I'll Never Stop

by Jessica Lynch

  Her hands trembled as she reached for the box. The bow toppled off the lid. She let it fall onto her bed. A piece of tape kept the lid closed. She used her fingernail to cut it, inhaling deeply before reaching for the lid.

  The first thing she noticed was the smell. It was a strong odor, so pungent that her nose wrinkled. She caught a hint of something metallic, almost like rust, but it was overpowered by a meaty scent that turned her already nervous stomach.

  It was the second package. Damn him, he knew that she wouldn’t be able to throw this one away. Because this one? It wasn’t a gift, even if he thought it was.

  It was a threat.

  Before she lost her nerve, Grace flipped the lid up. A flash of red caught her attention and she glanced up at it, seeing the letters scrawled on the inner lid. Tommy used a red marker to write one line:

  My heart is in your hands.

  That was all she needed to see. To look inside the box would be a mistake. And, yet, she found that she was unable to keep from looking down. Grace braced herself, knowing it would be bad. Tommy’s second packages always, always were.

  She thought she was prepared. She wasn’t, and couldn’t help it, either. The fear and the shock swept through her before being ripped out of her in an ear-piercing shriek.

  At the sight of the bloody organ nestled on the bed of cotton, she started to scream.

  2

  It was a cow’s heart. In the back of her mind, she realized that. It didn’t make the offal in her gift box any easier to accept.

  Slamming the lid down on the heart, she tossed it on top of her dresser so that it was as far away from her as possible. The panic she hadn’t allowed herself to feel came crashing down on her with enough force that she nearly buckled beneath the pressure.

  Her bedroom was too small. The room spun around her. She knocked into the edge of her bed, saving her balance in time to shove off the edge of the mattress and stumble out of her room. Sweat broke out on her brow. Grace swiped it away with the flat of her hand.

  It was almost impossible to get enough air in. Her chest was tight, her eyes wide and afraid. She searched the living room in vain. She had to. She had to make sure Tommy wasn’t there.

  He wasn’t. But the flowers on her table mocked her. The diamonds winked under the ceiling light. She choked on a strangled scream and backed away, nearly tripping on the goddamn apple.

  She had to get away from all of it. So what if she was alone right now? She could swear that was Tommy’s expensive cologne lingering in the room. Choking on a gasp, she tore her gaze away from his gifts and darted for the front door.

  As she burst out into the hall, desperate to get away from the shattered illusion of safety that was her apartment, Grace threw her back up against the wall and tried frantically to get herself under control.

  She closed her eyes, fighting for each lungful of air. The shallow breaths would only make the overwhelming panic worse, she knew that, so she slowed her breathing, taking deep pulls until she felt some of the tightness in her chest recede.

  Inhale. Hold a beat. Exhale.

  Again.

  Inhale. Hold a beat. Exh—

  A door clicked open.

  Grace jumped at the sound. Her eyes fluttered open as the rest of the air came out in a rush.

  Lucas De Angelis was standing in the doorway of his apartment, Tessa peeking out from around his side. His stance was protective, from the way he gripped the door to the position of his body, blocking Tessa from running out into the hall. He had that cold, calculating look back on his handsome face, his pale blue eyes roaming over her intently as if deciding whether or not Grace was a threat.

  Tessa, on the other hand, looked concerned. She had her hand near her mouth, pointer finger brushing up against her bottom lip.

  She was the one who spoke up.

  “Grace? What’s going on? I thought I heard screaming.”

  Grace could only imagine what she looked like. Pale face, wild eyes, and a trembling body pressed up against the wall like she was a caged animal looking to make an escape. She pushed away, immediately trying to pull it together in the face of her concerned audience.

  From the look on Tessa’s face, she didn’t come close.

  Too late to turn back now. Calling up a shaky smile, she said, “I’m fine. Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  Tessa’s gaze narrowed. “The scream was close or we wouldn’t have heard it. Fran and Julie—” The neighbors who lived in the apartment between Grace and the De Angelises “—are gone for the weekend. Was it you?”

  That was one relief from her mind. If Fran and Julie were gone, they couldn’t have seen anything—or drawn Tommy’s attention their way. Now, all she had to worry about was making sure her other neighbors didn’t get caught in the crosshairs.

  But how to do that?

  Thankfully, Lucas seemed willing to come to her rescue. With one lingering, searching look, he leaned into his wife and tried to herd her back into the apartment. “Tessa, baby, I don’t think—”

  She took her husband by the sleeve and ran her fingers down his arm. “Lucas, hush. Something’s not right. Grace, what’s wrong?”

  Tessa was too intuitive for her own good. She wasn’t going to drop it. Not unless Grace figured out a way to make her. Only, she was a ballerina, for God’s sake, not an actress.

  What to do? What to do?

  Grace couldn’t stand her pitying look, or Lucas’s calculating stare. She hadn’t meant to involve them, though she also hadn’t been thinking clearly when she saw what was in that second box. It was a heart, no matter what animal it came from—and, God, please let it have come from a butcher’s shop or something like that—and anyone’s first reaction to finding one in a gift box would be to lose it.

  She was willing to bet that such a reaction was what Tommy had been after when he had it boxed up. Frightened women, panicked women were easier to control. With her guard down, she might make a mistake and he would take advantage of that as quickly as he could.

  No, she told herself. Not this time.

  The panic was there in the back of her mind, her heart racing so fast, she almost expected it to beat right out of her chest; any control she clawed back vanished in the face of their concern. Grace struggled to regain her composure. It was already a mistake to tell them as much as she did. She couldn’t confess any more. It would only put the De Angelises in danger.

  Bad things tended to happen to those who actually believed she was in trouble, or who offered to help her get away.

  There was that nice cop who took her statement the first time Tommy broke into her apartment and left his “gifts”. She was still naive back then and didn’t realize that, with his wealth and his lust for control, Tommy would already have a few officers on his payroll. Officer Daniels might’ve wanted to help her for real, but there were plenty of his buddies who wouldn’t.

  When his patrol car was shot at and Officer Daniels ended up getting hit, Grace stopped calling him for updates on her case. It was only a flesh wound, a graze when the bullet ricocheted, but she knew better.

  It was a warning. And she heeded it.

  Her next door neighbor Monica at her last place? A sweet motherly figure who worked as a domestic violence counselor before she retired. It only took a couple of weeks after Grace first left Tommy before Monica took Grace to the side and offered to help her.

  So grateful that someone else believed her, Grace confessed everything and allowed Monica to help her create an escape plan. She was the one who registered Grace’s car in her name, and who promised she would do everything she could to support her.

  Tommy got wind of it because, of course, he did. She might have been able to fool herself that the death of Monica’s tabby cat—who, as an indoor cat, never went outside, yet had “gotten out” only to be struck by a car—was an accident. Except, as one of the second packages he left behind, she received a c
at collar with Buttons’ name engraved on the tag.

  The second package was always, always the threat.

  She thought again about the cow heart on her dresser and felt the color drain from her face.

  My heart is in your hands.

  God damn it! She didn’t want his fucking heart! Why wouldn’t he let her give it back?

  Closing her eyes for a brief moment, shaking her head to clear it of things she long ago accepted she couldn’t change, Grace took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, she hoped her neighbors would drop it.

  Tommy already got into the complex—and her apartment—once before. One way or another, he had eyes and ears everywhere. He could be listening in right now.

  It wasn’t that she wouldn’t involve them. She couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I—I didn’t mean to bother you guys.”

  “You didn’t,” Tessa assured her. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  The bloody heart flashed in front of her eyes again. Though she wanted nothing more than to hurl, Grace pushed the memory aside, forcing herself to calm down. Once she was sure she could speak again without flipping out, she tried to twist her features into a look of embarrassment.

  “I feel so stupid. I… I saw a rat. That’s why I was screaming.”

  “A rat,” echoed Lucas. “On the sixth floor.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyebrow rose, a dark slash in his handsome face. Okay, so he wasn’t buying it, either. “Impressive. It knows how to climb and pick locks.”

  She chuckled weakly. “I know, right? No wonder I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Mmm.”

  Lucas might not believe her excuse, but it seemed as if he was willing to go along with it. Instead of pushing it, as Tessa seemed about to, he gave Grace another telling look that said he knew the rat story was utter bullshit, then said, “If I saw a rat in our home, I’d probably scream, too.”

  Tessa lifted her head up, looking at her husband in surprise. “You really think this is about a rat, Luc?”

  “I trust that Grace knows the reason why she screamed. I’m sure she’s aware that, if there was something we could do to help her, we would.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve got it, Lucas. But thanks anyway. You too, Tessa.”

  “See? She’s got it well enough in hand.”

  Tessa looked from Lucas to Grace and back. “I guess.”

  “It darted out in front of me. The rat, I mean. It had beady little eyes and a long bald tail,” she invented, hoping the extra details would convince her neighbors. Doubtful, but she tried. “Since it’s still in there, I should probably call an exterminator or something to help me. I wouldn’t want it to find its way into your apartment.”

  “No,” Lucas said in a flat voice. “We wouldn’t like that, either.”

  The chuckle that Grace let slip was one of nerves, one of discomfort. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see you guys later. Sorry again for bothering you.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Grace. Good luck with the rat.”

  As Tessa turned to go back inside and he made to follow, Lucas spared one final glance over his shoulder. The look in his icy blue eyes almost caused her to shiver, it was that cold.

  He nodded, then disappeared into the shadows of his apartment. The door shut a second later.

  Grace let out a long exhale of relief, tilting her head back so that she was leaning it against the wall. She stayed there for a few more minutes, working up the nerve to go back inside.

  She had to. She had a heart and a bouquet of viscaria to dispose of.

  After a night spent tossing and turning on her futon, Grace laid wrapped up in her blanket, staring at the smoke-stained ceiling. If she was going to stay in Strawberry Village any longer, she might have called the landlord to do something about that.

  If she was going to stay… she hadn’t made up her mind about that just yet.

  She thought back to the time when Tommy found her at her last place. Grace hadn’t wanted to leave her home in the suburbs, but it was the first sacrifice she had to make when it became clear that Tommy’s unhealthy obsession with her wasn’t going to go away just because she wanted it to. So she traded her comfortable house for a small apartment, hoping the anonymity of the city would protect her.

  If only.

  Because she naively believed that he would never be able to track her down when she first moved, Grace never knew how long he was watching her before he started leaving his “gifts” for her. She did remember, though, how many times she returned to that cramped city apartment and discovered things were… different. They were missing, or they were somewhere else. For the longest time, she thought she was going crazy.

  Then she discovered it was Tommy who was off his rocker.

  Shoving the blanket away from her legs, she sat up, leaning back into the padded mattress of the folded-up futon.

  It didn’t take too long before Tommy Mathers crept his way back into her thoughts. Sometimes she wondered if she was as obsessed with him as he was with her.

  Then she realized that that was impossible. Nobody could be that obsessed.

  Cheery music filtered into her consciousness. It took her a minute to figure out why. The DVD player was still running, and the menu was a never-ending loop of about fifteen seconds of the same upbeat melody.

  That’s right. She’d put a movie on last night.

  Though she did little more than doze, Grace had fallen asleep to the sounds of the television. She’d needed some mindless entertainment to try and get her mind off of Tommy. Watching something as familiar as her childhood favorite, Newsies, had soothed her enough that she got some sleep at least.

  In the morning, though, the chords to “King of New York” were too much for her and the headache she could feel brewing. She searched the futon for the remote and came up empty-handed. Throwing the blanket to the floor, she got up and crossed the room, slamming the power button on the TV in irritation.

  The sudden quiet was almost immediately broken up by a rumbly sound. Her stomach. That was her stomach growling.

  More of the night before came back to her in a rush.

  After she convinced the De Angelises that she was in good enough shape to return to her apartment alone, Grace packed up the heart and buried it in the bottom of her garbage. The flowers? She hefted the heavy crystal vase up in both arms and hid it in her practice room. So long as she didn’t have to look at it, that was fine for now.

  She was too rattled to dare throwing his gifts out in the dumpster in case she saw the Jaguar prowling the lot. Instead, she triple-checked her locks, ignoring the hollow feeling that asked her why she bothered, then made a bed on the futon couch out front. She didn’t feel right, sleeping in her room. Now when she knew that, only hours ago, Tommy had been in there.

  She never ate dinner. Any appetite she had vanished when she saw the bloody cow’s heart.

  It wasn’t like she was all that hungry now, but Grace knew her body. The niggle in the back of her head would blossom into a full-blown migraine if she didn’t eat something first. She could try taking an herbal supplement—never an aspirin—to cut it off, but those always made her feel queasy if she took them on an empty stomach.

  Something simple, then. Something quick.

  Shuffling into her kitchen, she knew exactly what to grab. One small problem, though. After going through all of her cabinets, she couldn’t find it.

  Where the hell was her oatmeal?

  For a second, she wondered if he’d had the time to go through her kitchen cabinets. Then she remembered that she’d run out of oatmeal on Friday. It was one of the staples she refilled when she went to the store yesterday afternoon.

  The grocery bags were still piled up near her front door. After she escaped Tessa and Lucas, Grace had only bothered with the bags long enough to take out anything that needed to be refrigerated. She left the rest where they were until she was settled enough to put them away.

  W
hich she did that morning while looking for her oatmeal.

  She frowned when she was done. No sign of the oatmeal anywhere. Thinking back to her purchase, she remembered buying tampons and toilet paper, too. They were also missing.

  Wonderful. She must have left one of the grocery bags behind in her car.

  Even though it was only the beginning of October, it could be unseasonably chilly in Dayton. Grace threw a sweater on over her sleep shirt, swapping her pajama pants for a pair of jeans since she was going to have to walk all the way to the other side of the parking lot. She pulled on her sneakers and grabbed her keys, heading for the door.

  As she reached for the handle, she hesitated. She shook her head angrily a second later. It was one thing to be vigilant and careful. It was another to live constantly in fear. She might have to start thinking about moving to her fourth place but, damn it, she wasn’t going to let him scare her into never leaving her apartment.

  Pulling her door in, she took one step into the hall before she was forced to stop.

  As she left her apartment, Grace had her gaze momentarily drawn to the floor—which was the only reason why she noticed the to-go coffee cup set neatly in front of her door. She gulped when she saw it. Before she thought better of it, she bent down, grabbed the cup and straightened, bringing the lid up her face.

  The sweet scent of hazelnut mixed with a warm cinnamon spice wafted up at her. She inhaled the wisps of smoke escaping from the hole in the lid, her stomach tightening as she recognized the combination.

  It was her favorite.

  Turning it over in her hand, she read the name of the coffee shop written on the side of the paper to-go cup. Her stomach dropped down to her sneakers.

  Oh, no.

  The coffee flavor she could almost forgive. She wasn’t shy when it came to adoring the combination of hazelnut and cinnamon and it was possible—if not likely—that one of her friendly neighbors remembered how she took her coffee and left her a morning offering.