Duct tape… check.
Climbing ropes… check.
Back board for easy transport… check.
The more I see, the more check marks I can add to the list of similarities.
Dear God, this guy is living out‘Taken One Starry Night’, which was the first manuscript I ever wrote and published. The premise of the book was a man obsessed with a woman, one who didn’t pay him any mind but was nice to him when nobody else was. She said hello to him once and he took that to mean they were in a relationship. He became obsessed with her, infiltrating her life by dating her closest friend, even though they didn’t interact personally, he knew what she was doing by pillow talking with her bestie where her guard was down and she thought they were getting to know each other and the people in their lives better. But his entire background was fictional. He lied to her about who he was, what he did, and who his familywas. He collected all the data he needed before he captured her and took her to the woods to start their life together.
“Nobody is ever going to find me,”I internally groan. I didn’t leave any sort of paper trail that’ll be easily traceable.
Unless somebody knows my pen name, they won’t know to look for my business card that I used to book my cabin.Foolish. Stupid.
Now I regret not being more transparent with LoneStar when we chatted about what I do. I could’ve shared what name I use to publish under, but that’s something I don’t typically share which is why I didn’t think of telling him.
Jersey and I created my pseudonym one drunken night, we used my true name for inspiration, I wanted the same initials so we came up with Bristol Darling. It’s kind of a ridiculous surname but since I’d submitted it as my DBA and made an author profile while being under the influence of margaritas, I stuck with it—tequila hits me hard and makes me ditzy.
It’s one of the reasons behind when LoneStar calls me darlin’ my knees grow weak, and more or less, I swoon. He’s playing on my adopted identity and doesn’t even know it.
As the vehicle comes to a sudden stop, so does my heart rate. My breath becomes hostage inside of my lungs as I use my ears to listen to the man get out of the vehicle and round it to the back. I gulp hard, fear has goosebumps erupting on my skin. I begin a slow pattern of inhaling and exhaling so I don’t pass out, I need to know what this shithead is doing to me.
When the back doors swing open, my jaw drops when I see who my captor is. No freaking way! My English professor,Mr. Stratton, from college, is grinning at me, a satisfied gleam blazing in his eyes.
“Hello, Britton. I told you I’d be seeing you soon.”
The shock has my eyes rolling to the back of my head as darkness embraces me, dragging me into an empty abyss where nightmares reside.
A cold, wet washrag is dragged across my face. The fabric is scratchy and I begin trying to wave it away but my hands are restrained. I tug on them harder, but there’s no give. “What?” I ask, blinking my eyes and staring at Mr. Stratton. “Professor?”
“Relax, Britton. You’ve had a rough day, you need to preserve your energy,” he tells me, looking down at me with hearts in his eyes.
“Why am I here? Why did you take me?” I ask the questions in rapid succession.
“Because you’re mine, you always have been. I just need you to see it for yourself,” he coos. My acid reflux rears its ugly head and I begin to gag on it. “Let me get you some milk to help settle your stomach.” He drops the washrag on the bed beside me as he jumps up to his feet and sprints into another room.
Do I tell him I loathe milk? I decide that’s probably a horrid idea, I should just plug my nose and sip it—slowly. If he releases my hands from their shackles, I can make that happen and pretend like everything is kosher. With men like this who are living in a world of their own making, you have to lower yourself to their level and become who they’ve fantasized you are.
I’ve never been a good actress, I’m not a natural born role player, but since I prefer living and breathing, I’m going to give it my best shot. When he comes back into the room, his face no longer has that romantic glow, instead, he looks downright rabid.
“We need to talk,” he orders, almost as if he’s an entirely different person than the man he was as my teacher. When he taught my class, he was jovial, always joking, making learning fun, but this man, the one I’m stuck with, is his evil twin.
My hands, which are bound together at the wrist with duct tape, shake as I reach out and accept the glass he hands me. Licking my lips that feel dehydrated, most likely from whatever drug he injected me with, I ask, “What do we need to talk about, professor?”
“Mara and Clint,” he snaps, his cheeks puffing out. “You didn’t give them the ending they deserved. We’re going to fix that.”
“Fix it how?” I bravely ask.
“By killing off Trevor, of course,” he states, proud of himself for coming up with that plot twist of an ending. “He doesn’t deserve Mara, Britton. You know it, I know it, the world knows it.”
“You want me to write a follow-up book?” I ask, thinking that if that is what he needs to let me go, then that’s what I’ll do.
Hell, I’ll even submit the damn thing to placate him.
“No, we’re going to live it,” he tells me, a deranged smile growing on his face.
“Live it,” I squeak out, thinking this has to be some sort of sick trick before reality sets in and I stammer out,“h-h-how?”
“By killing off that filthy biker and living happily ever after,” he proposes.
