by Verne, Lara
I sighed in relief. Of course, he wouldn’t notice me. Not with the transformation I had given myself. I picked up the phone and held it to my ear once more. “Sean, I love you so much and I miss you so much but I have to go right now, okay?”
“What happened? What did you see?”
“He’s here,” I whispered and with that, I ended the call and sauntered my way over to the female behind the counter. I readjusted the sunglasses on my face and handed her the phone. “Thanks so much for letting me borrow your phone.” I said in a higher than normal tone. Jacob was sitting on the stool next to me but didn’t seem to notice my presence. If he had, he hadn’t recognized me.
“Oh,” she took the phone from me and smiled, “Anything I can do to help. You want anything to eat or?”
“I’m good, thanks for the offer.” I watched Jake in the corner of my eye to see that he was staring absentmindedly out of the window. I took this as my moment to walk away. Walk away and never look back. I walked out of the diner without any hassle and continued to walk to nowhere in particular. All I had to do was wait for the cops to come.
“Hey!”
I whipped around quickly to see that Jake was standing outside of the diner and was looking directly at me. Fear erupted inside of me as I realized that he had caught on to my little charade by now. He walked a little closer until he was standing right in front of me. “I think you left this,” he said unexpectedly, holding up a wad of cash.
“Oh no, that’s not mine.” I told him, “Thanks though,”
He knitted his brows in confusion and studied me a little bit. “If you don’t mind me asking, where’d you get that?”
It took me a while to figure out what he was referring to me. I touched the side of my cheek where a bruise was forming, “Oh you know, I’ve been doing a lot of handiwork around the house.”
Jake clicked his tongue as he analyzed me. “What kind of handiwork?”
“My husband is a real grease monkey,” I lied on impulse, “So, it was nice talking to you.” I turned around and began to walk when his voice stopped me.
“Wait,” I stopped in my tracks, refusing to turn around to face him. “I bought similar sunglasses for a friend of mine, you mind if I look at it?” he questioned.
I spun on my heel and faced him, worry boiling inside of me. “Uh, you’re sort of making me uncomfortable.”
“I just want to see the sunglasses,” he said simply, folding his arms against his toned chest. “Unless you’re hiding something,”
“No,” I said quickly. I prayed silently to myself that he wouldn’t find out as I slid the sunglasses off my face and handed it to him, “Here,”
He took it from me and examined them carefully. He smiled once he was finished, “Yeah, looks like it’s the same exact type.” he chuckled as he held them out to me. “They look nice on you.”
“Thanks,” I did the horrible mistake of looking up to meet his pale gray eyes with my blue ones. It was then, when realization struck him and a hard cold look replaced his amused one. “Liza,” he said softly.
“No,” I protested, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liza!” he yelled, latching onto my wrist and tugging me towards him. He pushed the hair that hang down over my forehead back and watched me more closely. “What did you do to your hair?”
“I cut it,”
A growl erupted from the back of his throat as he shook my body violently. “Why?” he questioned, tugging me closer. “Why did you ruin it?”
“I-” I swallowed a lump forming in my throat and shrugged, “I wanted to change.”
He shook my again, “Why!” he yelled. It wasn’t a question, more of an exclamation. “You ruined it!” he shouted at me, “You cut your hair.”
“Chill out,” I said, attempting to soothe him, “It’s not a big deal.”
“We’re going to fix this, Liza. Don’t worry.” He snaked his arms around my waist, pulled me closer to him and led me to his car. “You made an awful mistake by cutting your hair but it’s okay because we’ll fix it.” He pushed me into the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt for me before he went over to the driver’s side.
“What do you mean we’ll fix it?”
“We’re going to fix it,” he repeated as he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY - LIZA
That night, he didn’t speak to me. He brought me to my room and locked the door behind him, without uttering a single word. He was aggravated, I could tell but it wasn’t for the obvious reasons.
I couldn’t fall asleep that night. I had been on my toes, pacing around the small bedroom in search of a new way I could escape. I told Sean that I was being held somewhere near Sandra Hills so it shouldn’t take that long for the police to fine me. That was, of course, if I was still alive when the police found me.
I had a strange feeling that this wasn’t going to last long. After all, he had killed those other girls so he would have no trouble killing me. I felt like I was constantly walking around eggshells with him because any moment he could snap and end my life.
The next morning, however, he came into my room at the break of dawn with a serious expression on his face. He inched into the room and held the door open, not taking any more steps towards me. I turned to face him and raised my eyebrows in curiosity.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered.
“What is it?”
“Come,” He held out his hand for me to grab as the corners of his lips twitched into a half smile. “I have something to show you.”
“What is it?”
He sighed heavily, “Just come,”
I gave in, reluctantly. Placing my hand in his, I let him pull me out of the bedroom and lead me down the hallway until we were into a room that I had not recognized. In the corner of the room, there was a black beanbag and a silver laptop placed on top of it. It was a small room so there wasn’t much room for anything else other than an office desk and a bookshelf. “What room is this?” I asked him.
“This is my room,”
“Where’s your bed?”
He seemed taken aback by the question and whipped around so that he was facing me, his eyes opened wide. “My bed?”
“Yeah,” I glanced around the room once more. There was no bed and no sign of anything that could provide sleep aside from the beanbag, which I doubted was what he slept on. “Don’t you sleep?”
“Hardly,” he answered quickly. “There’s no time for sleep. I have so many things to do, so many things to take care of,”
I dismissed the question forming in my head. Come to think of it, I really didn’t want to know what his agenda consisted of. “Why am I here?”
He glanced over to me and studied me for a moment. His pale gray eyes traveled down to my feet then shot back up to my face. He frowned as he began to pick at loose strands of his hair. “I told you we’d fix it.” Jacob moved over to a small closet that was placed against one of the walls, reached inside of it and pulled out a mannequin head that was paired with a long pin-straight brunette wig.
“What’s that for?” He placed the head on his desk and stared down at it for a few seconds. He began to run his fingers through the hair and smiled to himself. “Jake,” I called out, “What is that for?”
Jacob removed the wig from the artificial head and held it in his hands. He turned to me with one simple motion and began to take small steps towards me. “We’re fixing it,”
I sucked in a breath as I realized what he was referring to. My right hand instantly moved to my head, feeling the short tufts of hair. “You’re going to make me wear a wig?” I questioned, “Are you out of your mind?”
He cocked his head to the right in confusion. “But Elizabeth, your long hair is so beautiful. Why would you cut it?”
He continued to take steps closer to me as I took a few steps back. “Stop it,” I spat, “It’ll grow back. I don’t have to wear a wig.”
“Yes you do,” he
said in a more demanding voice. “You can’t be beautiful without your long hair.”
Becoming slightly nervous, I continued to take steps back until my back was pressed up against a wall. “Listen, Jake, I appreciate the gesture but I’m totally fine with my hair the way it is now. I mean, we all have to get haircuts, right?” I attempted to lighten the dark mood that was dawning on us right now but that didn’t seem to help.
His light gray eyes seemed to darken as I said this and a frustrated growl erupted from the back of his throat. He ditched the wig and pulled out a switchblade from his pocket, holding it out to me. “Now, Liza, you’re going to do as I say or else it’s going to get ugly.”
“You crazy bastard!” I shouted after him, searching for a possible way out.
He pushed me up against the wall and pressed the blade to my neck, slicing a piece of skin. Blood instantly dripped out of the cut and began to roll down my collarbone and into my shirt. Jacob hissed as he continued to keep me stable against the wall. “Talk back to me again and I’ll-”
“Or you’ll what?” I questioned, “Kill me?” Perhaps the loss of blood caused me to act this way because I found myself laughing after I said this. “Go ahead,”
An evil smile slowly made its way onto his face as he placed his hand at the nape of my neck and brought me closer to him, crashing his lips down on mine. Completely disgusted, I shoved him away from me and pushed past him. I headed straight for the door and ran into the closest bathroom, closing the door and locking it behind me. I searched frantically for something to defend myself with, anything.
I jumped in surprise when I heard a thud on the other side of the door. The white wooden door began to bend every time he collided with it. I knew it wouldn’t hold him for much longer. “You’ve been a bad girl, Liza.” he shouted as he continued to slam into the door again.
I kept searching for something that I could use for a weapon but I couldn’t find anything useful. I slapped my palm onto my forehead and began to breathe irregularly. I glanced around until the shower pole caught my eye.
“You’ll pay,” Another slam against the door. I could practically hear the wood starting to split.
I jumped on top of the ledge for the bathroom tub and yanked the pole that held the shower curtain down. I positioned it in my hands, ready for when he would attack. Beads of sweat rolled down my face as I awaited his presence.
He slammed into the door again, this time causing the wood to split directly in two. He disregarded the fact that he could have received serious splinters and launched towards me the first chance he got.
Careful not to waste any more time, I swung the pole at him but he dodged it easily and grabbed onto the other end. “Let go!” I yelled, shoving the pole at him.
“You should learn to obey, Elizabeth.” he growled, grabbing a steady hold of the pole so that I couldn’t hit him with it.
“Motherfucking prick!” I yelled at the top of my lungs and with all the power vested in me, I charged at him with the pole with the full intent of sticking it through his cold black heart. He moved out of the way just as the pole hit the wall and launched himself towards me, causing me to drop the pole.
Rather than a knife, he was holding a syringe filled with blue liquid in his left hand. My eyes opened wide and I shoved him off me, which took quite some strength to do. His back hit against the wall and I struggled to find myself a piece of broken wood that would do great to stab him. He was soon clawing at my feet, dragging me closer to him. I tried to kick him off as soon as I grabbed hold of a reasonable wooden stake and turned to him, raising the stake above my head.
Just as I was about to strike the stake down on the hand that was attached to my ankle, he yanked me closer causing me to lose my balance and drop the stake. Before I even had the time to protest, he plunged the needle into my arm, releasing the unknown liquid into my blood stream.
I tried my best to fight back but I felt my body growing weak. I wasn’t strong enough to fight back and I knew in that moment it was too late. My eyes slowly closed and I fell back onto the tile floor as darkness surrounded me.
▪▪▪▪▪
I awoke with a nauseating feeling. I barely had the energy to open my eyes but when I finally managed to, I became shocked by the sudden change in scenery. The room I was in wasn’t familiar. The walls were made of steel, I could tell just by looking at them and there were no windows. The harsh lighting shone brightly on me, causing me to squint my eyes. I tried to stand up from the seated position I was currently in but something around my arms restricted me.
I glanced down to the hard belts that were latched around my wrists, keeping me glued to the chair. “Why are you doing this?” I asked no one in particular. Was it really such a big deal that I didn’t want to wear a wig?
Jacob suddenly came into view, his figure momentarily blurring my vision. As I refocused my vision, I saw him standing a few feet away from me with the wig in hand. He was facing away from me.
“Please, just stop torturing me. Just kill me, already.” I croaked.
Jacob turned on his heel and smiled down at me. “I can never kill you Elizabeth. I love you.” He sat down at a chair that was positioned across from me and stroked my cheek with the side of his hand.
I flinched under his touch and looked away from him. “Just get it over with,”
He exhaled deeply and caressed the wig that laid on his lap. “You look beautiful with long hair, Elizabeth. It is what makes you perfect to me. Without your long hair, you’re not perfect.”
“I don’t want to be perfect!” I cried out.
Jacob clicked his tongue and smiled, “Oh no, no. We can’t mess with the nature of things, Elizabeth. Why is the sky blue and not red? These things we’ll never know. But you, darling, are perfect and there is no question about it.” He held up the wig in his hand and grinned. “Just as long as your long hair remains.” He placed the wig on top of my head and positioned it correctly.
He sucked in a deep breath as he looked down at me. “Oh my, Elizabeth, you look beautiful!” He leaned down and combed his fingers through the hair. “It’s so soft and delicate. Just like I remembered it,”
I scrunched up my face to keep the tears from falling. “Just kill me!” I yelled, “Kill me like you’ve killed those other girls.”
“What other girls?” Jacob questioned, tilting his head in confusion. “There is only you.”
I gaped in shock. “What other girls?” I repeated, “Have you gone crazy? Have you forgotten all the girls you’ve killed! Did you forget Ellen McHannon? She went to my school, prick! She was my classmate! She was innocent! But you killed her!” I couldn’t control what had come out of my mouth at that point, I was too pissed off to even care.
His face lost color, making him look like he had just seen a ghost. “Don’t talk about her, Elizabeth. She didn’t love me.”
“She didn’t love you?” I questioned, “And you think I do?”
“Shut up!” he shouted at the top of his lungs and swiped his hand across my cheek. “I make the rules here, Elizabeth, and you obey. It’s about damn time you learn.” He grabbed onto my jaw and turned my head to face him.
I clenched my teeth together and managed to let out a few words, “I will never be yours.”
He huffed, and rose from his seat, moving towards the door at the corner of the room. “You’ll be sleeping here tonight. Don’t ask for any food, because you will not be getting any. From now on, you will obey or else you’ll be punished. Do you understand me?”
“Go to hell,” I whispered softly.
His nostrils flared before he walked out of the steel door and slammed it shut behind him, leaving me alone in this cold isolated room.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - LOU
It had been weeks, possibly months since Liza had disappeared. I felt terrible inside. I promised her that nothing would happen to her but I let her slip through my fingertips. Why had I let her go to school that day? If I hadn’t let my emotions ge
t in the way, she would have still been safe. This was all my fault.
“You okay there, Lou?” Terry came up from behind me and patted me on the back. “You look a little stressed. How about you go home and we’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow.”
“No!” I yelled, slamming my fists down on the office desk. “We have to figure this out. We’re behind on this whole case. We promised her that nothing would happen.”
