CHAPTER SIX #2
The barn I’m looking at sits just by the woods, almost nestled into the trees but not quite.
As if it wants to stay hidden but still close enough to be in touch with civilization.
Kinda like the man who lives here. It has a door made of metal, largely rusted in places, with an old-fashioned latch.
There’s also a metal chain attached to it with a large padlock that I’m sure is used to lock up but by some miracle is hanging open.
Perfect.
Without further ado, I push at the heavy door and slip inside, entering my stalker’s territory.
It’s huge—like everything about him—with two levels.
And it’s threatening, again like him, because the upper level is shrouded in darkness.
All I can see is a glass window up there with a view of the night sky, but nothing else.
I’m not concerned about the upper level, though, because the lower level makes it seem like I’ve stumbled upon a treasure chest.
A lantern with a low flame hangs from a wooden post up ahead, lighting the space, and I walk farther in, my booted feet thudding against the cement floor.
I come to a stop by the bed that looks even bigger than a king with wooden slats for a headboard, made up very neatly with sharp and precise corners.
There’s a dresser by the adjacent wall, just under the window that the moonlight streams through, with a stack of clothes on it that are also neatly folded.
A freestanding mirror is tucked away in a corner alongside a desk and a chair.
The desk has books on it, and in the space of only a few minutes spent in his private domain, I’m not surprised to see that they’re neatly stacked as well.
He likes control then. He likes to keep things neat and tidy and organized. Not surprising.
Slowly, I spin around in a circle, focusing on other things.
Things you wouldn’t find in a typical bedroom.
Like his wall of… ropes. Just by his massive bed, he has a display of them.
Three long rows of ropes, each hanging by a hook, each carefully wound in a coil.
Before I know it, I’m crossing the room and running my fingers along each of them.
They all feel different. Some rough; some soft.
Some coarser than others. And for some reason, every time I find a soft one, I wonder if this is hemp.
If this is the rope he bound me with, the one that didn’t leave any marks.
Because it didn’t. My wrists look as smooth as ever.
Not even a little redness. The only indication that he tied my hands is the tingling I get every now and then.
I want to stand here and examine each and every one of these ropes.
I want to tie my hands with them and see how they feel against my skin.
Which is why I step back. Because what the fuck?
Why would I want that? I absolutely do not want that.
Taking a determined breath, I move over to yet another atypical thing in his space: a tattoo machine.
Or rather a tattoo station on the other side of the room by the mirror, complete with a steel table containing a tattoo gun, needles, and cartridges.
Ink. I trace my fingers over them, too, over the cool table, the equipment, wondering if I ever saw any ink on him.
But then again, I only really saw him this morning so it’s not as if I’m an expert on all things him.
In light of that, I need to do what I came here to do: snoop. Rather than standing around and wasting time. Because despite what this whole situation looks like—no locked doors, pretty borrowed dresses, and attending a bonfire party—I’m still very much a prisoner here and can’t roam unsupervised.
So I spend the next several minutes going through the books on his desk, mostly history, world and American.
I open and close his desk drawers only to find gas station receipts, some loose change, stationery, really nothing that would tell me anything.
Same with his chest of drawers. Nothing but neatly folded clothes.
Although I do find a drawer full of bandannas, and my heart stutters for a few seconds as I stare down at them.
They’re all lightweight and soft, mostly dark in color.
Before I can stop myself, I start flicking through them, rooting around for one specific bandanna.
The one he used to mask his face. Except when he was gagging me with it.
My already stuttering heart skips a beat when I find it.
I shake it out and stare at the black-and-white skeleton.
For so long, this was my image of him. This was what I saw in my dreams, a man with green eyes wearing a skeleton mask.
Watching me from the shadows. Keeping me safe, making me feel so alive that some days I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I didn’t know what to do except seek him out.
Somehow make him appear, my Phantom. So I’d do stupid things: go to bars and flirt with strange guys, dance with them, laugh with them.
Go to dangerous places, dark alleys, just so he’d make sure I got home safe.
Walk around in my apartment, my bedroom, like it was my own stage, like I was putting on a show for him. Giving him something to watch.
You’re so stupid, Peyton. You’re so fucking…
That’s when I feel it. Feel what I’ve been feeling for the past few months, felt the whole time at the bonfire.
His eyes. Watching. Scrunching up his bandanna in my hand, I spin around and press myself against his dresser.
He’s much closer than I expected him to be.
He stands by the wooden pole with the lantern and watches me from under his black leather Stetson.
It sits low on his head, casting his eyes in a shadow, but I can see them glinting through the darkness.
Staring at me. His sharp features are blank, resting, giving nothing away—but this can’t be good.
Even so, my heart races, and it’s not all from the fear of being caught.
I try to sound as nonchalant as I can as I ask, “How long have you been here?”
As always, he replies to me in his own time and completely ignores my question. “You gonna put that back?”
My fingers fist around his bandanna as I counter, “You sneak up on people a lot, don’t you?”
“Only the clueless ones.”
“Maybe you’re just that creepy.”
“Or maybe you need to look around once in a while.”
I watch him for a few moments before stating what I now think is obvious: “You’ve been here the whole time, haven’t you?”
He stays silent and watching.
“Did you follow me from the party?”
Again, he doesn’t have to say anything for me to figure out the answer.
Fuck. I was so careful. I only snuck out when I knew—saw—he was busy with a couple of people.
But I should’ve known. I mean, he’s the man who stalked me way before I knew he existed.
Clearly, he knows what he’s doing. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Are you here to drag me back to my room and lock me up this time?”
At this, he lifts his head slightly so I can see his face and replies, “Weighin’ my options.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Well if you’re takin’ suggestions, might I say that locking me up isn’t an effective way to stop me from doing things you don’t want me to do.”
“No?”
“Nope.” I shake my head, popping the “p” at the end. “A lot of people have tried, but no one can hold me for long.”
“Is that right?”
“Yup.” I pop the “p” at the end here too.
“And I know you’re the rope expert here.
I mean”—I wave my hand to the wall with ropes—“very impressive display. But they haven’t invented a rope that can slow me down yet.
” I give him a sweet smile, just to fuck with him.
I also go ahead and tie his bandanna around my neck like a jaunty scarf. Again, to fuck with him.
He watches me do all that, his eyes first flicking down to my mouth that starts tingling before settling on my neck for a few moments.
My throat goes dry the longer he watches me, and my pulse seems to be hurtling at a dizzying speed.
When he finally meets my gaze, his eyes are so shiny and intense that I have to clutch the dresser to steady myself.
“Not about the rope,” he drawls, his voice low. “It’s about the knot. The loops you make, the retrace, the dress.”
“The… what?”
“It’s about pullin’ the ends,” he goes on, his eyes green and glittering, “to set the knot in a way that it only tightens. And tightens.”
“Well—”
“And keeps tightenin’, the more you struggle to break it.”
“That’s—”
“Until you breathe only when I tell you to breathe,” he finishes.
I swallow, the bandanna feeling tighter around my neck. “That’s, uh, quite graphic.”
He jerks his chin at me. “Unlike the knot you’ve got.”
I touch the knot at my neck and clear my throat. “I—”
“Or,” he continues, “the other option’s to just hog-tie you.”
“Hog… hog-tie?”
“No one gets out of a hog-tie,” he advises, educating me. “Bet all those city boys you play with didn’t know that.”
“I do not play with—”
“Let alone city girls, who ain’t never seen a rope before.”
“I’ve seen a”—I clear my throat—“rope before.”
He watches me a second before observing, “But never tied it.”
“Of course not. Why would I—”
“Never been tied by one either.”
“Well, this is my first time getting kidnapped, so”—I attempt to clear my throat again—“pardon me if I’m not an expert on ropes and knots and… whatever.”
His eyes flash, and I swear I see his lips twitch, his scar flickering a bit. But the almost smirk disappears quickly.
Ignoring it, I tip my head to gesture at the wall again. “So these are just for the animals, right?”
He leans against the wooden post then, his chest moving with a breath. “What else would they be for?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my heart beating really loudly in my ears. “Strangling people, maybe?”
At this, he crosses his arms across his massive chest, making it look even more massive and corded. “Don’t need rope for that.”