Page 142 of Pretty Nightmare

This is how I talk.

No… I’ve known you, quite intimately, for nearly ten years now. And you have never flashed an American accent at me.

You don’t know me at all, Ana Avery.

…

What’s wrong?

You’re… sitting up.

So?

I just watched you push a whole lot of diazepam into your arm. You should be feeling a little sleepy right now. Donovan! Donovan! I think you should sit down before you fall! Don’t come any closer! Donovan!

I’m not Donovan. I’m Carter. So nice to finally meet you, Ms. Avery. But I’m gonna have to cut this short now. The game has begun.

Maggie screams in front of me.

And at the same time, Ana screams in my memory as Carter’s hands—my hands—wrap around her throat until she goes limp and quiet.

He killed her.

I. Killed her.

“Maggie!” I reach for her but she scrambles away from me. She’s clearly still drugged because she’s trying to get to her feet and can’t.

“Stay away!” she yells. “You stay away from me or my daddies will kill you! Do you hear me? Kill you!”

She’s screaming these words at me. They echo in my head. And then I hear myself say, “Maggie, if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’m gonna cut off your tongue just like I did to those kids on Snake Island. And then I’ll use it as bait for the gators. Little snack before they eat you.”

She screams again.

I grab my pistol from the back of my pants and then—

I stop.

Look at the gun. Then Maggie. “What the fuck is happening?”

“You know what’s happening,” Carter says.

Only it’s not Carter. Or is it?

I don’t know anymore.

His words feel like they’re coming out of my mouth.

Maggie kicks at me just as I hear people thundering through the underbrush.

I grab her leg, pull her towards me, and then aim my gun at her head—just as Adam, McKay, Indie and… Nathan?—come rushing into the little clearing.

“Let her go!” Adam growls. “Let her go, Donovan.”

I look down at Maggie again. And I’m about to do what Adam asks. I don’t even know why I’m holding her or why I’m pointing the gun at her head.

But when I open my mouth, it’s Carter who speaks. “I’m not Donovan.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - McKAY