32. Madelyn
I feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve been having a panic attack for the last ten minutes, trying desperately to calm down so I can find Miles and save him.
I’m about to face my stalker and I don’t know if I’m going to make it out of it alive, or if Miles is even still breathing.
The thought that he might not be causes my panic attack to worsen and I start to hyperventilate.
“Maddie! I need you to calm down, alright? Take some deep breaths for me, please,” Nate says, while grabbing me by the shoulders.
I’m trying, I try to say. I swear I’m fucking trying, but this is all too much.
He killed Julius. The only father figure Miles had left in this world and he’s gone. The image of Julius’ lifeless body as it laid severed on the ground resurfaces in my brain and I try to push it out. A bloodcurdling wail escapes me and I’m trying so fucking hard to control it.
Julius didn’t deserve the ending he got. He was a good man who did so much for Miles, so much for all of us.
I take a minute to try and control my thoughts. I listen to what Nate tells me to do and start taking long, deep breaths. I have to calm down. It's not about me or anything else right now. I need to focus on what is important. I need to do this for Miles.
When I’m finally ready, I nod my head at him and we take off back to the hospital to pick up Morgan. I’m trying not to think about our conversation from earlier and put it behind me and see things from her perspective.
Sure, she shouldn’t have lied to me about her and Miles, but I also shouldn’t have freaked out on her the way I did. Right now, Miles needs us and I need to forgive and forget for his sake. His life is on the line and I refuse to let the past be the thing that gets in the way.
After we pick up Morgan, Nate gives her the details on what's going on and what happened to Julius, while I try to mentally prepare myself for what I’m about to walk into. Morgan is trying to hold it together in the backseat, but we’re all broken by what’s happened today.
We lost someone important to us, and trying to go on despite it is one of the hardest things all of us have to do.
As we drive to the abandoned theater, Nate and Morgan both try their best to tell me what to do once I make it inside. They can’t go inside with me. The stalker specifically said no one is allowed to come with me or he’d kill Miles and we just can’t take that risk.
We pull up to the abandoned theater and my heart starts to race. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can face him.
I try my best to continue to control my breathing as Nate and Morgan sit in silence.
“You ready?” Nate asks, and I nod my head, unbuckling my seatbelt and taking one last deep breath. It’s for him.
“Maddie, you’re not alone. Remember that.”
I don’t know what he means, but I nod my head at him anyway and step out of the car. My palms are sweaty and I rub them against my leggings to try and dry them. I can feel the weight of Nate’s pocket knife at my hip and I pull it out, deciding to stuff it into my bra instead.
I walk up to the front entrance to see the doors have chains on them, preventing me or anyone else from entering. All the windows are broken from where people have thrown things into them, but not enough to where you can step into them without cutting yourself.
How the fuck am I supposed to get inside?
I continue to look around to find one of the door chains hanging loose. I pull on the handle and the door creaks, opening with ease. I can feel the pounding in my chest as I step inside the front entrance of the theater.
The air inside is stale and filled with dust. You can tell this place has been abandoned for years. I exhale, slowly letting out the breath I was holding and see particles floating in the air from the beam of light that shines through the glass doors.
The ticketing box is boarded up with plywood, graffiti painted all over it and the surrounding walls. I hear a bloodcurdling scream and I snap my head in that direction.
It’s Miles.
I run through the double doors into the large abandoned theater room and see nothing.
There’s a large velvet red curtain covering the stage and all the seats are covered in dust and debris.
I look around the room frantically, and my chest feels like it’s going to cave in if I don’t get to Miles soon.
“Hello?!” I yell out into the empty room, hoping whoever is in here will just show themselves. Before I can yell again, the curtain moves and the horror that's on the stage almost makes me fall to my knees.
Miles is sitting on a wooden chair in the center of the stage.
His hands are tied behind his back and each of his legs are tied to either side of the chair.
His head is hung low, his hair covering his face to where I can’t see it.
He’s shirtless and barefoot, blood covering his feet, chest and arms, along with the stage beneath him.
Oh, my god. What did he do to him?
“Miles!” I scream and begin to run towards the stage but stop dead in my tracks when my stalker walks out from around the corner of the stage, making himself known.
For a moment, I think my heart stops beating. My entire body goes rigid in fear and confusion. How could it be? There’s no way this is really happening.
“Austin?”
He smiles at me, but it's nothing like the smile I grew up with. Nothing like the one that used to make me feel safe. This smile is wrong. Twisted. It stretches too wide, devoid of warmth, filled with something cold and vicious that makes my stomach turn.
“Hello, Maddie.” His voice is almost gentle, “Did you miss me?”
The world tilts beneath my feet. No. No, no, no.
My mind refuses to accept what my eyes are seeing. This can't be Austin. Not my Austin. The boy who patched my scraped knees and walked me home after school. The one who sat with me for hours just so I wouldn't have to be alone. The one who promised he'd always protect me.
The man standing in front of me? The one covered in blood with that horrifying smile carved across his face? He's a stranger wearing Austin's skin.
Kaitlin walks onto the stage and comes to stand beside Austin like she's always belonged there. My heart plummets.
How? How do they even know each other?
My mind scrambles to make sense of it, but every answer only leads to more questions. She was supposed to be my friend. The person I trusted and the one who held me while I cried and promised she had my back.
Then, one by one, the pieces begin to lock into place.
The dirt from the flowerpot and the footprint Miles found.
The way Kaitlin hated him from the very beginning, before she'd ever given him a chance.
How desperately she tried to keep me away from him.
The constant texts. The panic whenever I wasn't answering. Her insistence on knowing where I was.
Austin couldn't find me until after Kaitlin came to the house. My blood turns to ice. She didn't stumble into my life by chance and she sure as fuck wasn't protecting me. She was watching me so she could feed Austin information on me.
Every warning Miles gave me and every uneasy feeling he couldn't explain. Every time I defended her… Oh, god he was right. He was right about all of it.
This is all my fault.
“Welcome to the show, my love! Take a seat, grab some popcorn. It’s going to be a hell of a show,” Austin announces, filled with pride, as Kaitlin laughs next to him. I give her the ugliest look I can possibly muster and all she can do is smile at me.
I've never felt this type of hurt and betrayal before in my life. Losing my mom was hard enough, but this? This is an entirely new level of fucked up I wasn’t prepared for. Was she pretending to be my friend the whole time?
Miles lifts his face and I turn to look at him, making eye contact with his intense blue eyes. The right side of his face is covered completely in blood, the left side beginning to bruise. Oh my god, Miles. What did they do to him?
I don’t care what happens to me anymore or what they plan to do to me, I just need to help him. I start to run towards the stage, but Austin stops me.
“Ah ah ah, where do you think you’re going?” He gets behind Miles and grabs him by the hair, lifting his head up to where his neck is visible and holding what I can only imagine is a knife up to his throat.
“No! Stop! Please!” I scream, holding my hands out in front of me, hoping to god he’ll just listen to me and not hurt him any further.
“Please, I’ll do whatever you say, just don’t hurt him, Austin. Please! This isn’t like you.”
He tosses his head back, laughing hysterically, and Kaitlin joins him like this is all some sort of sick joke to them. I can feel my heart start to crack knowing that whoever my best friend was, he isn’t here anymore.
Kaitlin walks up beside Austin and brings her hand up to his cheek, caressing it like they have some type of connection. She looks over at me and winks before turning back to Austin, kissing him. She breaks their kiss and looks back at me, a prideful look painted on her face.
“Look at you. You look so fucking pathetic. Begging for his life. ‘No, stop, please!’” She laughs as she mocks me. Watching her all over Austin makes me fucking sick.
Austin’s eyes travel back over to me and widen as he holds the blade of the knife up to Miles’ throat.
“This is like me, Maddie. This has always been like me. You just failed to see it. You failed to pay attention to it, just like you stopped paying attention to me! Why would you do that to me, Maddie? All I wanted to do was love you.”
What is he talking about? He sounds like some kind of crazy person. I never stopped paying attention to him. He’s the one who stopped hanging out with me to hang out with the people who used to bully us. How could he even say that?
“And when you left, you know who was there for me? Kaitlin. She gave me the love and attention that I needed. The love that you decided I didn’t deserve.”