by Banks, R. R.
My head is throbbing, and my mouth is dry when I wake up. I sit up and go to rub my head only to find that my hands are bound tight with plastic cuffs. When I try to stand, I find that my legs are, too. I struggle against the bonds but can’t break free.
The window in the room lets in the ambient light, but given that it’s an overcast night, the room remains cloaked in inky shadows. I look around frantically, struggling against the cuffs. My heart is pounding. A sense of desperation blended with despair washes down over me.
I squeak in terror and nearly jump out of my skin when the room is suddenly flooded with light. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I see the man sitting in a chair against the wall on the far side of the room. He’s looking at me with something like adoration in his eyes. It makes my skin crawl.
“You look so peaceful when you sleep,” he muses. “Like an angel. A beautiful angel.”
Yeah, great, that’s not creepy as hell or anything. But then, this man has me trussed up like a turkey on the bed, so maybe that passes as perfectly normal in his twisted world. He just sits there staring at me for a long moment, his eyes fevered and intense. A wave of nausea passes through me, and it’s all I can do to keep from throwing up.
“Why the fuck are you doing this?” I hiss.
“So, we can be together, of course,” he says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “She said you wanted to be with me.”
I lean back against the headboard of the bed, staring at the man before me, willing myself to be calm and to think this through. I need to keep him talking, need to keep him calm. Buying myself some time and thinking this through might be the only thing that saves my life, since nobody’s coming for me. No, I’m alone here.
“Tell me something, Elliott –”
“Blake,” he corrects me. “My name is Blake.”
“Fine – Blake,” I reply. “Who is this she you keep referring to?”
He rolls his eyes and grins like this is a game to him or something. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I silently count to ten, trying to hold myself together.
“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I plead. “Who are you talking about?”
“Your best friend. Maura,” he finally blurts out. “She told me you wanted to be with me but were too shy to say anything.”
It hits me like a baseball bat. I can’t seem to catch my breath. It can’t be. He has to be making this up. Right? There is no way Maura would do this to me. She wouldn’t put me in harm’s way like this. No matter how upset she is about Knox, there’s no way she’d put me in danger.
“Y – you’re wrong,” I mutter. “You have to be wrong.”
He smiles wide. “We met on a mystery literature discussion board when Obsidian Fields came out,” he explains. “We got to talking about your work, and about you, and she said that she knew we’d be good together.”
It still makes no sense to me. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. There is no way Maura would do something like this. I know she stays up to date with what people are saying about me and my work online, but she doesn’t engage with them. She’s told me the same thing a million times.
“At first, she paid me to hang out where you are,” he goes on. “Told me she thought I was the right guy for you, but because I’m kinda shy, too, she offered me some money as an incentive to go. She said she thought I needed the push.”
“You’re lying,” I exclaim.
He grins as he stands up and pulls out his wallet. He slips a piece of paper out and unfolds it, slipping it into my hands. It’s a cashier’s check. When I see Maura’s name at the top of it, that feeling of being kicked in the gut returns. My hand is shaking so hard, I drop the check and watch as it flutters to the floor. Blake stands there staring at me, a goofy smile that somehow looks sinister to me on his face.
“Now do you believe me?” he asks.
I just sit there in stunned silence, not sure what to think or what to believe. About anything. Maura does everything to help build my career. I trust her. She’s supposed to be my friend. She’s supposed to be the mother figure I never had.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper.
“I’ve been in love with you since the moment I read your book. Your words really touched my soul,” he tells me. “And when I saw your picture, your beauty – on top of everything else – just put me over the top. I told Maura all of that and she thought I sounded perfect for you.”
“Please,” I whisper. “Let me go. I won’t tell anybody about this. I swear it.”
He shakes his head. “What do you mean? We love each other,” he says. “You love me. Maura told me so.”
“I don’t. I don’t know you,” I respond. “I don’t know why Maura would tell you any of that but –”
“She told me because you love me,” he screams at me.
I recoil, pressing myself back against the wall as hard as I can, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. My heart is in my throat, and the adrenaline coursing through me makes my skin feel like it’s on fire.
“Why are you doing this?” he howls. “Why are you messing with me? Maura told me –”
“She lied to you,” I scream back. “I don’t know why, but she lied to you!”
My rational brain is trying to reassert itself. It’s reminding me that I need to stay calm and stay focused. That my survival depends on pacifying him until I find a way out of here. I only have myself to count on right now. Nobody knows where I am. There’s nobody coming for me. If I’m going to get out of this, I need to keep my head about me.
But I’m finding that it’s an impossible task. I’m so scared and so confused about everything happening that I can’t keep my thoughts – let alone my wits – about me.
“Please leave me alone,” I plead. “Please, just leave me alone.”
The man grabs a glass from the dresser and hurls it across the room. When it hits the wall and shatters, a sharp scream bursts from my throat before I can stop it. He glares at me, his gaze intense and murderous, but he turns and stomps out of the room, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the frame.
I hear him in the front room stomping around, his footsteps punctuated by the sound of something shattering or crashing to the floor. My heart is racing. I struggle against my bonds, grunting with the effort. The plastic is cutting into the skin on my wrists. The pain is like fire, but I keep struggling anyway.
Breathing hard, I slump back against the wall, unable to break the cuffs. Tears stream down my face and I cry out in frustration.
Why is this happening? Why would Maura do this to me? I rack my brain, trying to figure it all out. As I stare up at the ceiling, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, refocusing my mind. As my heart rate slows, my thinking starts to clear.
Maybe it’s not Maura who he’s been talking to. Maybe somebody, for whatever reason, is impersonating Maura and put this guy in my path. I have no idea why anybody would do that, but it’s possible, I guess. People do some screwed up things.
It’s also the only thing that makes any sort of sense, since there is no way Maura would do what he’s claiming she did. But then, what about the cashier’s check? Where did that come from, if not from Maura? Is this guy so far gone that he’d dummy up a cashier’s check just to play out his fantasy?
I don’t understand anything that’s happening. Nothing makes sense. I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life. Tears of frustration and terror roll down my face, and I beat my thighs with my cuffed fists.
I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this.
Knox
We pull the car to a stop in a small turnout off the side of the highway. The night is dark, and the spring storm that’s been forecast is starting to break. We’d waited until nightfall to head out, preferring to move under the cover of darkness. Thunder rumbles in the distance and fat, scattered raindrops hit the windshield with a sound like nails
tapping on the glass.
“Through those woods, less than a quarter mile,” Cassie indicates.
“Let’s roll.”
“Wait,” she says.
Cassie holds up her hand and cocks her head, listening to something in her earbud. A couple of beats later, she looks over at me and pulls the earbud out of her ear, dropping it onto her laptop.
“Call just came over the scanner. They’re rolling out,” she informs me. “We’ve got half an hour. Tops.”
“We better move, then.”
We climb out of the SUV and set off through the woods, moving as quietly as we can. We make it to the edge of the tree line in less than five minutes and crouch down behind a row of bushes. There’s about fifty yards of open ground between us and the cabin.
The lights are on. Through the windows, I can see Waters pacing back and forth in the front room. He seems to be screaming and having an animated conversation, but I don’t see any sign of Felicity from where we are.
“Tick tock,” Cassie whispers. “If we’re going to do something, we need to go now.”
“Use the trees as cover. Get as close to the cabin as we can,” I order. “We don’t know if he’s armed, and I don’t want to put Felicity in harm’s way. Quick and quiet.”
“Copy that.”
Moving low and swift, we circle around and get to the back of the cabin. I can hear Waters is still ranting in the front room, his ravings making no sense to anybody but him. We cross the fifteen yards from the trees to the windows in the back rooms. Standing to the side, I peer in and see Felicity on the bed. She’s breathing heavily. Her wrists are bloody, no doubt from struggling to break free of the plastic cuffs on her wrists.
The sight of her sends an electric current of relief and anger shooting simultaneously through me. I’m so glad she’s alive. But I’m so furious that she is being held. My hands start shaking, but I will myself to keep calm. I’ve got to approach this carefully. So, I can save her. So, I can save our baby.
I’ll do whatever it takes.
“I can get into the room and get her out,” Cassie whispers.
“And if he comes in while you’re in there?”
“Then I’ll have to kick that guy’s ass.”
I flash her a smirk. “How about I provide a distraction?”
“That might work, too,” she admits.
I nod. “Give me to the count of twenty and do your thing.”
I move back around the cabin, trying to figure out how to provide a distraction that isn’t going to get them both killed. Thunder rumbles again, closer this time, and the rain starts to pick up, splashing to the ground in heavier drops.
Silently, I climb up onto the porch and stand beside the window. I lean out and peer inside. Waters is heading for the back room. I don’t know if it’s because he heard Cassie slipping in or if it’s something else, but either way, if I don’t do something, somebody is going to get hurt, if not outright killed.
Not knowing what else to, I step to the door and kick it in. Wood splinters, and it swings open wide, slamming into the wall behind it with a loud bang. Thunder splits the sky outside and the rain starts to come down in sheets.
Waters turns back to me, his face a mask of rage and indignation.
“You bastard,” he growls at me.
“You have somebody who belongs to me,” I shout.
“She’s mine,” he roars. “She belongs to me. Maura said –”
I laugh. “Maura lied to you. She used you, dumbass.”
With a howl of fury, he launches himself at me. The guy is quicker than I expected, and he slams into me before I can get the gun out of the holster at my back. The force of the blow drives us both backward. For a moment, I feel the weightless sensation of being airborne. A moment later, the breath is driven from my lungs as I hit the ground with Waters on top of me.
I’m dazed for a moment – long enough for Waters to get a shot in. His fist slams into my jaw. For a brief second, I see a flash of stars. I’m still reeling from the punch when I feel Waters jump off me. With his weight off my chest, I’m able to suck in a few deep draws of air.
Laying on my back, I’m staring up at the sky when a flash of lightning illuminates the world around me. Waters is there, standing over me wielding a large stick in his hands. He brings it down in a murderous arc with a howl of rage. I roll to the side a split second before the stick smashes into the ground where my head was.
I lash out with my legs, taking his out from under him. He drops to his ass with a grunt and I scramble to my feet. He takes a swing with the stick, using it like a baseball bat. It slams into my thigh. I stagger to the side, the pain flaring in my leg. Waters is back on his feet a moment later, bringing the stick to bear again.
From the corner of my eye, I see Cassie heading to the woods with her arm around Felicity. That momentary distraction is enough for Waters to make his move. I turn back a second too late, and the stick crashes into the side of my head. I stagger and fall to my knees, my head spinning. Warm blood flows down my face, mixing with the rain and I try to stand up, only to fall right back down.
Looking up, I see Waters standing there, a look of triumph on his face. He eyes are wild. His smile is menacing.
“She’s mine,” he crows. “With you out of the way, she’ll see – I’m the man for her. She’ll love me.”
I laugh like a loon. “She’s gone, you idiot. Cabin’s empty.”
He looks at me, his eyes widening. Waters turns back to the cabin, then at me, and back again. He turns and bounds up the stairs and inside. I try to get to my feet, but a wave of dizziness overcomes me and drives me to my knees again. Inside the cabin, I hear glass shattering, heavy items crashing to the floor, and his outraged screaming.
I know he’ll be back out in moments, which means I need to get to my feet if I don’t want my head caved in. Waters’ feet pound across the wood as he steps across the porch. I see him standing on the top step, a butcher knife in hand. Lightning flashes, gleaming off the steel edge of the blade and illuminating the look of pure, sinister madness on his face. Thunder punctuates the moment, sending a wave of fury through me.
Growling in anger, I get to my feet, fighting off the nausea and the dizziness that’s threatening to cripple me. I’m running on pure rage and adrenaline right now. As Waters rushes at me again, knife raised high over his head, I brace myself.
I spin to the side as he brings the blade down. It slices through the air where I was standing just a moment before, barely missing me. Waters’ momentum carries him forward and gives me the opening I need.
I’d been hanging back, letting him wear himself out to buy as much time as possible for Felicity and Cassie to escape. But now it’s my turn.
Moving back quickly, I drive my elbow into the small of his back. Waters cries out and stumbles forward, the blade spinning out of his hand, landing in a puddle of water at his feet. He starts to regain his footing and I’m on him again. I land a few quick punches to his kidneys that make him stagger before dropping to his hands and knees.
Waters isn’t a man built for fighting, and he certainly isn’t equipped to fight me. He’s gasping for breath when I drive my foot into his ribs, flipping him onto his back, and making him howl in agony. Images of Felicity, knowing how terrified she had to be, flash through my mind as I straddle his chest.
As I think about everything I might have lost – Felicity and a chance a family and a happy life – I drive my fist into his face. The crack of the blow is as loud as thunder. Blood erupts from Waters’ nose. I punch him again and again, shattering his jaw, his teeth, and breaking his nose. I keep pummeling him in fury. Every blow that connects with his face brings a grim satisfaction as I picture him stealing Felicity and my child away from me.
“Knox, stop,” I hear Cassie calling from far away.
I barely hear her and land another blow when I feel hands on my shoulders, pulling me up and away from him. The world around us is suddenly awash in red and blue st
robing lights as Reid and his SWAT team arrive on the scene. Cassie’s hands on me pull me back to the here and now and when I look up at her, she gives me a nod.
“It’s over,” she says. “You got him.”
I look down at the ruined and bloody face of the man beneath me. He’s out cold – or dead – and frankly, I don’t care which at this point. I get to my feet again, my legs still shaky. When I see Felicity standing behind Cassie, the rain pouring down over her, a look of terror on her face – but safe and unhurt – I’m overcome with emotion.
Cassie walks over to talk to Reid as I step forward and pull Felicity into a tight embrace, holding her tight to my body. Feeling her body against mine – her live, warm body, I can’t stop the tears from rolling down my face. She looks up at me, her eyes wide and swollen from tears. But she’s not smiling like I expected she would be. Her body is stiff.
“Thank you for saving me,” she whispers, almost like she can’t believe it.
“Of course. I’m here to protect you,” I say. “I love you.”
In that moment, I realize I do love her. I would do anything for her. All of my fears and nervousness and doubt are washed away. I love this woman.
A moment of silence passes between us. Felicity wipes the tears from her face and just looks up at me, those dazzling jade eyes betraying a thousand emotions at once.
“Who was that woman?” she asks softly.
I shake my head, not comprehending the question. “Who? What woman?”
“Outside the apartment,” she continues. “I saw you hugging a blonde woman. Who is she?”
I rack my brain, the answer not coming to me for a moment. Then it dawns on me, and I look her in the eye.
“Is that why you ran? Because you thought I was cheating on you?”
She nods slowly, her eyes filled with emotion. Despite everything else happening, this is what’s most important to her right now. I shake my head and wipe the rain off my face.
“That was Haley,” I tell her. “My friend and business partner. Trust me, there’s nothing between us. She doesn’t even swing that way. She was hugging me because I’d just made her the GM of my football team. We can call her right now and you can ask her whatever you want.”
