SCORCHED: A Firefighter Stepbrother Romance Thriller (16 page)

“We’ll
get out of your hair, Chelsea,” I said with a sigh, motioning Simon to follow
after me. I pulled out my phone to check the time and realized that I hadn’t
checked in with Tanya like I’d promised. I needed to do that, especially now
that we knew the fucker’s name.

“Just
do me a favor, okay?” Chelsea asked, walking us out. “Keep Tanya safe. If
Connor is doing all of this shit, I don’t know what he’s willing to do. He’s
not the kid I remember.”

“I’m
going to do my best,” I said, giving her a smile as she undid all of the locks
and opened the door for
me and Simon
.

As the
two of us stepped out into the hall, I dialed the number of the burner phone
I’d given Tanya, putting it to my ear as we walked back down toward the lobby
once again.

“So,
where to next?” Simon asked, his eyebrows
raised
as he
followed me down the first flight of stairs. The phone rang in my ear until it
went through to the automated message. I frowned and tried again.

“We’ll
check the theatre, I guess. It’s pretty much all we’ve got to work with, at
this point.”

We
descended a few more flights, and once again the phone rang straight through to
the machine. I could feel my stomach starting to drop. I didn’t like this one
bit.

“Tanya’s
not answering the phone,” I said as we exited the lobby.

“Hey,
maybe she’s just in the shower or something. Don’t panic just yet.”

I
nodded, but something inside of me told me that something was truly,
desperately wrong.

Simon
and I climbed into his car, turning over the engine as his radio and police
scanner both flared to life in unison—the latter bearing the exact news I
didn’t want to hear.

Chapter 18

Tanya

I
didn’t even have to open my eyes to know that I was on a stage.

I could
feel the lights on my skin.
Their heat.
Their radiance.
I knew I was glowing the way I always did at
the Domino.
At the Dollhouse.
Anywhere they put me, I
knew how to shine.

Shine bright like a diamond . . . shine
bright like a . . . 

There
was a musical going on in my head. An amalgamation of every shitty stripper
song I’d ever heard. I knew how to make it look like the stage was my home,
like I’d been born to strip and tease. But it never really felt that way. It
was never what I’d really wanted for myself.

Dreams
were for rich girls, though. Girls like me didn’t dare to dream. They only ever
turned into nightmares, and we couldn’t afford that kind of pain.

 
“I went to the Garden of Love

And saw
what I never had seen.”

I
blinked, slowly.
Oh, fuck. My head.
It was like a hangover, only worse—I hadn’t even had the chance to get
drunk first. The darkness was spinning and spilling into the light, bleeding
like a drop of ink in a cold glass of water. I couldn’t tell where the shadows
ended and the light began—if they ended at all.

I took
a deep, shuddering breath of the murk. A spotlight was on me. Everything else
was dark.

Except
for the glitter of eyes out in the audience.
Just one pair
behind a mask.
Tragedy.
Yet I
knew the man who wore it was smiling.

“A
Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I
used to play on the green.”

Those
lights were searing. I shut my eyes again and my head lolled back. I almost
tipped over and hand to slam my feet down onto the wood beneath me to keep my
balance. A chair. I was in a chair—tied to it. My wrists were bound. One
of them was smarting. Throbbing. Broken. And the hand, my burned one, was
bleeding.

“What
the fuck,” I muttered. It sounded like I had a mouth full of marbles.

Tom—no,
not
Tom, my
stalker
—I was sure of that now—he stood up from his
spot in the audience, weaving between the rows of red velvet chairs. They’d
probably been pretty once, but moths and rats and time had worn them all down.
Picked some clean. Left nothing but their wood and metal. Left nothing but their
bones.

“And
the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And ‘Thou
shalt not’ writ over the door.”

Against
my better judgment, I pulled hard on the cords binding my arms. I pulled and
gritted and screamed until long, dark lashes opened up across my
skin—bruises the color of the night. I cried and hung my head, digging my
nails into the arms of the chair.

I
glared, panting, as he mounted the stairs. “What the fuck do you want
?!
”

He was
moving toward me.
One foot at a time.
So easy, so relaxed, like I wasn’t a hostage.
Like I was
nothing to him at all.

But
there was that gleam in his eyes again—like the edge of a knife glinting
at the edge of the spotlight beating down on me. I’d been thinking about
paradoxes back in the hotel room with him, and now I understood that I was
his
paradox—the girl who meant
everything, and yet nothing at all.

Part
trophy, part empty vessel. I slumped in the chair. I was going to be sick.

He
stood beside me. He was wearing opera gloves. Fuck, Gunner had it
right—this guy thought he was the Phantom.

“So I
turn’d
to the Garden of Love,

That so
many sweet flowers bore.”

He
touched my hair, peeling it away from my face. I tried to bite him and he
jumped. Then he laughed and stepped behind me.

“And I
saw it was filled with graves,

And
tomb-stones
where flowers should be:

And
Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And
binding with briars, my joys and desires.”

His
thick, musky breath was on my ear. “That’s a poem about death.
The death of love.
And loss. And, ultimately,
disappointment.”

He
pushed off the back of my chair and I fell forward, just barely catching myself
with my feet. I teetered precariously, my stomach flopping. I was so close to
the edge of the stage. If I plummeted off, I’d land right on my face on the
exposed concrete below. I’d crack my head open, my brains would fly out, and
I’d die. I’d
die.

I
didn’t want to die.

My
stalker jerked me back, tilting me onto the chair’s rear legs so I was staring
straight up at him like he was some kind of deranged dentist on Halloween.
Goddamn him, I was shaking. I was shaking and scared, and he could see it. I
didn’t want him to.

I
wanted to be brave. To look as unaffected as he did. But I couldn’t do it. I
was too raw.
Too
human.

Bully
for me.

“Do you
know why I’m disappointed, Sandra?”

I
recoiled. “Sandra? Who the fuck is—”

He
drove his knee into my right hand, pinning it to the chair’s frame. Beneath my
bloody bandages, my burn sizzled.

“Don’t
lie to me. Don’t you fucking do
that.
Not again. Not
anymore.”

I bit
my tongue, holding back the tide of bile and fury that wanted to gush out of me
all at once. If I was going to live through this, I was going to have to
breathe. Maybe even play along. I closed my eyes and inhaled deep through my
nose.
Breathe. Just breathe.

When I
opened my eyes again, I steadied my voice and asked, “Why?”

He let
me down onto the stage again.
Onto solid ground.
Bliss. But then he jerked my head back by my hair and agony ripped through my
skull.

“I’m
disappointed because the first time I killed you, you didn’t die.”

The first time?

I
stared at him, breathless, unable to even blink. My lips were dry and cracking.
I could feel that the lower one had split already—probably back in the
hotel room when he’d hit me. I pulled the scab apart with my teeth, but didn’t
dare say a word.

I
wanted to ask. I
needed
to ask. But
more than that, I needed to live. And that meant playing his game.

I just
wished I knew what the fuck the rules were.

I
tried. “I’m . . . sorry?”

“You
should be,” he hissed. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me.
The hatred in his eyes.
“I spent so much time on you. Making
sure . . . ”

He
released me, disgusted. I took a moment to compose myself.
C’mon, Tanya. Think. How are we
gonna
get out of this one?

“It’s
no coincidence I found you,” he muttered. “Even though I wasn’t looking. Even
though I’d practically
forgotten
you.” I kept quiet, and he continued. “I was looking for
her.
For
Chelsea.
Your spawn, and my . . . ”

He
looked right into the spotlight. “My sick rose.”

I
remembered what he’d said the first time we’d met. How he’d killed his mother.
Suffocated her with her own panties, the sick freak. Chelsea—
my
Chelsea? I knew her mother was dead,
but . . . 

Holy
shit.
This
was Chelsea’s brother
?!

Looks like I’m not the only one trying to
escape the past.

“You
ruined everything that night,” he snarled, turning on me once again. “When I
saw you up there, reveling in the whore that you are . . . I
didn’t understand. Tell me,” he shrieked, fingers sinking into my throat. “Tell
me how you came back, you bitch!”

I
struggled to make a sound, even though I knew there was nothing I could say. He
was insane.
Bona fide crazy.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
Was this what was in store for
me and Gunner
? Was this
what our kind of dark and twisted love turned into?

My head
was starting to throb—no oxygen. I remembered this feeling from when I’d
nearly died just a few days before. When that fire had raged through my
apartment... When Gunner had waltzed back into my life and saved me like it was
nothing. I wanted him to do that now. I wanted him to show up and take me away,
breathe life into me all over again . . . 

Please . . . 

“I know
how to get rid of you now,
mother,
”
he spat so close to my face. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see
him—his mask—his rage. “You’re a myth. A legend.
The
Lilith of our time.
Mother of monsters, demons.
This time, I’ll be right here. I won’t leave you. Not until I’m sure you’re
dead.”

Just as
blackness began to overtake me, he let me go. I wheezed in a breath that hurt
worse than him strangling me had. I was choking on my swollen throat. I could
barely swallow.

But I
could see just fine. See the psycho in front of me as he took something out of
his pocket. Smell the sudden stench of phosphorous in the air. A blue flame
pricked along his finger. He’d lit a match and now held it in front of his
face.

My
heart threatened to stop beating. I looked down at the ground—
really
looked at it for the very first
time. It was smeared with something red. Something like what he’d left for me
in Gunner’s house.

He was
going to blow me to smithereens.

“It’s
just like
Father
always said,” he murmured, staring
into my eyes. “Fire fixes everything.”

“Please,”
I rasped. “Jesus—fuck—
please
! You don’t
have to . . . ”

He
dropped the match. The stage erupted around me.
Beside me.
Beneath me.
A ring of fire leaping
higher than I was tall.
My own personal hell.

In mere
moments, I was consumed.