71. Sage
Sage
Who the fuck was that? What the hell is going on!?
I stumbled out through the heavy glass doors of the restaurant and onto the wet pavement, my chest heaving as I fought the overwhelming urge to throw up. Dizzying confusion wracked my body. My mind was spinning out of control, desperately trying to process the nightmare that had just unfolded.
My perfect birthday dinner was a complete disaster. I had just been assaulted in a restaurant bathroom by a terrifying stranger with a sickly similar face to my boyfriend, who sat oblivious just down the hall.
A stranger who was apparently his twin brother.
Was that my stalker? The thought hit me like a physical punch to the stomach.
Was it his twin brother this whole time, leaving those taunting gifts, watching me in the dark corners of my room?
Was that why Julian had been so eager to follow me around and protect me?
Was that why he moved me into a multi-million dollar fortress in the sky without batting an eye?
But why? my mind screamed. What would Julian get out of that? No. I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. I refused to let myself think that way. Julian loved me. I felt it in my bones. He would never, ever let anybody hurt me like that.
Maybe he didn’t know his twin brother was a fucking psychopath and a pervert who was terrorising me. But even if he was innocent in the stalking… it still meant he had been lying to my face this entire time.
It didn’t make any sense. If he had been keeping a secret this massive from me, what else had he lied about? Was this the real reason he never, ever mentioned his family or his past?
A heavy, sickening dread dropped straight to the bottom of my stomach. The beautiful, perfect little fantasy I had built for myself was crashing down around me. Hot, humiliated tears spilled over my eyelashes, tracking through my makeup and down my cheeks.
I grabbed my bare arms, shivering uncontrollably. It was late, the street was mostly empty, and a freezing, misty rain had just started to fall, instantly biting into the exposed skin of my backless dress.
I pulled my phone out of my clutch, my trembling thumb mashing the power button. The screen flashed a dead battery icon before going black.
Fuck. I couldn’t even order an Uber.
I knew I should wait for Julian. I knew he was probably tearing the restaurant apart looking for me right now.
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look him in the eye, not when he wore the exact same face as the man who had just shoved his hands between my thighs.
I was too upset, too terrified, and my flight instinct had now taken over.
He had some serious explaining to do, and I needed to be behind a locked door to hear it.
I started walking quickly down the wet pavement, my heels clicking frantically.
A sudden crack of thunder rolled over the city, the sound vibrating right through the soles of my shoes. I flinched, a gasp catching in my throat as a massive strike of lightning illuminated the dark clouds.
I hated storms. I had been terrified of lightning and thunder for as long as I could remember.
It was a deep, irrational, clawing panic that I could never fully explain, but it always made me feel like the sky was caving in on me.
The rolling boom echoed again, and the misty rain instantly escalated into heavy, freezing sheets.
A dark sedan suddenly pulled up to the curb beside me, the tires splashing through the puddles. The passenger window rolled down, revealing a scruffy middle aged man behind the wheel.
“Hey! You need a ride?” he called out over the sound of the rain. “I’m an off-duty cab driver. Got a five-star rating if you want to check my app.”
He offered a casual, mocking little laugh.
I hesitated, taking a step back from the curb, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Look, you’re lucky I caught you,” he added, gesturing to the empty, rain-slicked street. “I was actually just heading home for the night. You’ll be lucky to get anything around here at this time on a weekday. Come on, get in before you catch pneumonia.”
Another deafening crack of thunder shook the pavement, drowning out my common sense. My panic spiked, overriding every instinct I had. I was stranded, freezing, terrified of the storm, and running from a literal nightmare.
“Thank you,” I breathed, pulling the heavy door open and sliding into the dry, warm interior of the backseat.
I pulled the door shut behind me.
Click.
The heavy, mechanical sound of the child locks engaging echoed loudly in the quiet cab.
My stomach instantly plummeted. A freezing spike of adrenaline shot up my spine, making me sit rigidly upright. I told myself it was just standard procedure for a cab driver in the city, but every single nerve ending in my body was screaming that I had just made a terrible mistake.
The driver adjusted his rearview mirror, his dark eyes locking onto mine in the reflection.
“So,” he asked, his voice too casual. “Where are we off to?”
I swallowed the heavy lump of terror in my throat, wrapping my arms tightly around my chest as another flash of lightning lit up the car, and gave him the address to the high-rise penthouse. The car pulled away from the curb, merging into the dark, carrying me further and further away from Julian.
The thrum of the tires against the rain-slicked pavement became a hypnotic, suffocating drone.
I was zoned out, my head resting against the cold glass of the passenger window.
My mind was trapped in a vicious, repetitive loop, replaying the horrific events of the night over and over again.
The terrifying realisation that the stalkers face was identical to the man I loved. The heartbreaking reality of it all.
I don’t know how long I sat there, immersed in my own thoughts, before the icy chill in the cab finally snapped me back to reality.
I blinked, wiping a patch of condensation from the window to look outside.
My brow furrowed. The towering, illuminated skyscrapers of the city were gone. Instead, we were driving down a dark, desolate industrial road lined with chain-link fences and abandoned, graffiti-covered warehouses. There were no streetlights. No other cars.
I leaned forward slightly, peering through the gap between the front seats.
The dashboard was completely dark. There was no phone mount. No glowing GPS screen mapping out the route to Julian’s high-rise.
“Excuse me,” I said, my voice trembling slightly as I tried to keep the rising panic out of my throat. “Do you know where you’re going?”
The driver didn’t answer. He didn’t even glance at the rearview mirror. He just kept his hands locked at ten and two, his face a dead, expressionless mask staring straight ahead into the rain.
My stomach dropped. The freezing spike of adrenaline I had felt when the doors locked returned, multiplying into a suffocating panic. Every survival instinct I had was suddenly screaming at me.
“You can just pull over here,” I said, my voice rising in pitch. “It’s fine. I can walk the rest of the way.”
Silence. The engine just continued to hum, pushing us further into the desolate dark.
“Hey!” I shouted, dropping all politeness left in my voice. I scrambled across the leather seat. “You’re starting to freak me out! I just want to go home, please! I’ve already had a really bad night, just let me out of the fucking car!”
Suddenly, the driver’s arm jerked.
The sedan swerved. The tires shrieked against the wet asphalt as the car slammed hard up over the concrete gutter, throwing me painfully hard against the door. The car jolted to a harsh, aggressive halt in the shadow of a massive, decaying brick building.
“Let me out!” I screamed.
I grabbed the door handle, frantically yanking it backward. Click-clack. Click-clack. It was useless. The child locks held me prisoner in the cab.
Before I could kick at the window, the driver aggressively twisted his body around in the front seat. He reached right over the console, his large hands lunging for me in the dark.
“Get off me!” I shrieked, kicking wildly at the console. My heel connected with his shoulder, but he didn’t even flinch. He was terrifyingly strong. He grabbed my flailing wrists, twisting them painfully as he threw his upper body weight over the seat to pin me down against the leather cushions.
I fought with everything I had, thrashing and screaming, desperate to scratch at his face.
But then, his free hand shot out.
He slammed a thick, damp cloth directly over my nose and mouth.
I gasped instinctively, and my lungs instantly filled with a sickeningly sweet, heavy chemical stench. It was chloroform. It burned like lava, scorching the back of my throat and sending a violent, dizzying shockwave straight to my brain.
I squeezed my eyes shut, thrashing my head side to side to break his crushing grip, but he held the cloth ruthlessly in place.
Every desperate breath I took drew the thick, burning poison deeper into my system.
My kicks grew weaker. My hands, clawing frantically at his wrists, slowly lost their strength, slipping limply down to the leather seat.
The harrowing fire in my chest began to fade into a heavy, suffocating numbness.
Julian… my mind whispered, the name barely a thought as the edges of my vision rapidly began to blur into black static.
The world was dissolving, but through the hazing tunnel vision, a small, bright square of light suddenly cut through the darkness on the front passenger seat. The driver’s cell phone was lighting up, vibrating silently on the fabric.
I couldn’t move my neck, my muscles totally paralysed, but through the creeping void, I focused on the glowing screen. A single name was lit up in stark white letters, calling the driver.
Thomas.
I felt the driver release my wrists, the physical weight of him shifting back into his own seat as the car hummed with silence. My heavy, burning eyes were already closing, the sweet poison dragging me under, but I heard the faint sound of the call being answered.
Through the heavy, roaring static filling my ears, I heard the driver’s voice, low and devoid of the mocking tone he’d used before.
“We have her, Sir.”
Those four words were the very last things I heard before the void completely collapsed into an endless, heavy, and silent black abyss.
To be continued…