“I saw security cameras outside,” I say.
Casper runs down the hall, probably looking for whatever might give us access to see what’s on them. This is taking too long. How long has it been since they left here?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything, and it makes my fucking blood boil.
Piper hasn’t lived in Minnesota for years—hell, the fact that she’s living at all has me reeling. She’s been here all along. Living in the shadows and waiting to ruin my life.
I scan the room for another sign from Kelly. The sign language, the suitcases. She’s been leaving me clues. She’s so goddamn smart, but there has to be something I’m missing.
My phone dings.
I know that ding.
Ilovethat fucking ding.
Attic door open.
The zip ties bite into my wrists as Piper drags me toward my own fucking house, like the dumbest criminal on earth. I stumble a few times on the way to the door; my head is throbbing. The ride over was spent drifting in and out of consciousness, and I remained slumped over the entire time, even when I was faking sleep. Every so often, I peeked to note what roads we were on. It’s hard to stay awake with alcohol and sedatives swimming in your system, but doing it while keeping your eyes closed makes it nearly impossible.
I had to listen to her inane ramblings every waking second, and one thing I know for sure is that she doesn’t plan to leave me alive. The only thing she hasn’t figured out is what to do with my body. Apparently, my dead weight is too heavy, and she already wasted too much time getting me into the car after knocking me out and dragging me from her house—oh yeah, apparently thatwasn’t a rental. It was her actual fucking house.No wonder it was so close to Logan’s loft.
I’m smart enough to know that secondary locations are bad news, however; as soon as I recognized the familiar roads and realized she was taking me to my house, I did everything in my power to start planning. I know my house better than she does. I was raised here. I’ve got home field advantage.
She shoves me through the back door, and I stumble in with exaggerated clumsiness, just enough to make me look weaker than I am. I pretend to trip over my feet and veer toward the hallway, smashing my shoulder into the switch that lowers the attic door. That fucking sensor I was so pissed about just might save my life. I’m leaving breadcrumbs in hopes Logan is picking them up.
Fuck, we should really bring back landlines.
I lie motionless on my side after falling, my elbows slightly bent as the zip ties dig into my flesh, and feign a loss of consciousness. Piper is too obsessed with herself to just kill me while I’m unconscious. She wants to teach me a lesson. If I can stay “asleep,” it buys Logan more time. Logan is on the east side of town, and I’m on the west—we’re about twenty minutes apart.
“Goddamn it!” She drops to her knees and yells in my face. “Get up!” I pat myself on the back for not flinching at the boom of her voice.
Buying time is my objective, it’s all I have right now.
Just twenty minutes.
“Get up!” she screams again, then slaps me. I react without thinking; my fists, joined at my wrists, shoot out, slamming into her face. The diamond ring on my hand slices through her cheek. It’s poetic, really.
This only pisses her off. She stands up and kicks me in the stomach. The blow to my ribs feels like it rearranges my insides. The painful impact isn’t dulled by the drugs. I fold into thefetal position. She reveals that damn paring knife, and I freeze, keeping my eyes trained on her. She cuts the zip tie around my wrists while I visualize everything in my vicinity that could be used as a weapon. I brace my palms on the ground to push off.
“Don’t move a fucking inch,” she says, pointing the knife at me. “Or I’ll let you bleed out in this fucking hallway.”
I don’t breathe.
“Roll on your stomach. Hands behind your back,” she says, then shoves my face into the floor. “Get up slowly.” I feel the point of the knife in my back, near the bottom rib that’s probably fractured. She presses it deeper, then rips it lengthwise, slicing into my skin. It’s not too deep, but it’s deep enough.
I grit my teeth. “Fuck!” I wait for another slash, but it doesn’t come. I lie still and catch my breath while my face is shoved into the floor.
“I said slowly,” she says.
“I can’t get up if you’re holding my head to the floor,” I growl through clenched teeth. My lips are numb, and my enunciation could use some work.
She retreats enough to give me room to move while keeping the knife pressed to my skin as a reminder. My reflexes aren’t fast enough to snatch something without her burying that blade into my back. Now that she has me awake, I’m going to have to find another way to stall time.
She shoves me into a nearby wooden dining room chair. It belongs to my kitchen table, but I keep it over by the bookcase to use as a step stool. “Sit.”
She zip-ties each of my arms to the rear posts of the chair, just above the seat. I saw a TikTok video once about how to break out of these, something with shoelaces. Unfortunately, my shoes don’t have laces, and I doubt this bitch would just sit there and watch while I saw through my restraints with some half-assed MacGyver trick.
