Page 194 of I Never Stopped Loving You

“You’re fucking weak, just like your mother.”

Before I can even open my mouth to scream at him, I hear the sound of his wrist bindings snapping apart. His sickening glare is locked on Willow as he stands and goes to swing. I quickly shove her back out of the way and try to dive for him, but he’s faster than I believed he could be after being here all this time. The chair swings, and when it connects with the side of my head, the world around me tilts and flickers. Black fog seems to cover my vision as sparks ignite along the edges.

Fuck.

I can feel my knees going weak as I fall to the ground. My head is spinning and there’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Jesus Christ, this hurts. I blink rapidly trying to clear the fog and look for Willow. She’s cowering trying to scoot backwards away from him, but he’s closing in fast. I need to save her.

I stumble twice before I’m able to catch my footing and stand. When I turn, James is there. I can feel the painful sting as the blade pierces into my stomach. It’s the knife she was going to kill him with. My favorite knife in the entire world is now sticking out of my stomach. Warmth spills over my hands as I grip the knife's hilt. It’s deep…very deep.

Shit.

James leans forward, close enough to where only I can hear him. The vile stench coming out of his mouth is making me sick. I can almost taste the vomit in the back of my throat.

“I told you, no matter what, I’d haunt you until your last fucking breath. Too bad it’s going to be over so soon.”

He releases the knife with a slight shove pushing it deeper into my gut.

“No,” Willow’s broken whimper is all I can focus on now.

“Run, Little Rabbit.” My words come out with a sickening gargle sound, and I can see the fear in her eyes as she looks at me.

I can feel warmth pooling in my stomach as I slowly sink to the ground with my hands holding the knife as steady as possible. I slowly lie on my back to hopefully not let the blade tear up anything else inside. I need help. No, we need help. There’s only one person who can help us now, and that’s Jeremy.

I watch out of the corner of my eye as I try to slowly move to grab my phone out of my pocket. James steps away over to the table with all my tools on it. He picks up a longer knife and slices his thumb on the blade before turning his demented gaze toward Willow.

“Yes, Little Rabbit. Run,” he says as he looks at her with his sickening grin.

She takes one last look at me as I mouth the words run then pushes to her feet and takes off to the left going the opposite way of the stairs. She’s probably going to get lost in the maze. God. What the fuck was I thinking? I should’ve had a knife trained on him, too. I was stupid. Fucking careless. I thought that because he’s been down here all this time, he was weak. I was so fucking wrong.

“Hey, Killer,” he says, pulling my attention from her.

He walks back over and squats down next to me pointing the knife at my chest. I slowly push my phone back under my hip and try to hide it from view, but his focus is only on my face, which is twisting in agonizing pain.

“What? No words now? A little pain shuts you right up?” he scoffs. “I bet you’re wondering how the fuck my broken and beaten ass is able to move, right?”

He laughs before standing and stretching.

“You should have kept up on the torture, Killer. Should have kept me broken down and bloody. Shouldn’t have taken those leg restraints off all that time ago.”

The leg restraints? What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

“You see, while I was down here wasting away, I’ve been planning. Oh, the thoughts I’ve had of the different ways I could kill you. Fuck, it’s almost arousing how many different ways I thought of how to torture you. I’ve had thousands of hours, Noah. Thousands. Just to sit around here and think of what I would do to you if I got free.”

He squats back down showing me exactly how blind I was to his actual condition. He wasn’t dying, he never was. No, mere torture won’t kill a monster like him. He’s proved that now. I can hear her running somewhere off to my left. That’s the back side of the maze and only goes further from the stairs, but there’s not a single fucking thing I can do to help her.

“So, while I was down here thinking I realized I needed to keep my strength up. I stopped fighting you and stopped ignoring your questions. You eased up on the torture and began to grow complacent with me just being down here. As if I was just another trinket in your fucked-up collection. When you took the leg restraints off, I found that I could bend forward and stand. I was able to walk around, stretch, and keep my strength up.”

The fucker was using his time down here to work out?

“I knew you didn’t have cameras down here after the first few weeks, so I got bolder. Whenever you left the lights on, I started venturing into your little maze. I’ve studied it, and I have to say, I’m quite impressed. It’s twisted as fuck, just like you.”

He pokes me in the side, and my body jolts. I can feel the knife shift, and my body shudders. My lungs clench causing me to cough. Blood splatters with the spit making my heart race and my body panic. I’m going to die down here.

“By the way, thanks for that hydrating drink earlier. Really got my blood pumping. Well, time to go finish the little bitch.” He glances down at the knife before flicking the handle. It causes another wave of pain and nausea to slam into me. “Don’t move, Killer. I’ll be right back.”

He stands, listening for a moment before smiling to himself and taking off down the back path.

“No,” I scream, but the pain is too much causing me to twist my head and throw up.