Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 59044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Get him to untie me.
Then, well, just keep distracting him, or find an opportunity to hit him or simply run.
This was the city.
I wouldn’t have to go far to find someone with a phone to call the police with.
Resolve solidified, I carefully started to pull my knees to my chest, mindful of exposing more of myself. Then, carefully getting to my knees, feeling the gritty filth on the floor biting into my legs instead of my face.
But this way, I could look around the empty space.
It looked like… like a back room at some sort of restaurant.
There were long stainless steel counters, stacks of old milk crates, and a window that fed into the front of whatever this was. A restaurant or bar. Maybe even a coffee place. It was impossible to tell.
Wherever it was, it was abandoned, which was why it was so damn cold.
I rocked my legs, trying to keep my blood flowing, attempting to fight off the chill. I didn’t want to be trembling when he came in, to have him mistake my chill for fear.
There was fear.
Of course there was.
But as the moments stretched, it was anger that was overtaking me.
“My dove,” Gene’s voice said from the side of me, making me turn to find him coming in from the front of the building through a swinging door. “I didn’t think you’d sleep so long.”
Sleep.
Like I’d had a choice in the matter.
I fought back the venom I wanted to spit at him, and forced a smile to spread.
“Gene!” I said, sounding a mix of pleased and relieved. “Was it really you all along?” I cooed at him. In my experience, if you laid it on thick enough, men were really gullible. That was likely even more accurate for someone with a delusional obsession like Gene was clearly dealing with. “Why didn’t you say so?” I added, pouting out my lower lip. “You made me think it was someone scary.”
“Scary?” he asked, looking taken aback.
“Yeah. Like a fan who’s never even met me,” I said. “You know how they can be,” I added.
He hadn’t been around long, but I was sure someone had asked to take a picture with me, or had taken one without permission. That was just how things were when you had a certain level of recognition.
“You never signed your notes,” I reminded him. “I was so scared someone was going to try to hurt me.”
“Hurt you? No,” he said, looking suddenly younger, less threatening.
I knew better, though.
This was a man who’d grabbed me, tossed me in a trunk, and drugged me.
Aside from that, he was a big guy. Not quite as tall as Julian, but close. A little less built, too. But still strong. He’d lifted me up when I’d been flailing like I was as light as a dried leaf.
One misstep, one wrong word, and this man could easily overpower me.
I had to be really freaking careful.
Let some time pass.
The girls would tell Eric. Eric would tell Julian. Maybe even my father. Half the city’s police force would be looking for me within an hour or two.
I just had to keep Gene calm and distracted that long.
He wanted my attention.
Now he had it.
“My notes were not cruel,” he said. Clearly having forgotten the thinly veiled threats. “I sent you flowers.”
“But because I didn’t know it was you, it was scary. Why didn’t you sign the notes?” I asked, working to make my eyes look round, doeish. Sweet and innocent. No ulterior motives here.
“I… I thought you would know,” he admitted, brows going down. “I guess… I didn’t think that through.”
“Why did you leave me?” I asked, laying it on thick, letting my lip tremble. Though it was really just from the damn cold. The tile floor on my bare legs wasn’t helping. “One day you were there, the next you were moving out.”
“You wanted me to go.”
“I never said that.”
I hadn’t. That I could be sure of. I never gave them the satisfaction of saying out loud that I didn’t want them there, knowing that I couldn’t make them leave. It made me seem powerless. Better I freeze them out with cool indifference.
He couldn’t argue with me on that.
And I got to watch as his gears turned, as he tried to come up with a response to something he knew was true, even if he’d based his reality on some other made-up memory.
“You didn’t try to make me stay.”
Again, true.
I’d completely ignored him as he packed and stormed out.
“My feelings were hurt!” I said, pushing some passion into my voice. “I didn’t want you to reject me a second time.”
“Reject you?” he repeated, green eyes looking a little crushed at the idea. “But you had your friend say terrible things to me.”
“What friend?” I asked, and I didn’t have to conjure up fake confusion this time. I had no idea what he was talking about.