I threw my whole body at him in a desperate shove, but he caught me by the hair again and slammed me into the wall. Plaster cracked. My blood sprayed like splattered paint.
“Stop fighting me!” he roared, spittle and blood flying. His face was a mask—his own nose pouring blood, my scratches running like red rivers down his cheeks, eyes wild and fever-glassy.
“You’ll have to fucking kill me!” I screamed.
He punched me again—lower this time, right over the ribs he’d already cracked. My vision went white-hot and distant, like I was watching myself from underwater.
“You’re ruining everything!” he screamed, the words vibrating my already aching head.
He fumbled in his jacket with a trembling hand and pulled out duct tape—the same silver industrial roll from before. My stomach dropped.
“No,” I sobbed, scrambling away from him. He yanked me back by my hair again, trapping me against his body. “No! Let me go!”
I tried to scream more, but the tape hit my mouth. He wrapped it once. Twice. A third time, tighter, tangling in my hair, yanking strands out at the roots.
Any noise I made became a muffled, shaking sob.
He wrenched my arms behind me, forcing them so high up my back my shoulders screamed. He wrapped the tape round and round until my fingers went numb.
I kicked backward, heel connecting with his shin hard enough to make him grunt, but he slammed me to the floor. The air punched out of me. A chair toppled, clattering acrossthe hardwood. One of Maggie’s framed photos shattered, glass skittering under my knees.
Still, I fought—kicking, twisting, rolling, trying to throw my weight, anything.
“Stop!” He punched my ribs again. Pain lanced through me, white and blinding. My vision swam. “Everything would be easier if you’d juststop!”
He dragged me across the floor, my heels digging into the wood, trying to catch on to anything. My blood smeared with each pull—on the rug, the wall, the overturned chair legs.
“I had it all planned,” he ranted breathlessly, like a sermon, like a prophecy. “The house. The ceremony. Our vows. Our life together. But you”—he jerked my body so hard my head snapped back—“you had to run. You had to make me hunt you down and find you.”
“But you’ve upset me now, Stevie. I don’t want to hurt you, but you’ve left me no choice. When you do something bad, you have to be punished.”
“Fuck you!” The words came out muffled from the duct tape.
He lunged for me then, but I bucked and twisted again, even as my chest screamed and my arms burned. My breath came in shallow, panicked bursts against the suffocating tape.
I fought like a feral thing.
But he was stronger.
And the room was coming apart around us.
We were at the door now. I made one last desperate attempt, throwing my weight backward, but he was stronger than his thin frame suggested, or maybe obsession gave him strength. He hauled me across the yard, my bare feet scraping on gravel, tearing skin.
His car was parked behind the barn—a dark sedan, anonymous, forgettable. The trunk was already open, waiting.
"Just a little ride," he said, almost gentle now. "Then we'll be together forever. Like we're meant to be."
He shoved me in, and I hit my head on something hard—a tire iron, maybe. The world sparked and swam. The last thing I saw was his face, smiling down at me with terrible affection.
"Don't worry, Stevie. I'll take good care of you. Forever and ever."
The trunk slammed, and the world went black.
Chapter 18
Liam
The house reeked of fear and desperation—that particular cocktail of terror that saturated walls when a child went missing. I'd been in too many houses like this, seen too many destroyed parents, but it never got easier.
