Deceived (36 page)

“I waited a very long time for you to grow up.” Miles slid into the seat beside me and placed my free hand in his lap. I swallowed back vomit that filled my mouth. “You were a sweet girl. What happened to you? You hold hands with lacrosse players and kiss federal agents.” He tsked with his tongue. “That’s the way it starts. A little hand holding.” He laced his fingers with mine. “A kiss.” He leaned toward me, pressing his mouth to mine.

I cried out, whipping my head away from his.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Your father interrupted my work. There’s so much work to do, Stella, and he messed that up for me. That’s your name, by the way. Stella, not Gabby or Elle or whatever it is they all call you these days. Your name is Stella.” He fiddled with the cushion between us like it was just another day in the life of crazy.

“You look like your mother. Did he ever tell you that?”

The mention of my mother stirred something else in me.
He killed her. He robbed me of a life with her.
He robbed her of life.
Fire burned beneath the searing pain in my head. My vision sharpened, adjusting to the dim light. A large pair of scissors lay in his right hand. The scissors were for me. I blinked, unable to figure out where they had come from. My thoughts were muted in my head.

“I like to take my time. He’s ruined that, too. I had special plans for you.” He shifted in his seat, tugging at his pant legs and weighing the scissors in his grip.

“I spent days with my first, trying to teach her how wrong her life was. I erased all the things that defined her. No one wants to be a whore, Stella. I shaved her head. Dressed her in bags. Withheld food so she’d understand that labels don’t make someone a better person. They just emphasized what a total abomination she really was. She resisted. The mission failed.

“The only thing left to do was to get rid of her before she ruined another home. I tossed her into a ravine. I like to make a point.” He tapped his temple with one finger.

“She was no one. The best part of the entire week was tossing her body. An enormous weight was lifted. I did something good. I wanted to do it again.”

I closed my eyes, praying for a clear thought. He dragged the point of his scissors down my chest, pressing the material of my jacket between my breasts. I sucked in a breath.

“You like that.” He unzipped the jacket, watching his hands instead of my face. Nicholas always watched my face. Nicholas loved me. He was kind and good, everything the monster beside me was not, and yet it was this beast who touched me. Desperation filled my chest and I sobbed against the pressure of his hands. The rape came next. I knew. I’d read. I’d rather die than live through that. How do women live past something so evil?

Miles pressed the scissors against the inside of one knee and dragged them up my thigh.

I squeezed my eyes shut again.

“You look like a filthy whore in that getup. What would your mother have said? All dressed in black like that obnoxious roommate of yours. Is that where you learned to whore?” He spat at me. Then he leaned in close, arranging the scissors in his right hand. “Let’s get you out of those clothes.”

My mind worked at a frantic pace, unwilling to give up, rejecting this as my future or my end.

He worked my jacket off one arm and looked at me with disgust. Carefully, he removed all he could from half my body, tossing my boots near the fire. Leaving me exposed and shaking despite the fire before us. “Will I be your first, Stella?”

Yes. “Please, don’t.” I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for clarity. My tongue thickened in my desert-dry mouth.

He rolled my shoulder away from him, forcing my arms together and my back to him. His fingers wound into my too-short hair and the scissors chopped and pulled at my new style. I slipped my left hand under the sleeve bunched up on my right arm and worked the ties as he worked on my hair. I wiggled the binding until my hand could slip through.

He pulled me back for a look at his handiwork. A length of black bangs fell into my eyes.

“I wanted your mother, too, but he ruined that. Your father ruins everything. He’s ruining my life!” His eyes went wild. “Your mom was old for my taste, but you look like her. Feels like I get a second chance.” My skin tightened with goose bumps in the icy winter air. The fire struggled in the hearth, fighting against the chill clinging to the walls and air around us. Fear and understanding froze me to the core.

Miles never took his eyes off my body. He dipped his face toward my breasts, and I shoved him away. When he raised his eyes to mine, I smashed my head against his nose with all the force I could muster. A sickening crunch led to a guttural roar.

“You broke my nose, you bitch.”

His fist whipped forward, punching me in the mouth. My head whipped back, and the world shimmered. Miles grabbed a poker from the fireplace and swung it at my head.

I woke some time later to piercing pain. My head ached. I pressed a palm to my hair. It came back warm and wet. Blood. I moved to rub my hand against my clothes. They were gone, hacked off roughly, leaving only my sleeve where he hadn’t bothered to untie me. My clothes had been replaced by a black trash bag cut open at the bottom like a dress and cinched under my arms. I tested my right ankle. He hadn’t retied it.

The fire was almost out. My skin burned from the cold. Shards of yellow light streamed in through the front window. A new day. I had lived through the night and escaped my impending rape for one more day. My tummy knotted with hunger. Through squinted eyes, I watched Miles toss the last scraps of kindling into the fire. The scissors poked out of his back pocket. He hadn’t finished my hair. Of course not. He’d wait for me to wake up and participate as his victim. Where was the fun of torment without a good fight?

He shoved the poker around the fire, cursing. Dad and I hadn’t been to the cabin since the summer. We didn’t stock firewood inside. Dad kept a seasoned pile outside. Miles turned to me and let out a slew of vulgarities and curses. I feigned unconsciousness.

“When I get back, we’ll get started.” He crushed my jaw in his iron grip and my eyes opened. “Thanks to all the trouble you gave me and the posse out looking for us, we’ll have to start right away.” He released my face, and blood rushed under my skin to the dents left behind by his cruel fingers. “Hair, nails, fingerprints.”

“You don’t have to rush. I won’t cause more trouble. I promise.” My voice cracked on every word. Fear encased my heart in ice.

Miles grinned. He grabbed my thighs in his hands and locked his eyes on mine. I wished he hadn’t. Suddenly I prayed he’d turn his gaze back to my body instead. Squeezing my bare skin in his hands, he stared into my eyes. A slow, easy smile spread over his face and I realized I’d given him what he wanted. He wanted the fear. The submission.

“I’ll be the Reaper of that.”
The Reaper
.

My chest heaved with stuttered breaths.

“I promise to take the important things nice and slow.”

He pressed my legs apart and I trembled. My teeth chattered until my limbs rocked with cold and sheer terror.

“The best things are worth waiting for.” He licked his lips and walked away, holding my gaze. I shut my eyes.

The door sucked shut behind him and he ambled off the porch. When I no longer saw him through the window, I yanked my wrist free of the loosened strap and forced my body upright. I hobbled to the back door and unlocked it with shaking hands. Wind whipped through my hair, pasting the plastic bag to my skin. Snow flurries added sting to the air.

Confusion darted and skipped in my mind. I’d been in these woods a thousand times, but sunlight blinded my eyes. My brain beat inside my skull. My lips ached from his punch. My head throbbed from the blast he had given me with the poker. It hurt to open my eyes wider than a squint. I scurried into the trees behind the cabin and fell. My feet slid on wet, frigid leaves. Resting on my knees in the blowing snow, I cried silently. This was how it would end for me. The Reaper had taken my clothes, touched my body,
seen
me. Vomit pressed its way up my throat. Tears formed as I pictured my father finding me outside our cabin dressed like the other victims. The Reaper would finish me off and go into town for breakfast. He was dressed for polite company.

I was dressed for disposal.

I pulled myself up with the help of a nearby tree. I had no shoes or clothes. I was bleeding and dressed in plastic.

“Stella.” His voice echoed through the trees.

To stay was to die, brutally. To go was unknown. Agents were looking for Miles. They were out there somewhere, nowhere near here, but if I made it to town, I could call for help. Heavy footfalls thumped behind me, cracking branches and shuffling leaves.

“No one can help you,” he taunted, drawing nearer.

I jogged, forcing my body forward.

My eyes adjusted to the light and I looked through the bare trees. I had nowhere to go. My head jerked back. His fingers were in my shorn hair, curled into the few swaths he had left.

“I’m building a fire. Where are you going?” He screamed into my face.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He stroked my head. “Don’t be in such a hurry. I’ll bring you back out here later. When I’m done.”

He released my hair, and I ran. He caught me around the waist and threw me on the ground. “Why are you trying to ruin this for me?” he snarled.

He pulled the scissors from his back pocket and shifted them from one of his neatly manicured hands to the other. My life was a game to him. My shoulder ached from having landed on an exposed root. The expression of victory glowed on his face. He was dragging out my death on purpose, savoring each moment. Fine by me. Every minute he extended my life was another moment I’d try to live. Adrenaline heated my torso. My fingers and toes were numb, but my heart was pumping hard, sending much-needed blood and oxygen to my appendages, clearing my thoughts.

Miles had a protocol to adhere to. He took his victims’ identities. He’d already taken my clothes. Now, he’d finish my hair.

“You’re all the same,” he barked. “You’re all in a hurry. You don’t want to change. You won’t listen. All across the country, girls like you are ruining marriages, killing mothers. It’s up to me to stop you.” He stopped to wipe some spittle from his chin.

I moaned and rubbed my head, luring him into reach. Nicholas’s commanding voice exploded in my head. All the lessons he’d taught me by the river flooded back. Stern and determined, his voice said, “Run.”

The Reaper leaned forward and placed his fingers into the thick of my bangs. I jerked my head upward with all I had in me. His face crunched again as my head connected with it. His hand loosened by a degree. He stumbled backward and dragged me with him. “Fucking bitch!”

I wrapped my frozen fingers around a large branch lying beside me and stabbed it into the air behind me. The branch connected briefly with his flesh. I turned to see. I’d caught him in his neck. His grip loosened again. Hate and fear flung my body upward. Away from the man. Into the forest. Leaving a large portion of my hair behind. I knew his plans. I’d read the files. He wouldn’t be my first. I wouldn’t be his next.

Barefoot, naked, and almost blind from pain, I ran. My feet slipped and ached as they pounded the icy ground. Branches cracked and snapped as I leapt and landed again and again through the woods. My heart clenched with fear. My body was at home, trained to run. Muscle memory. I barely needed to think. The cold forest floor didn’t compare to my treadmill, but it mattered little, considering the circumstances.

I ran confidently for several minutes before it all went south. There was no way a man twice my age would’ve caught me if I’d been wearing shoes. Cresting the top of the hill, away from the cabin, my left foot landed on a sharp stick and I collapsed. The branch jammed deeply into my sole. I screamed and fell. Blood oozed around it. I knew enough not to remove the stick. The blood would rush out. I’d die. I couldn’t run, or walk, with the branch wedged into my skin. A main artery ran through the arch of the foot. Severing it meant death. Trickles of blood ran out from around the branch, coating my skin in a sticky burn.

The space I’d put between us would be lost if I didn’t move. My name echoed through the trees in his creepy voice. My eyes darted frantically for a wide tree or thicket of brush within crawling distance. I had nowhere to hide, and he was pissed. Pain seized my body. He cursed and swore as he approached, taking his time. The monster stood over me like a hunter over prey. Then he yanked the stick from my foot and tossed it into the woods.

“Gah!” Instinctively I folded into myself and applied pressure to the wound. Blood soaked my hands. Tears fell freely into the snow. I didn’t want to die at his hands, not like my mother.

Not like this,
my heart screamed.
Not like this. Please.

“You useless little whore!” he roared, interrupting any feeble measure of hope. A huge cold hand slammed into my cheek. My head flung sideways into the snow. “You’re supposed to be in the cabin! Steven’s supposed to watch you die. You two keep ruining my plans!” He enunciated every syllable. Spittle flew from his lips and hit my burning cheeks. “I know all about his security cameras. Why do you think I brought you here? When I’m finished, I’ll tell him to watch his footage. I’ll be long gone by then, but so will you, Stella.”

He knelt next to me with the scissors and began to chop at my already too-short hair. My loss of blood was tremendous, especially the way my heart pumped from the run. I slumped over, forehead to the ground, trying to think. I’d had no idea about the cameras. Of course, it seemed reasonable now. My tummy flopped and my face burned. If I passed out, I was dead. My ears rang. A sick burn crept over me. Nausea. Terror. Loss. Black spots floated in my vision. I bawled into the freezing dirt. A thrumming began in the sky.

The Reaper’s voice drawled on. I couldn’t hold the words in my head. Concentration became harder. Like falling asleep and waking only to realize I was still asleep. I slipped to and from my dream, adding confusion to the pain and panic. His voice added a new dimension to the nightmare. My memory. He was in the alley. My mother cried in his arms. My father was sprawled on the ground near me. He spoke to me.