Only a thin metal island stood between us. The week’s training played on my mind’s recorder. Nicholas’s voice demanded, “Run.” I spun and threw myself into the doorjamb. I hit it with force. Pushing off with both hands, I propelled myself around the edge and into the hallway. The corridor stretched out for miles before me, yet I heard voices beyond the outside door. My strides came quicker. I knew Nicholas waited on the other side of the door to save me. If I could only reach the door. My feet slid on freshly waxed marble. My arms swung and my knees pumped, forcing space between the glow and me. I visualized slamming my palms against the cool metal door frame. Only twenty-five more feet to Nicholas. Blood surged through my veins.
A heavy arm crashed down over my shoulder stopping my escape. Another grabbed me from behind. Forcing me to a stop. Pulling me backward. Momentum urged me on. My body jerked and fell into the unreasonable grip of the monster. I screamed in torment over what would happen next. I knew too much. I’d read all about this thing that hunted at my school. It was worse for me than the others. I knew what would happen to me in ten short days.
His hot hand clamped over my mouth, stopping the screams. I tried to bite him. My teeth were muzzled securely behind my lips. The monster dragged me back toward the kitchen. The grip of rubber soles on marble proved worthless. My ankles turned and slid helplessly against the smooth floor. Pain shot up from my neck into my head from his grip. My chest burned and ached, as I struggled to pull in enough air. A wheeze fought its way through my windpipe. I knew exactly why he wanted me in the kitchen. So he could plunge an enormous fork into my chest. He planned to bring his fantasy home.
Please, no.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins, tightening my muscles, fueling my weakened body into action. This time flight was out of the question. I prepared to fight. Willed myself to be brave the way I’d planned. The time had come to face my fear. It was my moment. I would not die. I would not be held prisoner by yet another terror. My resolution firmed and hardened into stone. As thoughts moved through my mind, my shoulders squared from their slump. My struggling body became rigid against his grip.
I slammed my previously floundering heel into his foot. He stopped moving for a fraction of a second. The large hand over my mouth loosened infinitesimally. Our backwards propulsion hesitated. Not for long, but enough for me to connect my elbow with his gut and my fist with his forehead. I kicked back one last time with gusto, raising a growl from his chest. I smashed his shin with precision and ran. My shoes slid with every step, but I kept going. The sounds that began to erupt from my throat were unlike anything I’d ever heard. I would not be his victim.
The great metal door before me swung wide. Nicholas flew to my side, gun in hand, protective stance in place. He looked me over in the blink of an eye, embraced me for less than a heartbeat, and then shoved me outside. Through the door. Onto the great stairs. Behind me, a thousand voices mixed with music and laughter. Before me, darkness and danger. I stood frozen outside the enormous door. Through the window in the door, I stared as Nicholas approached every interior threshold with his back to the wall. He spun, kicked, and turned in two directions before moving on. It was methodical, calculated, and precise.
He would end him.
I stumbled back to my concessions assignment, rubbing my shoulder and ribs. My skin was ice over stone. His hands had burned impressions on me that would never wash away. A heartbeat before my legs gave way, the folding chair at the refreshment table hit the backs of my legs and I sat. My muscles turned to stew and oozed over the seat. Scents of candied apples and popcorn wafted overhead. People spoke to me, but their words were muted, blurred, and distant. My photograph was stabbed into the box. This man hadn’t simply waited for a girl to wander off tonight. It was not a photograph of any girl. My father’s face was erased. My chest had been skewered. He had waited for me.
I had no idea how much time had passed when the woman who was supposed to help me finally returned. She scolded me for sitting and not getting more cups then turned to enter the building.
“No!” my rough voice choked out. I sounded awful.
She examined me. “Are you ill, dear? You look pale.” Her keen grandmotherly eyes searched my face. Her cold hand brushed my cheek. My skin burned from fear, and her cool touch stung.
I jumped. “No.” On my feet and prepared to take the lady down if she insisted on entering the building, I leered. “Someone went in for me so I wouldn’t have to leave.”
“Oh, well did you explain it as I did? There are so many boxes in there.” She looked at the doors again as if she thought she could help him somehow. No one could help him.
I took a sidestep, placing my body between her and the building. The tears began to fall. I allowed the panic to sway and the fear to swell.
She immediately forgot the cups. “Sit down, dear. Are you sure you’re well? You might need to go home and rest. Let me see.” She picked up my wrist and looked at her watch.
“I was a nurse for thirty-five years. Did you know? I often fill in here when the school nurse is away.” Her thin lips and small blue eyes comforted me. I’d never had a grandmother.
“Oh dear,” she said softly, as if she hadn’t meant me to hear. “Your heart is racing. Are you fevered?” She pressed her hand against my forehead, and her brows pulled together. An enormity of wrinkles gathered across her face.
“Let’s get you into the office so I can take a better look.” She glanced up at the moon as if to point out the obvious. It was dark. She was old.
Again with the building. Did she have a death wish?
“Is everything okay here?” Nicholas’s voice startled me. I turned to wrap my arms around him. He caught them mid-flight before pulling me awkwardly against him.
“What’s this about?” His voice was strange, distant and cold.
The woman appraised us. “She’s not feeling well.”
“I’ll get her home.”
“Mmm.” She considered him again. He was hard to resist even at her age, I suppose. “She’s not well. She’s flushed. Her heart is racing and she might have a fever. I’d prefer to get her inside to the nurse’s station before sending her home.”
“I ran into the dean inside. He sent me out. The building is to remain vacant tonight. No one’s allowed access.”
“But,” she tried to argue, “we’re out of cups. How can I serve punch with no cups?”
His face remained blank and stern. He bent over and lifted a box onto the table beside her. “I was coming from the kitchen when I ran into him.” A painful smile changed his lips but not his eyes. Those were clearly troubled. I followed the gaze to two large holes in the side of the box, where the fork had been.
The woman was stunned and apparently confused.
He took advantage. “Ma’am, if you can handle the refreshments on your own, I’ll take Elle to her parents.” He nodded into the crowd as if my parents roamed together among the guests.
I tried to stay on top of their exchange, but my eyes adhered to the holes.
“Yes, well, that’s fine … ” she stammered. “I do think she needs to be looked at properly.”
We were already walking away into the night before she finished her weak protest.
Inside the SUV, Nicholas apologized. “Elle …” There was fierce emotion behind the words. “I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have been here. I should never have allowed myself to become distracted. I wanted to make your life more normal, with one less sacrifice.”
Did he think I’d feel deprived in some way if I missed the festival?
I looked at him but saw only darkness, the little orange glow, and my father’s face scratched from the photograph. My mind couldn’t formulate anything worth saying, nothing coherent, for that matter.
“You know this, but I need to say it any way. I didn’t find him. He’s either still hiding in there, or he’s gone. I’ve called my team and they’ll search the entire area for anything that might lead us to him.” His voic
e deepened. “We had to wait, to know for sure … ”
“Wait for him to kill me?” The words flew from my mouth. I’d been used like bait for a predator. I didn’t appreciate it.
“Of course not!”
Oh sure. I offended him. He had things backwards. I contemplated getting out of the SUV, but my chances were better with Nicholas. So, I fumed and pouted as long as I could manage.
“We had to maintain surveillance, nothing else. We had nothing solid. Even the times you believed you were followed … nothing concrete arose. Now we can be more proactive. We can assign more resources. We can act now, stop waiting.” He looked at me for something, but I kept my eyes on the road. “Elle, we don’t even know who he is …
“I need to take you in. We can’t go back to the house because he might’ve seen me while I looked for him inside the school. If he did, then he’s surely put two and two together. He’s been watching here. He likely knows we’re together, and if he saw my response protocol, he knows I’m not a student.”
“Take me in where?” Steam must’ve coiled from my ears. I’d never been so angry. “Where are we going?”
“To my local rendezvous. You’ll be questioned. We’ll call in a sketch artist. No one has any idea what the Reaper looks like. You’re the first to see him … ”
“And live.” I was completely disturbed.
“I’m so sorry, Elle. I should’ve been there.” His voice broke. “You did real good, okay? You did great.”
I zoned out for the rest of the trip. I couldn’t deal with any of it. I let myself shut down.
Nicholas let me, too. He glanced my way every few minutes, but he never spoke.
I concentrated on the scenery, the road signs. To busy my mind, I tried to decipher where we were headed. Where was his “local rendezvous”?
Chapter Twenty-One
Two hours later we arrived at a small office complex in suburbia. I had no idea if we’d left Ohio. Every window on the first floor of one building shined in the night. Nicholas swung the SUV onto the walk out front and led me inside. Several people stopped to watch our entrance. Steaming mugs paused at lips. Phone calls disconnected. Talking ceased. Keyboards stilled.
All eyes fixed on me. Nicholas directed me to a conference room where the group of strangers followed and began to question me. They sought every detail of the events leading up to, during, and after the attack. One person took notes. Others asked questions. Someone cleaned under my fingernails and took my vitals as I spoke. Nicholas brought me coffee, but he wasn’t permitted to stay. A tall man in dress pants and Reeboks took him into another room. I assumed he had his own questions to answer.
The night’s details rolled off my tongue. Each event replayed in my mind like a movie clip on a loop. Being attacked by the Reaper definitely gave my current nightmare some healthy competition. When the sketch artist arrived, I failed. I hadn’t seen his face. I’d never heard his voice. Based on my description of the way he’d held me, they guessed his height was roughly six feet, but only roughly. He was thin. I knew from the feel of his arm across my chest. Nicholas’s arms were double the width of his. When I’d kicked his shin, it felt small against my foot. I hoped I’d snapped it.
Of all I’d been able to tell them, the cigarette, which had become his calling card to me, was the biggest lead. They went back to look for a butt. If he’d been smoking when I saw him, and not smoking a minute later when he chased me, then he must have dropped the butt. The answers were in that cigarette. His DNA would be on the tiny, filthy piece of trash. If they could find it and put a name to it, the Reaper would no longer be able to hide. They radioed over to the crew clearing the scene and all were put on the lookout for one priceless piece of evidence.
I answered the same questions a dozen times. So many, in fact, I began to wonder if I answered incorrectly. Reeboks scolded Nicholas for letting me out of his sight and also for moving me in with him. He seemed especially concerned about what my father would say. I bit my cheeks to keep from yelling, “I’m almost eighteen!” On the whole, it was lose-lose for Nicholas. I felt horrible, but I didn’t want to stick up for him. Our relationship needed to stay hidden or he’d be in more trouble. I didn’t want him taken away from me.
When everyone had had their turn questioning me, a woman in a gray suit led me into a dimly lit room with a couch made up like a bed. She told me to make myself comfortable. It was going to be an all-nighter for their team. They agreed I needed to sleep. As if I could. Sleep sounded great to my body, but my mind refused to relent.
I didn’t know what my dreams might bring. I could handle the humdrum, impending-death dream that had plagued me before. What I couldn’t handle was falling helpless to the imagery in my head. Nothing I did pushed it away. During the questioning, I was relieved to spill it all out. After I finished, I shoved it into the mental lockbox that had reached capacity long ago.
I shuffled closer to the couch and sat. I sank into the faux-leather, overstuffed cushions with relief. A glass end table stood beside it adorned with a Tiffany-style lamp and some pads of paper. The blanket and pillow looked like they had come from a hotel, and were definitely new. Giant square-shaped creases from packaging covered the blanket. Pixie would’ve commented on how the cream color looked against the dark brown faux leather. She would’ve said something about the contrast. The word inviting rose in my mind, and my feet curled up beneath me. Torn between the rest I needed and the fear of what would come from sleep, I looked back to the lady who’d brought me.
“Is everything okay?” Genuine concern covered her face. I could only imagine what I looked like to her.
“Is there anywhere to get a good latte around here?” I was half joking, half desperate. I shook for too many reasons. I felt sick.
“Yeah, come on. I’ll take you.” She smiled.
“Really?” I perked up instantly. “Can you do that?”
She shifted her eyes left and then right. “I’m from the school of thought where it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
I liked her already. When I smiled, she motioned for me to come to the doorway. She pointed down the hall to a storage area. I went ahead. Then she made a big play of turning off the light in the room and shutting the door.
“Back in ten,” she announced into the air and ran toward me on her tiptoes, stopping her pumps from clicking away as she went.
We made our way through a mostly empty storage room to a rear door. She held one perfect finger to her lips in warning. The sensible brown polish on her nail matched her well-tailored suit. By her youthful face, I assumed she wanted to look older, be taken seriously. Me, too.
She punched a code into a lighted keypad and swung the door open with one arm, allowing me to pass. I walked out into a small parking area and looked around. The night air chilled me. I had no idea what time it was by then. A swift breeze tousled my hair. I rubbed my arms while I waited for her to catch up. I appreciated the slap the night air gave me.
Several cars slept in ordered rows. The SUV we had arrived in looked like a drunken monkey had parked it. Nicholas must’ve brought it around while I told my story over and over to his colleagues. It occurred to me then that aside from Reeboks, his team was pretty young. Only two of the seven I met looked as if they could be in their forties. They were all younger than my father. Most looked closer to Nicholas’s age than I would’ve thought possible. The lady who had helped me escape looked a lot like half the girls in my senior class. Watching her, though, she was no teenager.
She approached a car. I followed. Her car was small, black, and sleek. It looked fast. I sank inside and strapped in. We’d barely left the business park before the giant green glow of my favorite coffee shop came into view. We pulled up to the drive-thru window, and I ordered my usual with an extra shot of espresso. She got tea. When she paid for the order, I realized I hadn’t brought my purse in from the SUV. I wasn’t even sure I’d brought it from the festival.
“So,” she m
used, having softened me up with coffee. “You’ve been living with Nicholas for a week?”
I choked and coughed for what seemed like ten minutes. “Yeah,” I croaked. I didn’t know what to say, or what she was listening for.
“What’s that like for you, exactly?”
Ah, she wasn’t immune to him either. If they’d worked together long, she probably hated me for the time I got with him—not working. A sense of smugness filled my chest. I tucked my nose into the cup. If she was the catty type, she’d look for a way to separate us.
“I don’t know.” I drew on the poor-girl-in-danger persona. “It’s been overwhelming and a little scary this week. I’m not sure what to think about anything.” I watched her for a response.
She smiled. She was gorgeous.
I couldn’t compete with a woman in his profession who looked like her. They had way more in common than he and I ever would. She was all legs and heels, with a cool car and a dimple like his. Their wedding photos would be adorable. I leaned my head against the glass and wished I’d stayed in the couch room.
“He likes you, you know?” Her voice took on a little singsong quality.
I turned to look at her. “What?”
“He likes you. We can all see it. The others think he’s too attached to be careful. They think it has to do with the family history of the case, but I know him. He likes you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He calls you Elle,” she said, as if that meant something or like it should’ve meant something.
“That’s my name.” What was he supposed to call me?
She swung her cup in the air over the console. “No, you’re not ‘the subject’ or ‘the girl,’ or some code name. He gives code names a lot. Terrible ones, too. He sucks with names.” She shook her head and pulled onto the road back toward the office. “With you, it’s always ‘Elle did this. Elle did that.’”
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