Chapter 10
Birdie
He left. He told me to think about the answer carefully, set an old kitchen timer for two hours, placed it on the bench and left. I’m alone with the butterflies and the pins in my flesh and the steady warmth bleeding into my spine from the table beneath me.
When he left, I couldn’t see where he was going or how big this room was.
It’s too fucking dark. I can barely see anything beyond my feet.
But his footsteps sounded like they were climbing stairs.
A lock clicked open and then shut. Then keys rattled.
The sounds came straight from the front. I must be in some sort of basement.
I turn my head toward the bench, slowly, examining the limits. My neck fully obeys now. My hands and feet, not so much. I test the strength of the straps again, stifling a scream as I look for weaknesses in his setup, in his words, in the mask he won’t remove.
The straps hold firm. I pull against them anyway and burn with their bite. It seems the only thing I’m testing is my pain threshold. “Fuck.”
Sweat trickles down my hairline and the back of my neck. Why am I too numb to move and yet I can feel all the pain? “Okay. Breathe.”
In. Out. In. Out. The heat pools under my shoulder blades and spreads across my ribs. My muscles unknot slowly, accepting his gift. I hate that it feels good, but my body doesn’t care when it’s this cold, this afraid.
Think, Birdie. Every crime has a motive. Every goal needs an obstacle. Be the obstacle, not the victim. Never the victim.
Let’s start with the basics. Where am I? Where is he keeping me? It must be a place related or significant to our history. The sneaky smell of the ocean is a glaring clue. I’m very close to a beach. Which one, though? Jacksonville? Miami? Or are we still on the island?
Considering the fact that he drugged me to get me here, he couldn’t have put me on a plane in that state. We are still on the Vineyard. Okay. Good. If Butterfly Man isn’t RJ, there’s a good chance the police will find me.
The timer ticks loudly. The butterfly cases watch me.
Dozens of them, mocking me, as if saying, “Can’t you see?
You’re not meant to see outside these walls.
No one is going to find you here.” All those wings, frozen mid-flight.
Did they know? In that last moment before he pinned them, did they understand what was happening?
I do. But I’m not going to end up dead in a jar.
Ninety-eight minutes left on the timer. I must find a way to get out of these straps before he comes back.
The bench. There must be something there I can use to cut the straps.
If I can just reach it, I can grab one of his pins with my teeth or something.
I strain my neck forward, lifting my head as far as the angle allows.
My chin juts toward the bench. The distance is impossible—at least two feet of empty air between my mouth and the wooden edge.
The movement pulls at the pin in my shoulder. Fire lances through the puncture wound. A whimper crawls up my throat. I bite it back, clench my jaw, and stretch further.
The strap across my chest digs in. The leather creaks but doesn’t give. My neck tendons stretch so hard they threaten to snap.
Just. A little. Further.
My lips part. My tongue extends uselessly into the void. The bench might as well be on another continent.
I collapse back against the table, panting. The pin in my shoulder throbs with each pulse of my heart. Sweat stings my eyes. The timer mocks me with its steady tick-tick-tick.
Ninety-four minutes.
“Fuck. Fuck.”
I test my hands again. My fingers curl now, weak but responsive. I could grip something if I could just reach the buckle, but the positioning is surgical. Perfect. He’s thought of everything.
Except…
A desperate idea crystallizes with horrible clarity. My breath catches as I stare at the pins in my flesh. What if instead of holding me down, I used them as leverage?
The shoulder pin is maybe three or four inches long. If I could lift my body weight, create enough force, it would push through the rest of the way. The pain would be unspeakable. The damage, potentially catastrophic. But I’d be free of that anchor point.
I turn my head toward the bench again, recalculating. If I had more mobility in my shoulder, even just a few more inches of range... The pins in the case gleam.
It’ll tear your pretty wings beyond repair.
Good. Let them tear. Let him return to find his perfect specimen ruined, bloodied, destroyed. Let him see I’d rather rip myself apart than stay preserved in his collection.
My muscles tense. I take a deep breath as I test the resistance. The pin shifts in the wound, and fresh pain blooms, bright and nauseating.
I can do this. I can pull myself up and through and damn the consequences. The visualization sharpens: my shoulder tearing free, blood running hot down my side, my hand finally reaching the bench, fingers closing around cold metal—
Wait.
The thought stops me cold. “Fuck.” My eyes dart around the ceiling, the corners in the walls. I can’t place them, but I know they’re there. Cameras.
Men like him don’t create their sick art and leave it unobserved. He must have hidden cameras here, and he’s watching, noting every breath, every twitch, every calculation flickering across my face, jerking off to my desperation.
If I do this—if I destroy his careful work—he won’t just be angry.
He’ll flip. He’ll come back right now, mid-attempt, and stop me.
And then he’ll punish me. The straps will become chains.
The pins will multiply. He’ll take away the heater.
He’ll reduce me to something that can never be free, can’t do anything but exist exactly as he wants me to.
I bang the back of my head against the table. My muscles slump. The tension drains out of my body in a rush that leaves me shaking.
“Okay.” I exhale. Not yet. I’ve hit a plot hole; I save that for later when I fix it.
Yeah, Birdie. Save the desperate measure for when there’s nothing left to lose, when the cold has seeped so deep that hypothermia becomes a real threat, when he’s taken everything else and only pain remains.
My eyes squeeze shut to push those images away. I can’t think like this. I need to focus. For now, I still have warmth. I still have time. Eighty-two minutes on the clock.
I force a restart on my brain. If I can’t move, and he’s watching, I’d better use that to my benefit. Butterfly Man likes his games and his tests. This is no different. That’s why he left; he’s testing me.
If I am his good little butterfly and stay still, I’ll be rewarded. If I tear my wings, he’ll punish me.
Perhaps he’s been right all this time. If I surrender and earn his trust, I’ll find my freedom. All I have to do is lie there and wait. My body will show him what he wants to see, but my brain… It’ll do what it does best, where there are no cameras to spoil the plot twist.
First things first. What kind of book are we writing here? Is it a story of twisted love or revenge?
I thought I didn’t really have a stalker with a sick obsession with me because Blake proved to be Butterfly Man.
But Tristan has always believed Butterfly Man isn’t one person.
Blake might have started Butterfly Man, but someone else continues to play his game.
That person is behind the mask now. He’s the one who took me and put me here.
Why?
Has there been an obsessive psycho stalker from the start?
A twisted love arc. Did Blake have an accomplice all along?
A revenge plot. Or is he something else entirely?
A vulture that saw an opportunity and swooped in?
A greedy lowlife who followed the case, had access to information, and decided to play the game to cash in?
A blackmail B movie, not even a story worth writing.
Sixty-nine minutes.
No. This place, the setting, his words, all of it is personal, too personal to be a hoax.
He calls me the exact names he used when he was in my bedroom: his queen, darling, little butterfly.
Those aren’t in any Butterfly Man case files or news.
Neither is Shane. Adriana and Tristan promised to keep that part from the police during the investigation, and they’ve kept their word.
The man who kidnapped me is the same man who was in my bedroom that night. It was never Blake.
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced Blake didn’t kill Saldana or Gia either, not even Aaron and the others.
Butterfly Man is a real, murderous stalker.
Blake was the vulture. He was the one who watched my stalker ruin my life and did nothing to stop him.
Instead, he used it, gaslighting me, only to manipulate me and take my money.
If Butterfly Man wants love—his twisted, broken version of it—then I have leverage. Love wants something back. It needs reciprocation, validation, proof that the object of desire feels the same way. Love is a transaction, even when it’s sick.
And no one knows how to write fucked-up love stories better than me.
I can give him the performance of a lifetime. I can play the captive who breaks, who sees the light, who finally understands that he's been her dark protector all along.
I can be his queen. Until I find a way to put a pin through his fucking throat.
Unless Tristan is right. Blake had roped RJ in somehow, promised him something in exchange for help, and the two partners planned the whole game together.
My husband had given RJ all the details, filled him in on the pet names to make it all convincing.
Now that Blake is dead, RJ didn’t get whatever Blake had promised him.
The detective wants either to avenge his partner or force me to make him rich to spare my life.
Fifty-four minutes.
But RJ is the one who showed me that video that incriminated Blake. RJ knew Tristan was coming for Blake. Why did RJ not warn Blake or help him escape? Why would he turn on his friend and have him killed?
Because Blake was a backstabbing asshole who backed out on his deal with RJ. Because RJ wants all your money for himself. Because perhaps you had it backwards and have been played for a fool…again.
The scenarios play in my head. A whole folder of character bibles, motives, obstacles and goals swells against my skull.
Twenty-one minutes.
Thirteen.
Seven.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Fifty seconds.
What if Blake did ask RJ for help in his twisted plan, but RJ only agreed because he had different intentions?
The ticking stops, and so does the low hum of the heater. Dread pools in my stomach and seeps out of my pores.
What if the detective wasn’t Blake’s accomplice? What if Blake was his in a totally different, yet more twisted game?