Switched (19 page)

Her struggle against Nataniel became even more frenzied as her panic set in. With her panic, came my panic. I had a desperate need to save her. Perhaps I had gone crazy too. Perhaps I felt I was living on borrowed time, considering my almost death experience with Bruno. Perhaps I was also feeling guilty about Doyle, because he probably didn’t make it. He probably wound up just like Bruno’s henchmen and the poor couple in the freezer.

With such a multitude of perhaps, I decided to save her.

“You don’t want her, Nataniel,” I heard myself say. “I know you like me better.”

Nataniel stopped in his tracks. He took a step backward, out of the range of Maisey’s kicking feet. She continued to scream and kick, yanking at the chains and crying. She had worn herself out, and I hoped if I couldn’t at least save her, I could give her some more time.

“I know you like me, Nataniel. I like you too.”

“But it is not your time,” he said. “Our big day is tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? I think our big day is today. Wasn’t that what you planned? Wasn’t it supposed to be me before Maisey?”

My mind raced a mile a minute. Here’s what I figured: Nataniel was a loony bin. That much was sure. He was going through his kill list, killing girls willy-nilly. But he had had his eye on me for a long time.

“You were the one who really brought me here for the home exchange, right?” I asked him.

“Well, they put up the ad for the home exchange, but that was before I had to finish with them. I answered your email. It seemed perfect. So why not?”

I shuddered. I had thought I was communicating with a nice Swedish family, but in reality it was Nataniel who was communicating with me. He killed them, and I gave him his next victim on a silver platter.

“That was very clever of you. I would never have been smart enough to think of that. Why did you kill them?”

“The mice. I have a mice problem that traveled to their house, and they got curious. They wanted to investigate my dungeon for the mice. I could not let them discover just what kind of mice I have.”

My panic began to rise again. “Can’t you let us go?” I pleaded. “You must be tired. Don’t you want a break?”

“Shut up.”

He looked from Maisey to me, trying to make up his mind, I guess, about which one to choose. For better or worse, he came out on the side of me. For once, I had been chosen. I won the lottery.

I was going to be next, whatever “next” meant.

Nataniel unlocked the chains that attached to the wall. My hands were still shackled together, and I hoped I could hit him with them, but he was prepared for that.

He yanked me by the chain harder than I expected, and I flew forward, skinning my knees on the rock floor.

“Don’t hurt her!” Maisey yelled. “Please don’t hurt her!”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, probably lying.

“It’s her lucky day,” Nataniel said, yanking my chain. Literally.

At that moment I wished I had grown my nails longer so that I could stab him in the eye.

He pulled me hard through the dungeon. I tripped over the rocky, uneven floor. I was desperate to hit him to use the chains to my advantage. You know, beat him to death.

I mean, what’s fair is fair.

But Nataniel was strong and ruthless. He kept the chains taut and my arms outstretched. I couldn’t get enough traction to defend myself. I figured if I couldn’t overpower him physically—and for sure I couldn’t—I would have to outsmart him. I would have to be smart.

Could I be smart? It had been a long time since I’d been smart. I had been dumb about so many things lately. But now it was a matter of life or death. I was going have to be clever, and I was going to have to be clever in a hurry.

He pulled me to the end of the dungeon where the shaft of light came through. It was a doorway and on the other side was a narrow, steep stairway. He shoved me through the doorway and held me by the neck. With his other hand he closed the thick door behind us and bolted it three times. Even if Maisey could break free from her chains, she could never get through the door. Nataniel was a ruthless monster, and he was prepared.

He pushed me up the stairs, walking behind me, shoving me when I didn’t climb fast enough. I was almost relieved to go upstairs, even though I thought upstairs meant I was that much closer to dying. And probably dying a bad death.

Not that any death is a good death, but I didn’t want to die like that, in the hands of a lunatic serial killer. I wanted to die when I was one hundred and five years old, lying on a beach in the south of France with a man named Pierre, a twenty-five year old who would kill me with the power of his lovemaking.

I sniffed at the thought of never being loved again, of dying before my time, and of those others who died before their times. Doyle. Maria. Felicity. It made me sad, but it also gave me much needed anger. Suddenly, I was furious at Nataniel. And I was going to get revenge.

“This is lovely,” I said, surprising myself. It just sort of slipped out. I couldn’t help myself. His house was gorgeous. Despite it being a medieval home in a medieval village, it was completely modern. Glass, stainless steel, and white everything.

White walls, white furniture, pristine white, beautiful glamour. It was like a page out of
House and Beautiful
. I was impressed. For a serial killer, Nataniel really had taste.

“Do you like it?” He asked. “It took me years to do. I wanted it just right. I have a thing about making things just right. I do not like it if things are not the way I like it. You understand what I mean?”

I wasn’t totally sure I knew what he meant, but I figured whatever it meant, it wouldn’t be good for me. “Yes, of course I do. And you should have exactly what you want, Nataniel.”

“Shut up!” He screamed. “Don’t try to be my friend. It won’t help.”

He was terrifying. One minute a quiet professor, and the next minute a maniacal killer. I shook in fear. He yanked me mercilessly by the chain through his living room and into a bedroom.

In a normal serial killer scene, I would’ve been focused on the bed in the room, wondering what kind of horrible rape he had in store for me, but that’s not what got my attention.

I was more focused on the beautiful white vanity by a boarded up window. The vanity had a mirror, lit by about ten light bulbs, and on the table was an entire assortment of high-end makeup and perfume.

And hanging next to the vanity was an exquisite white wedding dress.

“Nuh uh,” I said. “No way, José. That’s not the dress I’m going to wear, right, Nataniel? I’m not putting that thing on.”

I stood straight and crossed my arms in front of me in defiance. He could kill me. He could torture me. But no way in hell was I going to put on a white wedding dress. I mean, I just went through a nervous breakdown because of a white wedding dress.

For the first time, Nataniel looked hurt. Injured. I had wounded him with my words. Which made me feel fabulous.

“You don’t like it? But I picked it out just for you, Laura.”

There was that Laura again. It didn’t take Freud to realize that Laura was the original person intended for the beautiful wedding dress. I decided to play on that theme. Wound him more and see if I could get out of there.

I stomped my foot. “Well I don’t like it, Nataniel! I don’t like it at all! How dare you think that I’m going to put my beautiful perfect self in that hideous thing that you call a dress.”

I was almost feeling guilty for yelling at him. He obviously had fantastic taste, and who was I to tell him that he picked the wrong dress? Wait a minute. Rewind. Scratch the sympathy, Debra. Serial killer, remember?

“I am so sorry, Laura. I really thought you would like it. It is a Christian Dior.”

Christian Dior. I loved Christian Dior. I would’ve killed to have a Christian Dior dress. “Christian Dior!” I screamed like a bridezilla on crack. “Talk about living in the past! I want modern. I want a
now
designer. How dare you.”

Nataniel was crushed. I had beaten him down better than any goon or henchmen with a gun. I had something more hurtful than firearms: I criticized his taste. He sunk to his knees, the dress in his hands, as if he was carrying a baby.

I touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, Nataniel,” I said. “I love you enough to wear Christian Dior.”

Nataniel looked up at me with tears in his eyes. I smiled down, benignly. I was confident I had him eating out of my hands. Now if I could only find a knife or a giant candlestick to kill him with, I could save Maisey and save myself.

“Time for your hair and makeup.” Nataniel jumped up and yanked me by the chain down onto a chair. I picked up a makeup brush, but he slapped it out of my hand. “I am going to do it,” he said.

He smiled, as if this was his favorite part of the day. He smeared on liquid foundation all over my face, layer after layer until it was goopy and thick. Then he glued on long fake eyelashes and topped my eyelids with glittery white eye shadow.

It went on like that for a long time. Obviously, Nataniel’s good taste ended at hair and makeup because he made me look like a clown. If that weren’t enough, he put a long blonde wig over my own hair. It fell to my butt, straight as a board.

“Stand up!” He ordered. I stood, and he inspected his work. He was very proud of himself, and he smiled big.

“You’ve never looked this beautiful, Laura,” he said.

If Laura never looked that good, I felt really bad for her, wherever she was. I looked like I was dipped into a kindergartner’s paint box. But that was beside the point. Nataniel began to take the wedding dress off of the hanger, and he handed it to me.

“Now be very careful with this,” he said. “Don’t tear it. That would make me very angry.”

I didn’t want to put on the dress. Just looking at it made me want to cry. But Nataniel had a look on his face that said if I didn’t do what he commanded, things were going to get ugly quick. And probably much uglier than my face looked at that moment.

I gently took the wedding dress from him and held it up. In that moment, I flashed back to the day of my wedding. It had been a beautiful day in Chicago. I couldn’t have ordered better weather, which was like a miracle in Chicago.

My makeup artist and hair dresser had made me look like a movie star, like me but ten times better. And it was the dress of my dreams, exactly the kind that I’d always dreamed of my whole life. It was an emotional day. I wanted my mother there. But of course that was impossible.

But even if I didn’t have a family of my own, I embraced inheriting Jackson’s family. I was very excited to share my life with him, and oh what a life it was going to be. Perfect.

I stood in the dressing room with Stacy, staring at myself in the mirror and spinning in place. I was ready for my entrance, but we had a long time before the ceremony was going to begin. I’ve always been early. Compulsively early. But it made me happy to spin around the room in my beautiful dress like I was a fairy princess.

I had never been happier than I was at that moment right before my wedding. And then my world came tumbling down. It was San Francisco, circa 1906. First the earthquake. Then, the fire. My life was rocked and then it went up in flames.

There was a knock on the door. Stacy went to open it, and a waiter handed her a note. A waiter. Not somebody in Jackson’s family. Not the preacher. A waiter.

The note was short and to the point: “I can’t. This is a terrible mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

It was the most insulting way to jilt a bride I had ever heard of. No tears from the groom. No consolations from his family. No further explanation except that it was a terrible mistake. I was a terrible mistake.

I snapped out of the memory, returning to my grim present. I stood in chains in Nataniel’s bedroom, my hands filled with his Christian Dior dress, and the thick makeup beginning to roll off me with the tears that were streaming down my face.

“I can’t put on the dress, Nataniel,” I choked out. “It’s impossible.”

His face got red, and I could tell that he was grinding his teeth. He was scary. More monster than human. “You are going to put on the dress. And you are going to put it on, now.” His voice was cold, emotionless.

“I can’t,” I croaked.

Nataniel cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow. He looked at me anew, like I had changed and he was trying to figure me out the new me. “Are you shy?” He asked. “Is that what it is?”

I nodded. I was crying pretty well now, and it was all but impossible to speak.

Nataniel patted my head like a dog and smiled. “No problem. I have a dressing room for the bride,” he said, excitedly.

He pulled me by the chain toward one side of the room. He opened a door and inside was a small walk-in closet. “You can change in here. Total privacy.”

“I can’t put the dress on over the chains,” I said.

“Of course. What was I thinking? I had forgotten that part.”

He took a key out of his front pocket and unlocked my hands. Once they were free, I rubbed my wrists, which were red and bruised.

“You are not going to try anything,” Nataniel warned. “Because then I will not be nice to you. And you want me to be nice to you.”

I stuck three fingers up in the air. “Scout’s honor,” I said.

I was just about to haul of and hit him as hard as I could, when he pushed me into the closet. He pushed me so hard that I lost my balance and landed flat on my face.

“Be quick.” Nataniel gently laid the dress over me, and true to his word, closed the closet door behind him. Total privacy.

A low watt light bulb cast a dim light over the closet. I took a deep breath, enjoying my brief moment out of Nataniel’s clutches. I looked around for something to use against him. I saw just the thing. I hopped up and grabbed a wire hanger off the rod. If it was good enough for Mommie Dearest, I thought, it was good enough for me. I unwound the wire hanger to make a pointed weapon.

“En garde,” I said, practicing my thrust and parry. My feet got caught in the wedding dress on the floor, and I kicked it to the side. I watched it flutter in the air and land in the corner under Nataniel’s suits.