She heard footsteps behind her and Dan’s ascent onto the front porch. She could hear his heaving breathing at her back. Without making eye contact, she imagined the way his face would look—the expression of Death’s messenger.
Kate turned to face Dan but remained silent. She had nothing to say because pieces of her were withering up and dying with each passing moment. Dan’s expression confirmed her darkest fears. He’d arrived to devastate her and take away the one person who was able to draw her out of exile and rejoin the world after her psychic powers had appeared.
“Kate, thank god you’re here. I’ve been looking for you all morning. I went to your mom’s house, I tried to call you…”
Dan was dressed the same as he’d been in her vision. He was sweating through his gray t-shirt and the perspiration caused a gleam to come off the balding spots between his dark strands of hair. It was the worst kind of déjà vu. She was tempted to pinch her arm, hoping to prove she was in the midst of another vision and not the main event.
“Why are you here?” she demanded. A surge of hatred rose up inside her. He was there to rip her world apart. He wasn’t the only target of her abhorrence, but whoever serviced her powers. Her psychic abilities were unreliable and there was a trail of bodies left behind in her wake because of it.
He was surprised by her reaction, but didn’t question her tone. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours. I even went to your Mom’s house to find you, but I guess you’d already left. Kate, it’s Jared. He’s been…” Dan paused and took a second to gauge her reaction. “Shot. It happened a short while ago.”
“How did it happen?” She wondered if that was actually her voice asking the question. Her intonation was unrecognizable; she was merely saying words with no emotion behind them. The pain wasn’t present any longer, her insides felt as though they had petrified and died as soon as he repeated the words from her vision. There was something very wrong with her emotional processing if the thought of Jared being dead did nothing to her.
By the way Dan was watching her she figured he was keen to her emotional distance. However, he continued with his explanation. “He was at an abandoned house when it happened; the cops have no idea why he was there. Someone at the house must’ve been waiting for him. He was surprised and didn’t have a chance to retaliate before the shooter fired a gun from behind.”
It was her cue to fall apart, her chance to ask him if Jared had survived. But she did nothing. She stood on the porch slack jawed without meeting Dan’s eyes. She knew her reaction was far from normal and it took a second for her to understand why the scene wasn’t playing out like it had earlier. She wasn’t crumbling and demanding assurances of Jared’s survival because she didn’t believe Dan.
The kernel of doubt had been planted after rehashing the vision with Declan. Declan had put the idea into her head that Dan would’ve never been the one to tell Kate of Jared’s death. Darlene loved Dan, but Kate was Darlene’s daughter. She would’ve been the one to tell Kate, the one to catch her before she fell into an abyss of despondency.
There was also the fact Dan had been popping into Kate’s head a lot lately. Although the visions of him were benign, it didn’t explain away why her attempts at connecting with her attacker had kept leading her into the thoughts of her mom’s boyfriend. Dan wasn’t significant to Kate—he was an extra in her life who she rarely thought about.
Dan was still talking. “Your mom went to the hospital to be with him while I came to look for you. She didn’t want him alone, especially with his only family being out of state. Let me take you to him, Kate. You’ll have a chance to say goodbye.”
She didn’t respond, but instead inched her body through the doorway. She’d already disabled the alarm, but maybe if she got inside and locked the doors, she’d have enough time to call for help. She didn’t know what the best plan of action would be. Should she make a run for it or somehow stall to avoid alerting Dan of her suspicions?
“Kate, Jared’s gone. I’m so sorry I had to be the one to tell you.” He analyzed her expression and sighed. “You must be in shock. Why don’t I take you to the hospital now? You should be with your mom.”
His hand reached out for her and she jumped back before his fingers could wrap around her wrist. His expression darkened at the sudden movement and it was all the advanced warning she needed. She sprinted into the house and slammed her shoulder against the door, trying to swing it shut before Dan had a chance to get inside. His foot shot out and he sandwiched it between the door and the frame. He thrust forward and she was flung backwards as he forcefully pushed the door out of his way. Calmly, he closed and locked the door behind him.
Getting to her feet, she scurried out of the foyer and ran towards the kitchen. She came upon the butcher’s block and removed the largest knife. She spun around to face Dan and found him walking calmly towards her. The closer he came, the more cornered she felt inside of the kitchen. Finally, she couldn’t put more distance between them and her back pressed into the kitchen cabinets. She waved the knife menacingly in his direction and spat out, “Stay the fuck away from me.”
Out of his pocket, he removed a familiar knife—the weapon he’d used on her months ago. Her eyes raked over the serrated edges and she felt phantom pains as she relived the night of her attack. In her imagination, her blood was dripping from the pointed edge, cascading down the sides in an endless waterfall. She felt the urge to fall apart over the knife’s reappearance, but instead she tightened her hold on her own knife and jabbed it in his direction.
“You better stop moving or I’ll shove this knife right into your heart. I have no problem watching you bleed out like a stuck pig.” She was trying to sound tough, hoping it would buy her enough time to either get away or call for help. The closest houseline was in the extra bedroom, which would require her to run past him to reach it. She’d run in a blind panic, not thinking of the best place to escape from him. In hindsight, a mad dash to the gun safe or the phone would’ve been a better option.
He laughed, evidently amused by her threats. “Do you really want to try and have a knife fight? Last time we were alone, you ended up the loser.”
“Not exactly a fair fight now was it? You were creeping around in my house in the dark and attacked a defenseless girl about half your size. I wouldn’t exactly call that a win for you. Especially since I’m still here.”
“You won’t be walking out of here breathing this time. I’ll make sure of it.” His face had changed completely and she was shocked over how Dan had fooled them all. He’d expertly pretended to be non-threatening because his newly unveiled visage was terrifying. His eyes were filled with malice and his white knuckled grip on the knife hinted at how eager he was to use it on her. Although she’d revealed him as the culprit, she still didn’t understand his motive.
“Why? What did I ever do to you?”
He shook his head and curled his upper lip in disgust. “You never had any clue who I was, did you? I remember the first time we met, I was sure you would out me on the spot. Luckily, your selfishness has always made you blind to the things right in front of you.”
She tapped her sneaker up and down impatiently. “Are you going to make sense anytime soon? Because you’re beginning to bore me.”
“You never knew who I was because your mom told me exactly how your gift worked. I became Dan completely and left Peter behind whenever I was around you. I changed everything about me, so you’d never know I was nearby, planning the different ways I could end you.”
Kate tilted back on her heels and examined the man before her. It had been years since she’d seen Peter, but she still remembered what he looked like. As she stared at Dan, she could see the resemblance, but everything about him was different. She’d peg him as a distant relative at best. Peter had blond hair and blue eyes while Dan had black hair and brown eyes. The height was the same, but the weight was off. Could he have changed his appearance drastically enough to worm his way into her life?
“Every day I spent in jail, I thought about you—fantasizing about how long and drawn out I could make your death, to bring upon you the same pain you inflicted when you interfered with my son and me. Mattie and I would’ve been happy together, but instead you tried to have him taken away from me forever.”
“I didn’t take him away, it wasn’t my fault–”
“He’s my son!” Dan exploded. “I wasn’t hurting him. I gave him everything he needed and we were going to start over where no one would know us. And sticking your fat nose in something that wasn’t your business destroyed my chance to be a real father to him.”
“But if you’re Peter, where’s your accent? The way you look?” He was shaking her up and she was trying to conceal her surprise. Never had she thought Peter could be hiding in plain sight.
“I gained weight after I cleaned up in prison and the crystal meth was out of my system. After my release, I changed my hair and bought a pair of contacts. The accent was easy to fake, it just took some practice.” He shrugged and had reverted back to his southern twang.
She could see him shaking off his Dan persona and emerging as Peter.
“I thought it would take a long time to get close to you. I never imagined how easy and desperate your mom would turn out to be…”
Kate swiped the air violently with the knife. “You shut your filthy mouth about my mom. She loved you and trusted you and you violated that trust completely!”
He held up his hands while still keeping a firm grip on his knife. “Hey, I liked your mom. It’s not my fault she got stuck with such a terrible disappointment for a daughter. I never planned to hurt her, but then you had to keep going to her about your visions. She started asking questions I had a hard time answering and she was a liability I had to get rid of.”
“Where is she? I swear if you laid one hand on her, you won’t live long enough to regret it.” She bared her teeth at him and moved a step closer. She wouldn’t allow him to intimidate her and leave her in a vulnerable position in the kitchen. She’d face him head on.
“I was telling the truth, Kate, I was taking you to her.” He smiled viscously. “I mean, she’s dead, but at least you’ll be together. I’m going to throw you into Lake Cooper together after I slice your throat the same way I did hers.”
“You’re lying. You lied about Jared to mess with my head and it’s the same thing with my mom.” Please be lying, she silently prayed. Her mom couldn’t be gone and for Kate’s sanity she would file it away as another lie dripping from Dan’s deceitful lips.
He smiled and his eyebrow quirked up in amusement. “Did I lie about Jared?”
“Of course you did. I had a vision of you telling me he died. I warned him. He would’ve never gone anywhere alone without backup.”
He dug into his other pocket and she hoped it wasn’t a gun. Gun trumped knife and her hope for a continued existence would be dashed completely. Instead, he revealed a black cell phone with a familiar pink crystallized case. “What if you’d sent him a message to meet him from your phone? This came in very handy today after I stole it from your purse last night.”
She refused to believe him, but the more he talked, the more time she had left to develop an escape plan. She had to choose fight or flight and guess which one would give her the best chances of survival. “What did you do?”
“You texted him that you had a lead on your attacker and to meet you in Cooper Woods. I found a nice secluded spot to lead him and finished him off in minutes. The look on his face when he saw it was me ending his life was priceless.” He stepped towards her. “You have no one now, Kate. Everyone you love is dead and I’ve been setting it up for your dad to take the fall. You should be begging me to end your pathetic excuse for an existence.”
Kate reasoned she would feel it if Jared or her mom had truly died. Something inside of Kate would’ve screamed in protest. Her soul would’ve revolted over being left behind while the two most important people in her life died. Peter was trying to weaken her because he must’ve sensed the fight inside of her. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to keep helping the cops find scum like him and put them away for the rest of their miserable lives.
Suddenly, she lunged with the knife, hoping to surprise him enough to get in a blow that would leave him incapacitated. She doubted her ability to have the skill to land a deathblow in a single shot, so her only hope was to open up an opportunity for her to run or find a phone and call the cops.
Dan sidestepped her attack and the knife sliced across the gray t-shirt. The knife glided over the flesh at his hip, but didn’t penetrate deeply. As she pulled the knife back for another try, he grabbed her arm. He attempted to wrest the knife out of her grasp, but she twisted and turned to stop him from overpowering her. He twisted her wrist backwards and she yelped in pain. The knife tumbled out of her hand and fell onto the wood floor. Despite seeing stars from her potentially broken wrist, she still dropped to the floor and tried to get the knife back. Dan took hold of her long hair and yanked until she was on her feet. He drew her close to his body and she could feel his blood through her own clothes. It gave her satisfaction that even if she was about to die, she wounded him in some way.
He brought his knife towards her as she continued to struggle against him. He tried to angle the knife towards her throat, but her thrashing was making it hard for him. When he was close to getting into the position he wanted, he inexplicably stopped moving the knife. She wasn’t sure what had given him pause until she saw the front door open before her.
Jared, her beautiful and obviously not dead boyfriend, stood before them at the front door. He looked like an avenging god as he growled and reached for the gun at his side. Before he could remove the gun from the holster, Dan had the hunting knife at her throat.
“Move again and I will decapitate her before you have a chance to fire off a shot,” he swore.
“Let her go.” Jared’s voice was low and full of rage. His eyes were blazing and she had no doubt he would murder Dan without a second’s hesitation.
“Fuck you! She’s an abomination and doesn’t deserve to live. I could’ve been happy with Mattie, but she had to meddle in my affairs. Mattie wasn’t hurt, but I still ended up rotting in jail for two years because I’d run away with my own son. Whatever she is, it’s not natural.”
Kate snorted despite her fear. “I’m the one who’s not natural? I had nothing to do with you losing your son. You were a meth head who hit his wife and lost custody of your kid. And now you’re a wannabe killer who had to kidnap his family to get some quality time in with them.”
Dan’s muscles clenched and she knew he was trying to decide if he had enough time to kill her before Jared got to his gun. She was over trembling before Dan and begging for her life. She’d curse him straight to hell and spit in his face before groveling for mercy.
Jared gave her a frustrated look telling her he wished she’d stop antagonizing the maniac with the knife.
“You’re going to let her go, Dan,” Jared said as he locked eyes with Kate. “If she’s hurt, I’ll only make things much worse for you.”
Jared tried to neutralize the threat in his voice. Kate imagined he was getting worried over how hard Dan had begun to press the edge of the knife against her throat. Kate swallowed roughly as she felt a drop of blood roll down her neck.
She hated being put in such a weak position and her salvation dependent on Jared. She wanted to control her own destiny and prove her worth. Dan had tried to destroy her and he would pay for his crimes. She felt eager to cause him pain, to see him wither in his own blood as she watched emotionlessly. He’d tried to mentally and physically annihilate her, but she refused to stop fighting.
“She’s already dead, I’m only finishing what I started.” Dan addressed Jared. “There was no way she should’ve survived what I did to her. She was dead when I left that night. She must’ve made some type of unholy pact to make it out of there alive.”
His words were reminding her of o
ld insecurities, the feeling of being a freak. Instead of weakening her with his words, he only incensed her more. She saw red as she spat out, “You motherfucker—”
“You got that right,” Dan interjected.
He was stirring up every violent impulse inside of her and since she was trapped in his hold, she lashed out at him with her tongue. “You’re not making it out of here. You’re going to die and never see your son again. As if he doesn’t hate you enough. How’s he going to feel when he finds out you’re a crazy freak who’s tortured and murdered people? He’ll be happy to be rid of you once and for all. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came to your grave and spat on it—”
Dan’s tone was panicked. “Will you shut the fuck up? I’m trying to think here. If I’m going to die, you’re going with me.”
She felt him move behind her and expected to feel her skin catch fire as he moved the blade across her throat.
“No!” she screamed.
He freed his hold on her waist and tried to cover her mouth with his left hand to silence her. During her scream, she felt one of his fingers graze against her tongue. Without a second’s hesitation, she clamped down her teeth over the digit.
She didn’t stop once she felt his flesh between her teeth. Instead, she bit down harder, hoping to hit bone. Locking her jaws together, she gnawed on his skin, taking flesh and blood with her as he tried to wrench his hand away.
He jerked his hand up and down, but despite her mouth aching, she wouldn’t let up. The struggle to yank his finger out of her mouth caused his weapon to drop.
Dan screamed and she felt his grip on her slipping.
She saw her opportunity to free herself from his hold and took it. She released Dan’s finger and scrambled away from him. As she ran towards Jared, she kicked the fallen knife clear across the room. She collided with Jared, who had his gun drawn and pointed at Dan.
The Final Omen: Second Sight Book Four Page 18
