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I scream and curl away, my heart pounding from my stupid, bold attempt to talk back. “I’m sorry!”
“You will be,” Mike snarls and he resumes his jerky pacing. “I’ve tried to get your attention for months, but you were always looking the wrong way. So I did what any sane guy would do to get you to look where you should be looking.”
I don’t want him to continue. I don’t want him to do anything. I need a way out of this but my head throbs, my gut tangles itself together and Mike stands between me and the door. Even if I can slip my wrists free of the belt, he’s taller and stronger than me.
I glance at the window, contemplating how quickly I’d be able to get back onto my feet if I threw myself out of it.
“I broke into your care, made you a damsel in distress because all you fucking women crave being the center of attention, don’t you? Only, instead of turning to my obviously placed shoulder for comfort, you humiliated me.”
Mike stops pacing and faces me, his eyes dark and his brow pulled low. “You humiliated me in public, no less. At first, I thought it was part of a game you were playing. You didn’t want to seem too eager. I understood that, so I waited. And waited.”
He crouches down again and sighs deeply. “But you were too fucking blind to see what was right in front of you. I knew you needed a little more help and I wanted to get to know you better, so I drugged you.”
My heart seizes in my chest and I can’t breathe. The hot sting of tears creeps up behind my eyes and the next time I blink, my world blurs. “You didn’t?”
“Oh, I did. It was easy, really. Because you’re so fucking blind I bet you didn’t even see me that night. I drugged you but don’t worry, you were perfectly safe with me. I just needed you to let me in so I could clone your key and your phone. I was working hard, don’t you see? Removing the obstacles that were keeping us apart.”
“What, like my door?” I mutter, fighting the rising tears but it’s a losing battle.
“I knew you wanted me to get to know you; that’s why you were playing so hard to get. I came here every day and just existed in your life. I felt so close to you, y’know?”
It’s becoming clear. The window being open. Things being moved around. Missing underwear. It was all him, being here when I was out. My stomach rolls and bile crawls up my throat. He was in my home, my safe place doing God knows what.
“But then when I had your phone?” Mike sucks at his teeth. “Seeing that you were being taken advantage of by those creeps was one thing. I understood that your feeble mind was probably just hungry for attention and looking for it in the wrong place. Because you kept overlooking me.”
He talks as if we’re having a normal, pleasant Sunday conversation. The knife twirls dangerously around and around.
“But then…oh, then I saw those pictures. I followed you and I realized you’d been tainted by them. My lost little lamb.” His smile is wide but it completely lacks all warmth. “So I stole the pictures and destroyed Caspian’s studio so he would see that you weren’t worth the effort.”
He’s a coin flipping back and forth. One minute, they’re not good enough for me. The next, I’m the worthless one.
“Of course, I had to remind you to be good for me, so I sent those pictures to your parents. They are so strict I was sure they would help me but…” He scoffs and points at me with the knife. “Well, you are just too stubborn. I wanted to teach you a lesson at the cabin. I tracked your phone and heard that you would be alone. Emma, when I tell you I had a weekend of fun planned for us, you have no idea. But then those old dogs arrived and ruined everything.”
He kicks at my rug and a flash of cold anger moves across his face.
I don’t know what to do. Keeping him talking is literally my only option.
“Did you unlock the door?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice steady.
“Yeah, those old locks are piss easy. And then suddenly you were on the other side. It was like…fate.” The weird, off-tilt look returns to his face. “But you were asleep and walked right past me. It was like you were begging me to help you. You left them and came to me!” He bounces down to his haunches like an excited child. “I was going to burn the place down until one of them woke up and spotted me. I knew I had to lay low. We couldn’t be together quite yet.”
His hand lands on my knee. The contact burns as his thumb strokes in small circles but I can’t move. I’m wound so tight that all my muscles are locked.
“And then I saw you trying to leave me.”
“L-leave you?”
“That application to the summer class? I looked into them and their campus is too far. I couldn’t have that, so I showed them who you really were. Who those men made you into. Because, Emma. This isn’t you. Being fucked and ruined by men old enough to be your dad? Come on, surely you can see how fucked that is?”
“You know nothing,” I snarl, pulling sharply at my bindings as a sudden urge to protect the men I love rises up. “You see what you want to see, but them? They see me. They care for me and none of these sick, stalker games you’ve been playing has put them off. That shows me they care?—”
Mike strikes me across the face with his fist, sending my head snapping to the side and agony flares up across my jaw and cheek. Before I can swallow the rising blood across my tongue, he grabs my chin and jerks my head back up.
“I’m not a fucking stalker,” he growls. “I’m trying to help you, protect you. But I see now that talking won’t get through to you. I suspected as much, but don’t you worry Emma. I know how we can be together forever.”
The taste of iron sweeps across my tongue as Mike releases me and stands. He heads to my bed and leans over the side, then picks up a white plastic container filled with amber liquid.
I can’t begin to imagine what that is and as he approaches, I twist more violently in my bindings.
