Page 17 of Ripple Effect: Ep. 1

A spasm of panic rattles my spine and I spin like a worm caught on a hook, looking for my captor. Above my head, or rather below me, lies a pool of blood. My hands have gone numb, trussed over my head and I perform a frantic mental check that all parts are intact.

Arms. Fingers. Clothes.

Aside from being bound and tied up, nothing on me warrants the blood below me.

A whimper draws my attention behind me, forcing me to twist against my binds. Lying on the floor, the man who brought me to this place writhes on his back, the source of the blood confirmed as it spills from his disemboweled stomach.

Oh God. Oh God. I’ve never seen the bowels, but his are scattered over a gaping wound, draped across his body.

Vomit spews from my mouth, splashing against my forehead and I strain my neck to keep my head upright, trying to keep it from seeping into my nose. I cough the last bits and spit.

“Sorry,” a deep voice, gnarly and throaty, like the raspy growl of an old muscle car, stiffens my spine and I roll my head to search where it comes from. “I’d hoped to be done with all this before you woke.”

I’m still trying to find him when something warm brushes the back of my hand and I let out a scream.

“Let me just finish with him and we’ll move on to you.” I only catch the back of his head as he strides past me, coming to a stand over the man lying on the floor, who, judging his lack of movement, is already dead. The hair on my skin prickles as I catch site of his height, a hulking shadow of a man, who undoubtedly hoisted me up onto the rafters with little effort.

A sizzle crackles while he holds a medium-sized white plastic container above the man, pouring some kind of liquid over him.

“Police will find him, but hopefully this will eliminate any trace evidence. I’ve cleaned up your blood as well. No one will ever know you were here.”

He says this casually, as if I’m supposed to feel at ease that he’s about to annihilate my existence from the earth. He’s a fucking psychopath. Of all the many ways to die, this will have been the most horrific—the very thing nightmares are made of.

A zap of terror tickles my chest, begging me to break into a sob. The throb in my head intensifies while my body urges me to fall under, shut down and hide out in the black nothingness.

Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out, my mind battles back in a clash of fight over flight.

He steps aside, revealing the man’s remains, actively discoloring and melting away with what must’ve been acid. Ice branches inside my chest, crystalizing my lungs. My heart thumps an unnatural rhythm against my ribs, and my rapid breaths leave me one second away from hyperventilating.

Oh God. Charlie. Layla.

I can see the headlines. Young woman found in an abandoned factory in a macabre scene of torture, her body burned with acid. I want to cry but my body is failing me, falling into shock.

What have I done?

The stranger turns to face me, his features cloaked by the surrounding darkness, and I struggle to see one single detail. One distinct trait about him, because God knows, if by some miracle, I make it out of here alive, I’ll do the world a favor by making sure this sadistic asshole doesn’t kill another human being.

“Who … are …” The stiffness of my jaw clips my words and the tremble wracking my body makes it difficult to spit the question out. “You?”

“Why did you look back at me? Before getting into the car with him?” He nods toward the mutilated remains of the man who brought me here.

Oh my God. The guy in the black car. He must’ve been stalking me. Another round of bile shoots up my throat, but I swallow it back.

“Did you think I’d be the safer bet?” Shadows hide most of his form, but his frame is unmistakably big. Imposing. His shoulders are broad, and he holds himself with unflinching confidence.

He’s killed before. My guess? Many times.

“I will do … whatever you want. Please … don’t burn me.” My voice cracks on the last word, and at a flash of Charlie whining for me beside the fountain, completely oblivious to the pain I’m about to suffer, I gulp back the urge to cry.

“Answer my question.” His voice drags me back to my sickening circumstances. “You wanted to get into the car with me. You would have, yes?”

“Yes.” It’s the frightening truth.

“What a precarious chain of events. And yet, the outcome isn’t much different.”

“Would you have brought me here? Done the same?”

He steps into the light and the sight of him sends a jolt to every muscle in my body. It’s him. Him. The man I watched. Fantasized about. His towering height. The black leather jacket. The fullness of his form and ridges of muscle peeking from the black button down beneath that profess he’s strong enough to snap me in half. The perfect trim of his beard that puts him somewhere around thirty—all observations I’ve studied for months, and I can’t help the roving of my gaze, in search of new features, like the scar across his cheek. A long stretch of white over his Adam’s apple tells me he’s had his throat slit before, and the thickness of his hands seems perfect for throttling necks.