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Messy brown hair, its short lengths highlighted and expertly layered. A frame that was a few inches taller than mine but one that contained a lot more natural curves.
“Claire,” I whispered, crawling over to her. I rolled her onto her back, and her head lolled. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted somewhat. As I gazed down at her, my heart beat fast for a whole different reason.
This motherfucker. It was too much to hope for that he wouldn’t hurt her, even if he had me.
“Don’t worry,” a voice spoke from the opposite side of the basement, alerting me to the fact that Claire and I weren’t alone. Tyler stood, leaning against a dingy wall, his arms crossed. He wore jeans and a baggy shirt, while Claire looked like she was abducted straight from bed, wearing her pajamas. “She’s still alive, for now.” His green eyes appeared amused.
I whipped my head in his direction, my nostrils flaring. “You said you wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I said if you didn’t come, I’d kill her, which I would have. I said nothing about not hurting her if you did come. That you assumed on your own.” He grinned. “I figured you would. For someone who is so empty inside, you care a lot about your family. If I were you, I’d be a little pissed off at them. I mean, all this time, and they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.”
I sat near Claire, refusing to let her go. A part of me feared if I let her go, he’d jump onto her and strangle her, and I wouldn’t be strong enough to pull him off her. Tyler stood a good ten feet away, not quite far enough to make me feel at ease.
“And what was right in front of them?” I asked, trying to sound tough but failing. It was hard to reconcile the fact that Tyler was my stalker. Tyler, my sister’s long-term boyfriend-slash-fiancé.
And it was all a lie.
“Someone struggling to get through each day,” Tyler said. “Someone who needed help. No one was looking out for you, Charlie. For a while you had Zak, but I knew that wouldn’t last. He was just like any other boy—”
“And you’re not?” I interrupted.
Tyler smirked. “I’m not, actually. I guess I’m more like your current boyfriend. A little obsessed. Bravo, by the way. Never thought you’d be the kind of girl who spread her legs for a serial killer, but they are all the rage these days, aren’t they?”
“Shut up.”
He didn’t seem to hear me, continuing, “You dug yourself in a deep hole with him, but don’t worry. I have a plan that will set us both free tonight.”
“And what plan is that?”
“You mean you don’t want to hear me drone on and on about how it was all a lie with your sister? How, from the first moment I saw you, I knew you and I were destined to be together? I met Claire at orientation. Your parents made you tag along, hoping you’d get the hint and want to follow in her footsteps. That’s when I first saw you, Charlie. You were so young, although not too different from how you are now. You really didn’t grow at all since then, huh?”
Trying to make a joke, even though it was the literal worst time ever to crack jokes. God. He really was like Brett—except… he wasn’t Brett, and that was the biggest thing. He wasn’t Brett, the man I loved. He was just a psychopath who’d used my sister to get to me.
“Why fake an entire relationship with my sister, then? Why even pretend to be happy with her?” I asked. I sat on the cold concrete floor next to Claire, holding onto her motionless shoulders as if she was my lifeline.
Tyler shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? You were thirteen. Too young. But I wanted to stay in your life, because I knew once you got a little older it’d be you and me.”
My stomach grew queasy. Listening to Tyler reminded me of listening to Uncle Dave; men like that weren’t aware of their own craziness. The manipulation, the lies… men like that were unrivaled when it came to deceit.
“And now, Charlie, you’ve provided us both with a perfect out,” Tyler went on, reaching behind his back, under his shirt. He retrieved a small black pistol, and when he showed it to me, I very narrowly avoided throwing up.
Tyler had agun? Since when? I didn’t even know he was the kind of person who liked guns, let alone owned one. Although, given everything else I’d recently learned about him, Tyler having a gun was pretty low on the WTF scale.
A knot formed in my stomach, and the words came out with some stomach bile, the latter of which I had to swallow down: “What are you going to do?” Was he going to shoot me? Shoot me and Claire and wipe his hands of us Mulanie girls? A gun changed things.
“Don’t be scared,” Tyler spoke, his tone sounding gentle—like it usually did. He might not look it, but he sounded like the same old Tyler: sweet, earnest, if a bit of a jokester. “This isn’t for you. It’s for her.” He gestured to Claire. “And it’s for your bloody Prince Charming, who I imagine will come crashing through that door—” He pointed to the closed door that must lead up into the house. “—any moment now.”
“What good will killing him and Claire do if I’m still alive?”
“What’s the point in all of this if I don’t get you at the end of it? Think, Charlie.” Tyler set the tip of the gun on his head, as if it was a finger, an extension of his hand. “Why would I go through all this just to let you go at the end? Come on. Give me some credit.”
I started, “I’ll tell the truth—”
“No, you won’t. You’ll go along with the story I tell—it absolves you and your family of any wrongdoing, Charlie. Brett threatened you and your family. If you didn’t do exactly as he said, he’d kill you, starting with Claire. You were under duress, trying to save your own life and the lives of everyone you cared about. America will understand. And, as the world grieves the final victim of the Eastcreek Skinner—”
Claire. He meant Claire.
“—it’ll be only natural for the two survivors to grow closer. No one could ever look down on us after what we’ve been through.”
