Page 26 of Dead Pretty

I have got to stop this crap. I really need to quit torturing myself in this way. And I have to stop looking for similarities in every death or murder that happens, in fear that they are somehow similar to what Tobias did. Worrying that it’s one of his fans—yes, the guy has fans. I need to stop fearing that another sicko is going to come and finish the job that Tobias started.

Why didn’t he kill me that night?

It’s the one question in all of this that tortures and haunts me. The one thing I can’t get away from to this day. The thing that I will never understand.

I was supposed to be Tobias’s finale. Everything he had done … was building up to me.

Not that he ever told me that.

I came to that conclusion myself. I mean, what else could all of it have been for?

The night he took me … he didn’t speak a word to me. Not one single word.

I never saw his face.

But I felt him. Felt the blade that he used to cut my skin.

Mine.

That word forever scarred on my body.

Chills cover me, sinking into my bones. My hand instinctively covers my scars again.

I remember the pain. How much it hurt.

How I thought I was going to die.

I can feel my anxiety rising.

My breath starts to come out in quick pants.

Stop.

I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to block out the memories, forcing my breaths to slow down.

Deep breath in through the nose. Out slowly through the mouth.

And repeat.

I’m safe.

No one is going to hurt me.

I’m safe.

I used to have panic attacks regularly after the murders, but they abated when I moved here.

When I stopped thinking about everything that had happened all the damn time. Letting it control every aspect of my life.

Letting Tobias still control my life.

He has no power over me.

I’m the only person who has power over me.

I have worked hard on myself to get to where I am. I’m not going backward.

I have control over that. What I allow myself to do. Think. Or feel.