Chapter 39 | Kate
THIRTY-NINE | KATE
Ialmost said it, but the words sat heavy on my tongue. The way Preston’s been making me feel all night nearly had me feeling light enough to tell him that I love him.
That I’m completely and utterly his.
The way he broke for me on that Ferris wheel, relaying the memories of that horrific night five years ago, had parts of myself reaching out to him like the roots of a plant somehow embedding themselves in the weakest parts of shattered concrete, like I could fill them.
Hold them together, though I’m not made up of the same matter.
Now, there’s this hollow, regretful feeling churning in my stomach, knowing I could’ve said those words to him and didn’t.
Tonight, when we get back to the estate, I’m going to.
I know he hasn’t said them first, but I’ve felt them in all the details woven through tonight.
Have recognized it in the way his eyes hold mine, like two magnets destined to fit.
If love isn’t a man offering to hunt down your demons to the end of the earth, even when he’s haunted by his own, I don’t know what is.
The silence in the break room is eerie as I open my locker, which contains an extra pair of clothes, my last paycheck, and a few other miscellaneous items. A cold draft pushes through the room, wrapping around me like freezing fingers clawing my skin.
It sits on my arms and legs, making them prick with gooseflesh.
My body is eager to return to the man who somehow injects heat into my bloodstream, even though he instills fear in others.
There’s something oddly poetic and beautiful about that.
Knowing he’s weak for me.
As if my body is aware, the hairs on my neck rise, feeling a presence in the small room behind me.
My teeth sink into my bottom lip as I suppress my smile.
“Should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to leave me alone for five minutes,” I tease.
A few heartbeats pass. The absence of a response has me shaking my head, as I rearrange the contents of my locker to make it easier to carry them down into the tunnel.
“Luckily for you, I enjoy your possessiveness.”
“Do you?”
My heart plummets into my stomach. The low timber of the voice has my fingers tightening on the handle of my locker.
It’s taking all my power to fight the tremors seizing every muscle.
I must be hallucinating. The tone in my ears somehow shifts into one with the authority to have terror eating me from the inside out.
My feet feel as if they're buried in tar as I slowly turn, my entire body solidifying in fear.
Those dark eyes that appear in my nightmares arrest mine, breathing life into the petrifying dreams I’ve carried ever since I ran. “Because you know how much I love it when you run. But hiding from me?” he tsks. “Now that really pisses me off.”
“Xander,” I breathe, trying to ignore the way I feel like the scar on my neck is splitting open with his presence alone.
He takes a step forward, and I take one back, my back plastering against the cool metal of the lockers behind me. My palms flatten over the surface, trying to hold on while the ground I finally felt steady on is ripped out from below me.
“How…did you find me?” my lip quivers.
He blows out an entertained snicker laced with disdain.
“I almost gave up. Thought you were gone for good. But finally, after months of looking for you—” His head shakes side to side in displeasure as he drags his hand over his dark, cropped hair.
“You really outdid yourself this time. Fucking Maine.”
It takes me a second to register what he’s wearing. My gaze anxiously flits to the metal name plate on his security uniform. “Lex?” I mutter timidly.
He continues pacing toward me with that psychotic gleam in his eyes that paralyzes me on the spot.
“Couldn’t risk you running off if someone talked about me while I was going through the hiring process.
Don’t get me wrong, I was a little concerned that you had already run again since you seemed to be missing from work for a few weeks.
” His jaw flexes. “I assume he has something to do with that?” He clucks his tongue.
Preston.
Xander’s hand whips out, wrapping around my throat.
His rough fingers pulse into my flesh. I inhale a sharp breath, shaking below his burly frame.
He may not be as big as Preston, but his body still swallows mine.
I’ve always been something small for him to push around.
To torture and flood with praise as if taking his violence is okay.
“You just said you like it when I’m possessive. So, consider me jealous, Kate. Do you know how fucking hard I am right now thinking about draining the blood from his body? You’ll be a good girl for me and watch before I draw yours, won't you?”
I don’t dare speak.
He doesn’t know who he’s messing with. If he did, he wouldn’t be attempting this. But again, he’s always been a sociopath. I wouldn’t put it past him to get off on his own pain.
The feeling of cool metal against my side causes a whimper to escape my lips.
His head tilts forward, his hot, repulsive mouth skimming the shell of my ear.
I don’t miss the hint of alcohol on his breath as it fans across my cheek and into my nose.
“You know how much I love marking this hot little body with my knife. So, fucking sit down before I use this gun and ruin the game.” With his hand clutching my neck painfully enough to leave a mark, he flings me forward.
I stumble, my body slamming into the table in the center of the room. “We need to talk.”
This man destroyed any confidence I had in his presence. Blasted it into tiny fragments that got caught in the wind, while only a few small shards landed at my feet. Now I’m collecting them. Clutching them in my hands like they’ll be enough to give me the courage I need to end this.
“There’s nothing to talk about. We’re done.” I seethe with my back turned to him.
A click emanates in the air, my body solidifying. I don’t know much about firearms, but that faint sound of the safety clicking off somehow pulsates through the room, shooting through my nerves to have me shakily reaching for the chair to pull it away from the table.
I plop down, tears biting the corners of my eyes.
“Good.” He praises, the one word causing acid to sear my throat.
The hairs on my arms stand on end. It feels like they follow his movement as he rounds the table slowly, his wicked gaze pinning me in place.
The gun may be lowered, but it doesn’t diminish the fear weaving around my frame, keeping me imprisoned in this chair like chains.
He slams the gun on the table to trap it below his palm.
I jolt in place, inhaling to trap the sob that wants to be released.
“We’re done when I say we’re done, Kate. Does it look like I’ve given up?”
I shake my head, words escaping me.
“I’ve looked for you. I’ve chased you. I fucking moved across the country for you.
” His biting words should make me flinch, but they don’t.
Not like they used to. I may be terrified; however, they don’t carry the same weight they possessed back then to hold me under.
It feels different. While he continues talking, I try to gather any semblance of an idea to get out of this through the terrified haze fogging my brain.
“I think you're forgetting the lengths I’d go through for you.”
I’ve been running from you for a reason. “I haven’t forgotten,” I grit through clenched teeth.
Xander’s head slants, his gaze dragging over the top half of my body. “You’ve changed. You're feistier than you used to be.” His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I like it.”
I ignore his comment, crossing my arms over my chest like they will somehow put a protective barrier between us. “How did you find me?”
He shrugs. “A facial recognition search gave me a lead—a picture of you in the background of a girl’s social media post with a location tag. She made it easy for me.” Xander’s dark laugh bathes me in needles that pierce into my skin.
Shit.
Why didn’t I think about Nicole? She’s always taking pictures, or having Jeremy or me take them of her, and is obsessed with her image online. It never crossed my mind that I might be in the background of one of them. How negligent of me.
“So, you just decided to apply for a job here, as a security guard?”
A corner of his mouth tilts upward, making my stomach roll violently. “It was easy. I guess I’m already up for a promotion,” he adds. “They want to meet with me next week to discuss a new offer. But we’ll be long gone before then. We’ll be home.”
“I am home.” That effortless admission tumbling from my mouth hits my chest hard, nearly knocking the breath from my chest.
Home.
Xander ignores me, “I learned my lesson last time at that motel when I woke and you were gone. I was too impulsive. What better way to gather a plan than to watch you? To get a feel for the life you’ve settled into here.
” His gaze falls to the black-bodied handgun still trapped under his hand.
“But like I said, you’ve been missing. And then, while I was on shift, doing my rounds and walking around the park, I saw you in the distance.
With him,” he utters through gritted teeth.
His jaw flexes under the fluorescent lights.
“So here I am again, having to be fucking impulsive before you vanish again. Luckily, he left you alone, and here we are.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw.
“You don’t look at me the same way you look at him. ”
I nod. “I’ve moved on, and now I need you to.”
“No,” he drawls. “You’ve just forgotten what we had. Remember the first day we met at that blood drive?”
The mention of that memory has dread poisoning my gut.
When I don’t answer, he does. “You were as obsessed with me as I was with you. Then you bled on my cock and have been mine ever since. Mine!”
I blow out a disbelieving laugh through the emotion clogging my throat.
“It didn’t stop there, Xander! You cut me open.
You’ve given my body scars that will never fully heal.
You’ve made me bleed over and over again because you have a blood fetish and like watching me break.
I hated every minute of it, and I’m not going to let you hurt me anymore! ”
His fingers drum on the table, his narrowed eyes a solid void piercing into mine. “Don’t give me that shit. The pain made you wet. You shattered on my dick every. Single. Time.”
Yeah, so that it would be over.
Because you forced it out of my body like my pleasure was yours to take.
Tears streak down my fevered cheeks. I lick my salty lips, my voice quivering. “You need to leave. I’m not yours anymore. I never was.”
Immediately, I know it’s the wrong thing to say out loud as his fingers flex and he lifts the gun. Using the barrel, he motions the handgun toward the door carelessly. “Let’s go.”
“Please. Just let me go, Xander—” Tears fall from my eyes.
“No. I don’t think I can do that, Kate. I win. I found you.” He marches around toward my side, gripping my shoulder painfully to haul me to my feet. Pushing me, he shoves me around the table toward the door. “I’m not letting you go this time.”