by Fox, Logan
How long have you been playing me, you sick fucking psycho?
* * *
Indi
It’s too bright out to sleep. I’m too miserable to study. I decide on a hot shower, and daydream about French toast and hot coffee for after.
Marigold’s gone. I heard her slam the front door a few minutes ago. It’s the only reason I dared to sneak out of my room for the shower. With clean, wet hair and a body reeking of lavender, I feel a little less wrecked than when I walked in here.
A little, but not a lot.
I pull on my baggy jeans and hoody, and drag my hair into a messy bun, glaring at my reflection.
I look as bad — if not worse — than when I arrived here six days ago.
Six. Days.
Feels like a fucking lifetime.
I slip my mother’s necklace around my neck, lay back on the bed, and close my eyes as I wait for the stone to go warm in my fist.
Marigold said I should figure out what I want out of my life, but you know what? I don’t have a fucking clue despite having all the traditional expectations thrust upon me while I was still part of a full, functional family.
Doctor.
Lawyer.
The opposite of a starving artist.
My parents told me I could be anything I wanted, and I lived life expecting that to be true. So I studied whatever took my interest. History, the sciences, art. Briefly, accounting. Because it didn’t matter — I could be whatever the fuck I wanted.
When my father got sick, I didn’t want to be anything anymore. Didn’t seem to be a point. He was young — not even forty-five yet — and his life was over. All my hopes and dreams were pinned on his recovery. I prayed, I begged, I sacrificed.
It was never enough.
If there was a God, then he refused to listen. No one accepted my offerings.
After Dad died, the only thing I wanted to be was fucked. I drank, I smoked, I snorted.
There was nothing for me to rebel against, but I still found cause to yell at my mother and call her names.
And she just kept on doing what she’d been doing. She was my only constant in those years, and I was too much of a loose cannon to notice. She kept painting and drawing. Her work kept appearing in galleries and art shows.
If I’d bothered for even a second to pay attention, I might have noticed the sterling fucking example she was setting.
But I was too broken, and unashamed of flaunting my grief to the world. I didn’t want to feel anything except pleasure, and I pushed away every bit of pain that came my way.
The police asked me if I knew my mother was on anti-depressants. That she was scheduled to appear at an art gallery for her latest collection the night she was murdered. That, instead, she left and then came home, heavily intoxicated with booze and pills.
I didn’t. How could I? That would have required talking to her. Doing something other than yelling and disobeying her.
It was a blessing, they told me.
Meant she must hardly have felt a thing.
As if they were there when she was bound, gagged, and tortured. Like they had ringside seats to her brutal rape.
But they weren’t.
No one was there that night except her, and the man who took everything from her.
The man who stole my life from me.
* * *
I come to with a start, and stare fuzzily around my room as I lick dry lips and push onto my elbows. Must have dozed off, but I don’t remember even—
Someone’s coming up the stairs.
I’m on my feet in an instant. It’s not Marigold — those footfalls are too heavy, too slow.
Determined.
My eyes dart to the baseball bat beside my bedroom door. I left it there in case Briar ever came back, not sure if I could ever use it against him but wanting to keep my options open, just in case.
But this isn’t Briar. I know it like I know there’s some heavy shit coming my way.
I creep over the carpet, my breath coming in fits and starts as I take hold of the bat and wrap my fingers around the smooth handle.
My heart’s slamming in my chest. My pulse is a soft roar in my ears.
He’s on the landing now. I hear a door creak — the spare bedroom next to mine.
My door is next.
I hoist up the bat, flexing my fingers before wrapping them even tighter. It feels too heavy. My body too light. I want to tip over. I want to drop it.
But I clutch it for dear life instead.
Somehow knowing…this is life or death.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Briar
I don’t have Indi’s number. Why the fuck don’t I have her number?
I call Dylan again, but he still doesn’t pick up. I leave a voice mail, but I have no idea if he’ll ever listen to it after last night. Zak’s phone is off.
All I have is her address.
And so does Marcus.
Because I fucking told it to him. I handed her to him on a silver platter. And why? So he could clean up my mess.
Again.
I couldn’t let her call the police on me. I couldn’t let her show them the shoes I’d left behind. That would incriminate me, and I refuse to be charged as a criminal. I refuse…despite everything I’ve done.
* * *
I emerge from the shadows of Briar Woods breathing too hard, my vision swimming with stars. I ran as fast as I could, but I already know it’s too late. I’m too late. The monster’s been loosed. Wolf has already devoured Red Riding Hood.
But I still have time to cut him open, right? Isn’t that how the story goes? The hunter cuts open the wolf, and Indi and her grandmother come out unharmed?
I sprint over the lawn, scanning Indi’s house for signs of life.
It’s just gone one in the afternoon. There are no lights to indicate whether or not someone’s at home. Oh, how I fucking wish she wasn’t here, but life has never been that cute, that perfect, that wonderful.
The back door is ajar, and that almost makes me stop in my tracks. Luckily — luckily — I have enough momentum to keep me going when my mind flags.
I dart into the kitchen. A white-haired woman spins to face me. I see her resemblance to Indi in the way she scowls at me, as if daring me to take another step.
“Where is she?” I barely manage through a wheeze.
“In her room, studying.” The old woman lifts an imperious eyebrow at me. “And you are?”
I growl in response, and run for the stairs. My mind’s begging me to slow down, to take stock. To stop being such a fucking fool.
But I can’t.
I can sense him.
He was here.
Marcus was here!
“Excuse me!” Indi’s grandmother calls from downstairs. “Indi is grounded. She will not be receiving guests.”
All the doors on the landing are closed. I throw open the second one, the one I escaped through the other night. I instinctively knew back then that it was Indi’s room, even though it could have belonged in a hotel’s guest room, because she’d somehow left her mark on it.
Even now, standing at the threshold, I know this is her space.
And I know it was violated.
A second later, once my eyes have swept the room, they fix on a spot on the floor.
A splash of blood. Incongruous against the beige carpet. Unmistakable.
“Young man, just what the hell do you think—?”
“She’s gone,” I say, turning to the old woman working her way up the stairs. “He’s taken her.”
The woman glares at me, her lips working for a moment. Then she storms closer. “Nonsense. She was in her room when I left…”
The old woman steps into the room. It takes her a moment to spot the blood, and when she does she puts a hand on her chest and steps deliberately back as if it was a snake rearing to bite.
“No,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “No.”
“Call the police,” I say. “Tell them it
’s Marcus Baker. He’s got her.”
I don’t wait for her response — I’m already rushing down the stairs three at a time.
But where to?
My first thought would have been the woods, but I was just there. We would have passed each other. I would have seen him. So where?
Burning lungs force me to a halt a few yards outside the house. I fall to my knees, dragging air through a tattered windpipe as my fingers dig into the grass.
Back to where it all started, of course.
Back to the Baker house.
* * *
Indi
I swing the bat the same moment my door opens. There’s a bark of pain from outside, and the hand that had taken hold of the door handle darts back into the hall.
Shit, too soon!
I rush around the corner, lifting the bat for another blow, but Marcus is too fast for me. He steps forward, grabs the base of the bat, and twists it out of my hands.
It happens so fast, my scream of rage twists into a shriek of pain as my wrists bend the wrong way.
I sag, desperately trying to pull my hands free, but then Marcus is inside my room, and the door’s already slamming shut behind him.
He grabs the front of my shirt, draws back his hand, and slams his fist into my nose.
Heat, pain, blood explodes from my face. I yell, gurgle, fall to the floor. In a second my shirt is soaked.
Marcus grabs me again, hauls me to my feet. I splutter, coating his face in a fine spray of bloody mist.
He doesn’t even notice.
“I have Addy.” His voice is barely legible, not even a little human. Black eyes dig into my head like a migraine.
“Wh-?”
“I’ll kill her.”
I shake my head. “Pl-please—”
“Then walk.” He shoves me so hard, I tumble over my own feet and land on the floor. I grunt, and a splatter of blood lands on the carpet by my hand.
That’s it. One splatter.
That’s the only evidence of this struggle.
And the struggle is over, I know it. I’ve already lost. Already surrendered.
I lift shaking hands. “I’ll come. Just…I’m coming.”
I don’t know what’s more terrifying — his expressionless face, or the way his dark eyes burrow into my skull.
He beckons me with a flick of his fingers, and I take a careful step toward him, hands raised.
Marcus grabs a fistful of my hair and uses that ferocious grip to steer me down the stairs. I bite back curses and tears, clinging desperately to the only thing I have left.
And it’s Briar.
I’m too fucked in the head to understand why, or how, but he’s all I’ve got right now.
* * *
Briar
Marcus’s car isn’t in his driveway, but he could have fetched it from Dylan’s house earlier today, drove it through to Indi’s house. More than enough time, what with me disappearing to the cemetery.
I’ve always been one step behind you, haven’t I, bro?
I don’t know why I believe I’ll find answers at his house, but honest to God, I don’t have anywhere else to go. I mean, where the hell do you take someone you’ve just fucking kidnapped?
I climb through Marcus’s window and take a second to scan the room.
Has he always been this messy, or does his cleaning lady not work weekends? The bed’s unmade, sheets twisted like he hosted a wrestling match on them. There are empty bottles of beer, coke and rum everywhere. Cigarettes and joint roaches clog up the air with stale fumes.
Was his father in here? Did he rough up Marcus enough to have caused this mess? Or did Marcus bring Indi back here—?
I cut off that last thought with ruthlessness and squeeze my eyes shut as I take a moment to gather myself.
Must have been Marcus’s father. Shit’s been moved around, tossed to the floor, but nothing’s broken.
My gaze lands on the laptop sticking out of Marcus’s backpack. Was he going to study and decided against it, or was he in too much of a hurry to push it down all the way?
I’m all too aware of how much time is slipping past while I stand here motionless.
If Marcus used his car, then his GPS might be logged to an online app like my father’s Merc. Fuck knows how that shit works — Dad mentioned it in passing during one of his visits a few months ago, and it sounded like pretty cool technology. Said he would know exactly where they were if anyone ever stole his car.
I grab the laptop and flip it open. Setting it down on the desk, I stare at the empty password field under a photo of Marcus smirking into the camera wearing sunglasses, a joint sticking out of his mouth.
Fuck.
I try a few random phrases, each more desperate than the last.
password
Pasword123
Marcus
Marcus123
I hesitate, then type:
Briar
Jessica
Nothing. My eyes slide to the default avatar of the guest profile next to Marcus’s. I’m not exactly a computer boffin, but I know you can’t access stuff on one profile from another, not unless you’re the admin. Browser history, all that shit is profile dependent. It would be absolutely useless—
My fingers go hunting for a packet of smokes, an absent gesture as my mind grinds its gears.
But I don’t touch a box of cigarettes. My fingers brush against the flash drive in my pocket.
Maybe not entirely useless.
I take out the drive, and swallow hard when it brings back a too-vivid memory of what Marcus had drawn on that piece of paper. He’s no artist, but it was blatant how much time he’d spent on the sketch. The faint lines where he’d erased his pencil marks again and again to make sure every curve was just right.
I drum my fingers on the table as I wait for the computer to log me in and pick up the flash drive plugged into its USB port.
Squeezing my thumb and forefinger against my eyes, I do my best to rid myself of that image, but it’s impossible.
Obviously, he lied to me. But I could never have imagined the extent of his depravity.
He killed the cat.
I let out a soft, bitter laugh, and open the flash drive’s folder. Videos. Fourteen videos, all different file sizes. Porn, from the titles.
kayceegang.mp4
Castingcouch_HD.mp4
Bendingbecky.mp4
I scan the list, and my eyes immediately fix on the seventh, eighth, and ninth one.
Jess.mov
Jess (1).mov
Jess (5).mp4
Jess (6).mp4
I open the first one, chewing on a fingernail as I wait for it to load. It’s the shortest one, so it doesn’t take long.
A blur of yellow.
The camera focuses reluctantly.
“What are you doing?”
My heart clenches at the sound of Jessica’s voice. Marcus laughs and suddenly the camera’s on him. “What’s up?” he says, giving a peace sign.
I remember this video. I inhale deep as Marcus focuses the camera back on Jessica. He was using his phone — a new one he’d just bought with a something ridiculous megapixel camera he couldn’t stop talking about.
Jessica’s wearing a bikini. I see myself in the background playing volleyball with a few guys in our team. This video is more than a year old, but the time stamp was from a few months ago.
And then I see why.
It’s been edited.
The original video — the one Marcus had posted all over social media to show off his video skills — had been of him panning the beach, giving Jessica a fake interview about UV indexes and where she bought her designer bikini from, and then some macro shots of sand crystals and a lone starfish.
Only the interview was left.
When I’d watched the video on my phone’s Facebook app, I hadn’t realized just how close Marcus had been sitting to Jessica.
How uncomfortable she looked.
How tiny her fucking b
ikini was.
But I guess Marcus did, because he kept the video.
Sickened, I close the window and open the second video.
Sickened, but still curious as fuck.
Curious, but hoping against all hope this will reveal something I can use to find Indi.
I don’t recognize the second video, but it’s another faux interview with Jessica. She wanted to become an actress, so she was never shy of the camera. She’s absolutely trashed in this video. She’s in a bar, but it’s one I don’t recognize. Above the drone of conversation, music, and laughter, I hear another familiar voice.
Addy sounds as if she’s having a conversation with someone else off-camera.
Jessica, however, is pouting and batting her eyes to the camera, explaining how easy it was for her to get cast for the latest Spielberg movie.
But it was obvious Marcus was less interested in what she had to say than in her mouth, her tits, and her legs judging from the close-ups and where he was pointing the camera.
Was this one of those nights I had to drive to the middle of nowhere to pick her up when Addy disappeared on her or took too many drugs to remember she was there with a friend?
I end that video prematurely, and consider for a long moment if I even want to watch the next. I don’t know if I can bear watching another leering pseudo-interview.
Instead, I spend a few minutes hunting around in the computer’s file system, trying to gain access to anything that might have some hidden meaning.
I find nothing.
So I light myself a cigarette and sit back in Marcus’s desk chair, staring out the window as I smoke.
I shift, and the folded up paper in my pocket rustles.
It’s with morbid fascination that I take it out, unfold it, and smooth it open on Marcus’s metal study desk.
I carry on smoking my cigarette as I do my best to look past the actual image and find any clues it might hold. A landmark, maybe, or a significant object. But there are precious few significant objects. Two, in fact. My eyes keep going back the necklace. That tear-drop cut stone. I know it to be encircled in diamonds, but Marcus’s skill with a pencil doesn’t do it justice. He almost tore through the paper how he colored that stone near-black.