outside of the door drew my attention away from him. He dragged my gaze back to his. “It’s only us. Forget what’s down there.”
I bit down on my inner cheek, the tears welling in my eyes, blurring my vision. “It’s hard to forget what my fate could very well be.”
He shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Swiping at the unshed tears, his rugged features focused. “You believe me?”
“More than ever.”
“But you said—“
“It was for show.”
Air whooshed out of my lungs, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders while standing on the tips of my toes, soaking in his warmth. I jerked away, holding him at an arm’s distance. “We need to get out of here.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a slight nod. “We will, but first I need to do something.”
“What? What’s more important than leaving these psycho’s behind?”
“I just need to confirm something first.”
“What is it? Let me help.”
“I need to think it through.” He rubbed his jaw, the muscles pulsing under the shadow of a beard.
“Okay.”
We stood in silence as I stared at him, my hands tucked behind me, braced against my butt, the shivering tightness in my chest melting away.
He glanced sideways at me, and I suppressed a laugh, my teeth digging into my cheeks to stop the smirk.
“What’s so funny?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
My stomach morphed from dread to teenage nervousness as though I’d never been in peril, and he’d never professed to wanting me dead.
He turned toward me with a smile and ran his fingers through my gnarled hair.
Pine needles poked at my skin, the leaves crinkling as he picked them out of my hair and dropped them to the ground. “We look like a bunch of people who took a romp in the hay.”
I laughed. “Me, more so than you.” My fingertips touched his cut brow and stared at the bruise forming over the bridge of his nose. “You look like you got the shit kicked out of you by a girl.”
He raised a brow and walked across the room. “Where did you learn to fight like that anyway?” Opening a drawer in the nightstand, he removed a thin package of wet wipes.
“I took self-defense lessons for a few years after Amber died.” I winced as he cleaned the blood off of his face, using the mirror hanging on the wood-paneled wall, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t want to end up like her.” I shrugged and scoffed. “Not that it did me much good.”
“You put up a good fight, dollface. Don’t underestimate yourself.”
I hung my head with a hint of a smile. “Did you mean what you said...earlier? About how hard it was to walk away?”
He dropped the wipe to the table below him and grabbed another, clearing his face of any evidence of our struggle. “Yes.” His hand bobbed with the new wipe as if hesitating, then continued cleaning.
“Then why did you say those things to me?” I shuffled toward him and took the wipe from his hand, resuming where he had left off.
“It’s complicated.” He looked down at me as he lifted his head, giving me better access to the drying blood.
“I’m smart enough to comprehend.”
He tucked a finger under my chin and forced my gaze to his. “I know you are, but I don’t want your opinion of her to change. ”
“My opinion of who? Was there someone else?”
Shaking his head, he dropped his hand to my shoulder and sighed. “No. Nothing like that.”
“Then tell me.”
“Amber.” He glanced away from me, his jaw pulsing. “She caught us kissing. Afterward, she confronted me and essentially told me I was an awful brother for trying to steal her best friend away.”
I shook my head. “I’d never stop being her friend.”
“She didn’t think the same way. She convinced me, and I stepped away.”
“Wait, so Amber told you to back away?” I dropped the wipe and crossed my arms over my tightening chest. “That bitch.”
“What?”
“I can’t believe her.”
“It’s understandable she didn’t want to lose—“
“No.” I scoffed. “She’s the one who introduced me to Ethan that night.”
“Are you serious?”
I nodded with a frown. “She saw how upset I was, and I told her someone rejected me, but I couldn’t tell her who. She convinced me to hit the party that night and introduced me to Ethan. She said the best way to get over someone would be to get under someone.” Backing away, I sat on the bed and crossed my leg over my scraped knee. “You were supposed to be there that night, and I wanted to make you jealous, but you never showed up. ”
“I’d changed my mind.” He dropped down beside me. “Apparently, she was more secretive than any of us knew.”
“Apparently.” I shrugged. “This is so cliché.”
He chuckled, his broad shoulders shaking with the warm, sultry sound. “You were a teenager. It’s understandable you’d act that way.”
My mouth hung open as I scoffed and slapped his shoulder with floppy fingers. “I was eighteen. I knew everything.”
He raised a brow. “I’ve missed you so much.” He twisted toward me, raising his knee across the bed between us.
Prickling heat rose up my neck and settled in my cheeks. My gaze darted away, and he pulled me closer, his fingers threading through mine—his thumb caressing the reddened indentations circling my wrists.
“I wish this night never happened, but then again...” His lips pressed into the wound, his tongue sliding against my sensitive flesh, causing it to cool. “I never would have known the truth.”
“Carter.” My breathless words evaporated in the space between us as he glanced up at me through hooded dark eyes, my stomach swirling in a fit of knots.
“Yes, dollface.”