by Lane Hart
I keep trying to tug my wrist free until my arms go numb from being raised in their restraints.
After what feels like a lifetime, the man’s shadowy form walks back through my doorway again.
“All done, Blair. Painless, right?” he asks, his words catching me more off guard than if he was carrying an ax.
How does he know my name?
I try to figure out that mystery while he thankfully begins untying my hands.
“I’m pretty fucking surprised to see you back here,” he says, implying that he somehow knows me. I don’t remember anyone from this town. Well, except for one man, but he doesn’t live around here any longer, thanks to me.
“Still a little liar, putting innocent men behind bars?” the stranger asks, making me gasp so hard I choke on the massive intake of air.
How does he know? There are only two other people alive who know the truth because I’ve kept my mouth shut for ten years, afraid to utter a single word for fear of confessing.
Chapter Three
Late Night Prowler
Blair Fucking Lockhart.
I had almost forgotten the part she played in destroying my life, taking my family from me.
None of my contacts in town mentioned seeing her. It was almost like she disappeared off the face of the fucking earth. But now here she is, no longer a lying little girl, but a breathtaking beauty. One that radiates childhood innocence even in the darkness, and right now she looks absolutely terrified, as she very well should.
Tonight, I only found a few flash drives that I’ll take back to my hotel room and examine on my laptop, but I doubt they’ll have what I need. I want to keep looking, nearly frantic in my search for proof, but I know better than to stay too long. Besides, I’ve got all week, maybe two, because my contacts assured me that, for the first time in years, he’s not just out of town but out of the fucking country on a honeymoon or some shit.
To be so rich, the man’s cheap, which is how I was able to disable his worthless alarm in about ten seconds last night when I cased the place. There weren’t any surveillance cameras to worry about, either. Really, it seems almost too easy to take him down.
Except for this one forgotten girl that might ruin everything, unless I can convince her to help me. How long had she been hiding in that damn closet? Was she here last night and I didn’t hear her? And why would anyone sleep on the floor when there’s a bed so close by?
She’s scared shitless, and I’m obviously not helping.
“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna hurt you,” I assure her as I stand hovering above her prone form on the bed. Not that I don’t want to hurt her, because I do. So fucking bad that I need to get the hell out of here, and soon. Being this close to her in a dark, empty house, I could do whatever the fuck I wanted to take out a little of my anger on her. All the heartache. The years we’ll never get back, even if I find the evidence I need. It’s not just her father’s fault, it’s hers, too. But the ways I want to hurt her, well, they would make me more of a monster than he is. Not to mention, I may not ever be able to look at myself in the mirror afterward.
Only, none of those things seem like enough to make me walk away from her without some sort of penance. Tomorrow, my inner monster promises me. I’ll try to keep my distance during the day, which means I’ll have to put a tracking device on her car. Then, tomorrow night I need her to come back here to me, since I can’t approach her in public. I have to see her again, though, and I know one thing that might convince her.
“When I leave, you can’t rat me out to a single soul,” I warn, swiping a gloved finger down her thin top, right between her supple breasts that are so fucking tempting. I jerk my hand away before it goes rogue and stops listening to my commands “If you’re a good girl, well, be here tomorrow night, in this bed, not in the closet, and I’ll make you an offer you won’t be able to refuse.”
I pocket the scarf I restrained her with, already knowing I’ll bring it back tomorrow night. My evil, controlling cock starts to get hard again at just the memory of how good it felt when she fought me before I overpowered her and was able to restrain her. Being aroused by something so fucked up makes me want to slice the goddamn appendage off with a dull, rusty blade. It’s all the reminder I need that despite four years of therapy, inside I’m still just as sick and twisted as I’ll always be, thanks to the demons of my shitty past.
Pushing aside those sadistic thoughts, I start to leave, my malevolent cock angry and demanding that I go back to the hotel and abuse him while imagining the long list of depravity that’s constantly churning in my head. Until tomorrow night when I can return to this room.
Will she still be here or have I succeeded in scaring her off for good?
“Let me help you, okay? Be here tomorrow?” I ask, shining the flashlight over her. It’s not a lie. I do want to help her, but for my own selfish reasons.
Blair nods her head as I scan her body with the flashlight one last time, and I’m pretty sure I hear a sniffle when I retreat toward the window, the one on the first floor at the back of the house that I thought would be the easiest to get in. I had no idea she would be sleeping in the fucking closet. But really, the more I think about this, the more I realize how perfect finding her is. She’s better than all the evidence in the world.
“See you real soon, baby girl,” I promise her before climbing out the window.
Every cell in my body protests leaving her, letting her off so easy, and my legs feel like they’re buried in cement. But there’s still a small piece of a decent human being they didn’t take from me, forcing my heavy feet to get moving, crossing the backyard, and not stopping until I’m slipping into the front seat of my compact rental car two blocks away. I need to hurry up and grab a tracking device from my hotel room in case she has a car hiding in the garage. She might decide to run, and there’s no way I’m gonna let her get away from me.
After that, I’ll find out if there’s anything worth a shit on the flash drives I stole. Regardless, I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow night. I could possess a document with a full confession of every sin the DA has ever committed, signed by him and notarized by three witnesses, and I would still come back to this house, to that room, or wherever she goes.
I would still return to that forgotten girl who, ironically enough, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to stop thinking about until I see her again. The demented fantasies starring her are already brewing in the darkest pit of my perverted mind. Even knowing I need to hurry, I can’t make it back to the hotel room. Instead, I unzip my jeans and pull my cock out in my dark car to start jerking it hard and fast. Closing my eyes, I picture her tied to the bed. God, I wonder if she’s still an untouched virgin. Another tight pussy I can force my cock inside. It’s been so long since I’ve felt that incredible sensation, claiming a girl’s innocence and knowing she’ll never forget the first time I fucked her. I still remember mine when I was just twelve. The first time I got a blowjob, fucked a girl and was held down and fucked, all in the same goddamn week.
Steering my mind from those disturbing memories, I try to picture Blair tied up again, only without any clothes on. Holding her legs open wide, I would bury myself inside her pussy as she cries out and writhes underneath me. She’d be so hot and wet. And if she’s a virgin, nice and tight. My fist squeezes harder around my swollen shaft as my climax builds and my balls draw up. Two more tugs of my cock and I come with a shout that echoes around the dark, silent car.
As soon as I come down for the endorphin high, I know exactly what I need to do. Seduce her, manipulate her, whatever it takes for her cooperation in the case and to get inside of her body.
Chapter Four
Blair
Lying in bed shaking, staring up at the ceiling, I’m…confused as more tears fall down my cheeks. Part of me is afraid the intruder might come back, while the other part of me is hopeful that he will. How fucked up is that?
Oddly enough, the tears are not from fear of him now, but mostly
from the memories of my painful past that still haunt me every day and night, no matter how hard I try to forget them. Tears of guilt and hate. Will they ever stop?
The stranger called me a liar. Yes, that’s all I am.
I’m so damn tired of living this way.
After my mother died, my father carelessly discarded me when I was only eight, so the second half of my childhood was thankfully spent away from him. Despite how lonely and shitty the last decade of my life has been, it definitely could’ve been worse, right? I guess I could’ve been dead like my mother.
God, I hate that man, and not only for ruining my entire life. He’s a psychopath, who, according to the lovely postcard he sent me, is spending the next two weeks on his honeymoon with the bitch he just remarried. While the burden I’ve been forced to carry around with me for the past ten years is heavier than a ton of bricks tethered to my soul, there’s not an ounce of remorse in my father’s entire body.
It feels like a few of those bricks have been lifted away tonight, leaving me lighter just because someone knows the truth. I wanted to ask the late night prowler how he found out and beg him to do something about it since I can’t. But instead, I stayed silent like the cowardly lying girl I am.
Unable to sleep in the darkness, I reach over to turn on my bedside lamp. A little light makes everything less scary. I don’t even consider calling the police for a second. Instead, I just lie in bed, which is much more comfortable than the closet, rolling around in my self-pity until I eventually fall back to asleep.
Surprisingly enough, after having a stranger in my room tonight, it’s still a more peaceful sleep than usual. No one else’s cries or moans. No screams of despair, except for those in my head. The only downside is the loneliness here. At least while I was there, I was lonely while constantly surrounded by people. Someone was always close by. Now, it’s just me on my own, back in my old house that’s haunted by the memories of my mother. It’s probably best to be alone since I wouldn’t be good company for another person unless they only wanted to have staring contests.
…
The next morning, I wake up rubbing my eyes when the blinding sun penetrates my window. The reminder of the flashlight burning them makes my heart race as I start to remember bits and pieces from the night before. I could’ve sworn it was all just a crazy dream, but the smothering fear inside me seems too raw and intense for me to have only imagined the unknown man who came into my bedroom last night.
Feeling braver now that it’s daylight, and I’m not as worried about any monsters hiding under my bed, I finally climb out of it. The first thing I do is look over at the post at the head of the bed where my hands were tied just hours ago. Nothing. No evidence it actually transpired. Thinking back, it had felt like he had used a soft scarf to restrain me, but there’s no sign of the scarf or anything else that proved it happened. My fingertips glide over each of my wrists as I turn them over, examining them, looking for marks, but there’s not a single blemish.
Like a scaredy-cat, I tiptoe quietly down the hallway, as if the intruder I quite possibly concocted in my own messed up mind is still lurking around or sitting down at the kitchen table having breakfast. He’s not. All the other rooms in the two-story house are also clear when I do a walk-through, including the spare room and my father and his new bitch’s bedroom upstairs. The only room that looks like anything could be out of place is my father’s office that sits across from my bedroom. Several desk drawers aren’t pushed closed all the way. I look inside each of them, but they’re still full of pens, paperclips, and other typical office supplies. My dad could’ve left them slightly ajar, and I just didn’t notice yesterday since I didn’t come into his office.
Convinced I must be going crazy, or more accurately, even further off the deep end, I go back to my room and pull out one of the bottles of prescription anxiety pills from my purse and pop a few of them into my mouth.
Who am I kidding? There’s no magical pill that will ever take away the agony, the guilt, or the weight of my past from me. It’s like a fungus that grows and spreads each and every day. Nothing can stop it until it eats away every inch of me.
I’m so…tired. Tired of fighting the demons. Tired of the screaming and the blood. Tired of knowing I’m responsible for her death and for ruining an innocent man’s life. I don’t deserve to live while he sits locked away in a prison serving a life sentence with zero chance of parole.
This is the first time in all those years where I’m no longer constantly monitored or on lock down. I can go anywhere and do anything I want.
And what I want to do is escape before they find me and drag me back.
The decision is easy really, and one I’ve thought of many times before but didn’t have the necessary resources to accomplish. If he can’t threaten to end my life because I’m gonna do it myself, then there’s nothing to stop me from coming clean either. Confessing my sins.
Now I just need to figure out how to go about setting things right. Walk into the police station and have them blow me off, or worse, arrest me? Send a letter that could be brushed aside as a forgery?
And then it hits me, the perfect, failsafe method where there’s no doubt about my identity and my spoken words, and there’s no way it can be ignored - this social media mess I’ve heard about. Apparently everyone’s into posting pictures and videos online. It’ll be easy. If I can find a cell phone. Surely I can borrow someone’s and ask them to post it. Good, so that just leaves me to figure out the second part of my plan.
If I slit my wrists, there’s always the chance that I won’t do it right, then it will take forever. No, thank you. I may want to die, but I don’t want it to be agonizing. I want to take the easiest way out, not suffer like my mother did until she stopped screaming and finally took her last gasping breath. In that case, I guess I can cross jumping to my death off the list as well since it’s another way to potentially survive with an immense amount of pain.
Overdosing is too complicated. There has to be a certain type of pill, and the dosing has to be right to take into account my body weight. Also, I don’t know where to get any of the good, hardcore drugs that would definitely do the trick.
Hanging or suffocating myself just seem like the absolute worst and the opposite of what I’m going for. I want to end the suffering, not prolong it.
I guess that only leaves one option.
I need to buy a gun.
Since most legit places have rules about waiting periods or whatever, I’ll have to find one from someplace shady.
Grabbing the phone book from the kitchen drawer where it’s still kept after all these years, I look for pawn shops; and then pick the one in the darkest and most dangerous part of our small town. It’s right on the edge of the county line like it’s barely hanging on before it gets kicked out by law enforcement.
For some reason, I feel it’s important to be clean before I end my life, so I take a nice, hot shower for the first time without anyone watching me. I forego styling my hair or putting on makeup. I wouldn’t know how to do either even if I had the equipment for it. But the point is moot anyway since there won’t be much of my face left in a few hours.
Knowing I’ll need cash, I raid the piggy bank in my old bedroom, the one in the shape of an actual pig, wearing a crown with the words Little Princess on the side. I’m pleased to find it’s still full of the ones, fives and tens I got from birthday parties or that my mom gave me as bribes to keep her secrets. In fact, now that I think about it, my entire life has consisted of nothing but people telling me to keep my mouth shut. Don’t talk. Stay quiet. Shut the fuck up. The one time I failed to do just that, and it ended in blood and grief so strong I wasn’t sure I would survive. I wish I hadn’t, and today I’ll finally make amends.
First, I need to see her.
Up the stairs and down the hall to the right, I head for the attic cord hanging down and give it a tug. The small, narrow wooden steps unfold, and I take them carefully up into the stifling space ab
ove. The air is so thick and dusty it’s hard to breathe, but I’m on a mission. I flick on the light and start tiptoeing around boxes, afraid the creaking floor will give out under my weight.
There’s a long box with a piece of white fabric sticking out. I open it up first, finding her clothes tossed haphazardly into it. I hold up the white sweater, remembering seeing her wear it over her sleeveless dresses to church. Digging through the box, I find a few pairs of jeans and shirts, her dresses too. Since I didn’t have any clothes to bring with me, I shove the whole box down the wooden attic stairs so I can wash the dust from them and wear some…But I guess I won’t need clothes after today, will I? Either way, it’ll be fun to spread the clothes around the house so my father and his new wife see them when they come home. I bet he’ll be so pissed. When I find another box of clothes and shoes, I toss them down the stairs too, absolutely gleeful at the thought of decorating every room with them. It’s the happiest I’ve felt in…well, as long as I can remember. It’s nice to feel something other than guilty for a change after being kept on meds that were intended to leave me with nothing but a void of where emotions were supposed to be felt. Although, I guess there was nothing to be happy about while in isolation.
It takes a little more searching for me to find the box of photo albums. I let out a sigh of relief that he didn’t destroy them. Brushing the dust off the top one, I open the big, navy blue cover, revealing a photo of my parents on their wedding day. My heart clenches at the sight of her face after all these years, so incredibly beautiful with long blonde hair and golden skin. As a child I remember thinking she always looked gorgeous, even first thing in the morning with no makeup on, fixing breakfast in her pajamas. But on her wedding day, she was radiant, although she wasn’t smiling. I keep turning pages, seeing photos of her belly swollen with me and a hint of happiness on her face, my baby pictures, her holding me, feeding me, bathing me. My father is thankfully not in any of the pictures. I guess he was the one taking them, which is surprising. I can’t remember ever seeing him take pictures. Going on to the next album, I open it up and find…nothing. It’s empty. Along with the other two albums, not like photos were removed, but like my mother never got a chance to fill them. Unfortunately, I don’t find any videos, so I decide to go back downstairs into the cool air, taking the navy blue album with me to the garage.
