He looked at me like he knew all my thoughts, but his attention moved to Nessie. “Do you want to play a game, Vanessa?” he asked.
Her head spun, eyes flying to the sadistic look on his face.
She jumped from her chair; her small blue checkeredpajamas whizzed past me like an illusion.
I dared to peer back, searching to see her in the long hallway from my chair, but it was near impossible. My legs lifted me, eager to have me darting down there after her.
I couldn’t see Nessie at all as she slipped out the door; I could only hear the sound of her tiny feet carrying her farther away with each passing second—the only evidence of her on the grounds before it faded to nothing.
I turned back to see Hell had silently moved, but luckily, he was nowhere near me. He stood by the sink, a glass of water from the table clutched in his hand. The tips of his fingers, white, where he was holding the glass so tightly.
“You care about her. Like you do the boys. Well, maybe not Woodrow, maybe that’s different? More?”
He was questioning me, grilling me to see if my feelings were real.
I tucked my nerves under the table with my chair and nodded.
“That’s very nice of you. Tell me, are you going to run?”
“Should I?”
“You decide.” He took a step in my direction. His toes peeped beneath the sweats dragging on the tiles as he moved towards me.
I backed away.
“One, two. . . time to decide, Jolie.”
I stepped back another step.
“Three. . . four.”
Was he counting to ten? Who knew!I didn’t wait to find out.
Before he called five, I bolted. My fast legs charged me through the hallway that felt longer than ever; felt too narrow for a house this size. I didn’t stop to change my shoes, and my oversized, floppy slippers proved to be a hindrance.
Yanking open the door, taking a second too long to release the glass one from its catch, I heard him voice another number. . .
“Eight.”
I hadn’t heard six or seven over the pounding of my racing heart.
Stepping outside, wasting no more time, I kicked the giant pink slippers from my feet.
I jumped the steps, quickly scanning the distance for Nessie, but there was no small blot in my vision that could have possibly been her. And she wouldn’t have been anywhere near the trees yet.
She’d found a place to hide—somewhere small and safe—too small for Woodrow’s vicious alter ego, and too small for me.
I had to find my own. And I had to do it quickly.
I rushed around the house, my fingers brushing the white wooden panels as I moved. Coming to the back door, I could see through its glass that Hell was no longer in the kitchen. I tried the handle, but it didn’t open—still locked from the night before.
A sound reverberated loudly—the glass door crashing into the wooden panels for the third time, and it placed my rapidly beating heart into my mouth.
My jaw dropped, fear forcing its way through my open mouth.
I heard the hate spit from Hell’s mouth as he tripped over one of the slippers I’d left behind.
With no time to spare, I looked ahead to the window—still open a small crack; still calling out with the scent of bad food.
