Authors: Melissa Marr
“Me too,” I mouth.
Then Nate straightens and closes the door, and I’m alone in the car with the boy who almost killed me—who
did
kill my friends. I stare at the back of his head for a moment, the gun aimed at him, and wonder how many ways this could go wrong. Would he kill us both? What if Nate can’t keep up or runs out of gas or . . . something happens that means we’re separated? What if the police come and think I’m an accomplice? I shove the thoughts away and say, as steadily as I can, “I don’t want to have to shoot you, but I will.”
Reid looks over his shoulder and smiles before saying, “I know.”
He doesn’t look afraid. That alone would be enough for me to suspect he was crazy. The other things I now know make “crazy” seem like too mild of a word.
“Your phones won’t work, by the way,” Reid says. “I have a machine to block them.”
“I said I wouldn’t call the police,” I remind him.
“I know, and I
want
to trust you, but . . . you were with someone else, Eva. That hurt me.” He watches me expectantly, like he thinks I should apologize.
The lights from Nate’s truck shine into the car, and I hear his truck engine. I take a steadying breath and say, “Just take me to Grace, Reid.”
“I am. You can trust me, Eva.” Reid turns the key in the ignition and pulls onto the road. “We have about an hour to talk.”
For the next forty minutes, I listen as he tells me about his father, about his mother killing his father, about how he’s had to hide that his whole life, about how his grandmother made him lie about them, about how he’s prayed to know the right choices. He tells me about having sex with Amy in some strange attempt to get closer to me, about how he remembers “locking gazes” with me and knowing that I meant for him to speak to me through flowers. He tells me about parties where he watched me and how he was “faithful” to me aside from Amy the past year—and how he knows that I know she doesn’t “count” because she was really Amy-Eva, a girl who adopted my “impure” needs so I could stay untainted.
As he talks, I try to record all of it. I might not be able to call the police, but I can get at least some of his confession on record. I’m not sure if my phone can record conversations this long. I think the app claims to be unlimited, but I’ve never recorded more than quick memos to myself. I’m not looking away from Reid to check if it’s still recording either. I can’t. I watch him with my gun aimed at him. I realize as he talks that he’s far less stable than I thought. He still sounds like the boy I’ve always known, but the things he’s telling me are horribly wrong.
The more he speaks, the more I’m grateful that he doesn’t really want a conversation. What he apparently wants is to tell me everything. He even explains that we can “keep” Grace at our home after this. He has a plan for this, too. “I’ll let you shoot Bouchet, and then you and I can get married,” Reid explains. “Grace is like a sister to you, so she can be your sister-wife. The way my father did it was wrong. He tried to hide things from my mother. That’s why it all went wrong.”
We pull off the road onto a dirt path, and the bumps shake me enough that it’s hard to keep the gun trained on Reid. “She’s unhurt though, right?”
“Of course!” He meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “I was careful because I knew you’d want that. That’s what no one else understands: I’ve only done things you’d want or that would
teach
you. Everything has been for you, for us. They just don’t understand us. They never will.”
I feel like throwing up, and I’m certain I may never sleep without nightmares after this is all over. Right now, though, I need to get to the point when it
is
over. I need to get to Grace. Then, I can deal with coping with the
after
.
Grace
I
WAKE ALONE
. A
T
first, I think he’s in the other room, but when I get out of the bed and walk around to see if I can find some sort of weapon, I notice that the padlock is no longer on the hinge inside the door. I’d love to believe that means he decided to leave the door unlocked and leave, but I suspect it simply means that the lock is outside, where it was when we arrived here. I start to walk over to check, but I can’t reach. My
leash
isn’t long enough to reach the door.
Tears fill my eyes at the reality of where I am now and what will happen if I can’t get free, but crying isn’t going to help me. I need a weapon or a way to escape, preferably both.
This could be a trap of some sort, a test to prove I’m not trustworthy. He seems a little obsessed with building trust. How he expects to do that after kidnapping, chaining, and drugging me, I’m not sure, but I don’t want to know how his mind works. He killed three girls. I’m not going to become number four.
“Reid?” I call out. I stay still and listen. No sounds of any sort greet me. That’s about the best I can do right now. If he’s here and watching, I guess I’ll deal with it when he reveals himself.
“Right, then,” I mutter. Somehow talking to myself seems to help keep back the weight of the silence.
I start by feeling the collar around my throat. It takes only moments to determine that it is, in fact, padlocked onto me. I won’t be getting that off easily. I follow the chain to the water heater. The end of the chain is looped around a thick pipe that stretches into the ceiling.
“Don’t suppose you left a saw anywhere, Reid?” I force myself to snort at the ridiculousness of that possibility. I won’t cry again. Sarcasm is better.
I push on the pipe, examine the chain—which is looped around the pipe and padlocked—and don’t see any solution there either. The chain slides up and down the pipe, but I don’t think that’s helpful.
I sit, grab the chain with both hands, brace my feet on the water heater, and tug. It feels like it bends a bit, but bending it doesn’t help. Bending isn’t the same as breaking.
“Next?” I study it. There are no rings I could try to twist open, no rusted spots that look prone to breaking. I kick it at the base. Nothing happens. I do it again kicking as hard as I can. All that happens is that dust falls on me from the ceiling.
Rust
, not dust, I realize. I stare up and kick again. It’s not a lot, but there is some give where the pipe connects to the ceiling.
Maybe there was another level or a loft or something up there at one point. Whatever it is, the connection seems to be weak or broken on the other side of the ceiling. That’s where the weakest part is.
I jump up and get the rocking chair so I can stand on it to reach higher. Then I slide the chain up as high as I can, grab it, and hop off the chair, using the force of my jump to add to the pull of the chain. I keep it held taut, so the chain doesn’t slide back down, and wrap it around my whole body so it’s my whole weight pulling against the pipe.
It creaks. The pipe creaks. It’s a nails-on-chalkboards noise, but it sounds utterly and completely beautiful to me.
I keep working on the pipe—frantically because I have no idea how long Reid will be gone. Rust is raining all over the floor, and sweat drips down my neck. The pipe is working loose of the ceiling. After about twenty minutes, a loud clank sounds as the pipe comes free of whatever it was attached to above or in the ceiling.
“Yes, yes, yes!” I climb back onto the rocking chair, stretch my hands up, and grab the pipe. I pull as I jump down and it gives until there is a gap between the pipe and the ceiling.
Again, I stand on the chair, and this time I slip the chain through the gap. It works, and the heavy loop falls to the floor with a clatter. I smile and mutter, “Screw you, Reid.”
I drape the chain over my arm. The last thing I want is for it to snag on something. I have no idea how long I have until he returns. It could be minutes, or hours, or days.
I rush to the door and try to open it. I hear the clank of the lock straining against the hinge.
I try the plywood on every window, but without a crowbar, there’s no way I’m getting out of those. My heart sinks. I’m free of the chain, but that doesn’t mean I’m free of the cabin.
“Weapons,” I announce. “Or cell phone.”
The first thing I check is the black bag. There are a few clothing items, some snacks, and a bottle of water. I’m dry mouthed, but I don’t know if the water is drugged. Luckily, a can of soda is in the bag too, so I pop the top and drink. Whatever Reid used to drug me has left my mouth feeling worse than a hangover does, and my head throbs. I chug about half the can while I search the bag. There’s nothing useful in it though.
I search the cabin, opening the fridge, the crates, and going into the second room—which is a bedroom, complete with a bed and dresser. I stop and stare at it. He didn’t have to force me to sleep next to him like he did. He didn’t need to drug me. I hate him more in that moment. I thought I was full up on hate, but seeing this adds to it.
By the time I’m done searching, my inventory of possible weapons includes a lightweight pot, a pan, the chain itself, a lantern, and the burners from the stove. None of them are great weapons, but it’s better than nothing. My phone was nowhere to be found.
I gather my weapons beside the door and sit there to wait for his return. I’ll hear him, and then I’ll stand and attack. I can do this. I
will
do this. If I don’t, he’ll chain me up again, or simply kill me. I’m not letting any of that happen.
I sit, and I wait. After what feels like at least an hour, I hear him pull up. I grab the lantern. It’s the heaviest of my options. If I bash him in the head, maybe that’ll knock him out.
My body feels tense and ready like it does before a race. Then I hear a voice.
Eva
. She found me. It’s not Reid outside. It’s Eva.
Another car pulls up.
I can’t see anything, but I know that a second car could be Reid. I’m trapped inside, and Eva is out there with a madman. There’s nothing I can do but wait. If he drags her in here, I’ll just have to be sure I hit him hard.
Eva
W
HEN
R
EID
PULLS UP
outside a small shack, I can’t decide if I’m more afraid or relieved. Nate’s truck is coming up behind us as I steady myself for what comes next. I don’t think Reid understands that no amount of explanation will change my acceptance. He’s a killer. I’m not going to ride off into the sunset with him. The best-case scenario here is that he survives the next half hour.
“We can’t stay here. I hoped we could for a little while, but that won’t work . . . unless we kill Bouchet.” Reid twists his body so he’s face-to-face with me. “I can do it.”
“No.
Neither
of us will kill Nate.” My hand tightens on the pistol, fearing that he’ll try to take it.
Instead, Reid sighs. “Fine. We can get Grace and then shoot him in the knees or something.”
My mouth drops open, but I don’t even know how to formulate a reply. After almost an hour of listening to Reid describe killing and the things he did when he was alone in his room with pictures of me, I feel like no amount of bathing will ever get the disgust off of my skin.
“Grace is in there?” I ask.
“Locked in safely,” Reid answers. “Do you want me to go get her?”
“Please.”
“As you wish.” Reid gets out of the car with his keys in hand, and without a look behind him, he walks to the little cabin. I hear the keys on his ring jangle as he sorts through them.
Nate is beside my door, opening it. “Are you okay?”
“I will be.” I turn and climb out of Reid’s car.
“Don’t touch Eva, Bouchet,” Reid calls back to us. “She’s
mine
. I explained everything. We’re going to get Grace and go.”
Nate looks at me and raises both brows, but he says nothing. He doesn’t need to: we both know that I’m not going anywhere else with Reid. He brought me to Grace. That was what I needed. Now that we’re here, I’m staying with her and Nate.
“Maybe we can lock him in there,” I whisper. I want a solution that doesn’t include another death. “We get Grace, lock him in, and wait for the police.”
“It’s worth a try,” Nate agrees.
I still think we might be okay—until Reid opens the door. That’s when everything falls apart. He lets out a howl of pain. Grace is there. I can see her swinging a lantern at Reid.
“Run, Eva!” she yells.
Nate runs toward the door to help Grace.
Reid ducks and grabs a chain that is hanging from around her throat. He yanks, and she stumbles. She’s trying to dig her heels in to stop him from dragging her to him.
I stare in shock. For a moment, I’m too stunned to react. Grace was
chained up
.
“Asshole,” Grace yells at him. She grabs the chain—which Reid is still using to jerk her toward him—and yanks back, but even in her anger, she’s not stronger than him.
Nate leaps on Reid, knocking him to his knees, and Reid releases the end of the chain that’s attached to some sort of collar around Grace’s throat. She crab-crawls backward and struggles to her feet.
I’m trying to reach her, but I’m on one crutch and holding a gun in my hand. I move far too slowly, and even if I
can
reach her, my only way to help is to shoot Reid. I don’t want to do that. I keep thinking of my vision of his death. It’s almost like it’s superimposed on the world around me.
Just as Grace is passing Reid, he shoves away from Nate and grabs her again.
Nate takes another swing, knocking Reid into Grace accidentally, and they all tumble together on the ground in a mess of legs, arms, and chain.
Both Grace and Nate are hitting Reid now.
Everything feels like it’s happening at once. Grace is screaming; Reid is punching Nate—who is returning his blows.
“Stop it!” I yell. “Stop!”
No one listens. Reid has the loose end of the chain and is pulling it around Nate’s throat. This is it: Reid’s death.
I thought I’d stopped it. I
want
to stop it.
This isn’t what I want.
I
have
to stop it.
“Just shove him in the cabin!” I yell.