Page 130 of Creep

Would he kill me too?

He had to be angry that I ran away. So what was the imaginary line I could cross for him to treat me the same way he had treated those men—mercilessly and as disposable?

“You’re thinking too hard about this,” Mael said.

I couldn’t help it when I let out a shaky exhale. “What do you… What do you mean?”

“You’re scared of me.”

I let out a humorless laugh. Scared of him was an understatement. I was scared of a lot of things—spiders, being trapped in a small space with no way to get out, people driving too close to me, but with Mael?

I was terrified.

“And you think it’s unreasonable for me to be scared of you?” I asked, trying to keep the incredulousness from my voice.

“Of course,” he answered casually as if we were simply discussing what we would eat for dinner tomorrow. “You are the one person in this entire godforsaken world who would never have to worry about me hurting you.”

I didn’t answer him.

Was he being truthful? And why should I believe him?

I closed my eyes, but that only brought on the image of him killing those men. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t eradicate it from my mind.

“You have already hurt me,” I whispered, unsure if he heard me or not. He had hurt me. Maybe not physically, but there were other ways to hurt someone you claimed to care about.

He lied, stalked, and terrified me for months, and he made me fall for him when it had been nothing more than a lie.

And somehow, those things shouldn’t matter when I had just witnessed him killing two men in cold blood, but they mattered, and I didn’t know how to change that.

I felt the bed shift when he moved. Then I felt his lips on my cheek. I pressed myself further into the mattress, as if I pressed hard enough, I might be able to sink inside and disappear from this room.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he whispered back.

I didn’t say anything to that. There was nothing to say.

He lay back down on his side of the bed, leaving me feeling cold and empty.

* * *

The next threedays were much of the same. I hid out in this room, and Mael brought me my meals three times during the day. And at night, he would come and sleep next to me. It didn’t matter if I locked the door or placed something against it. He always managed to find a way inside. I gave up trying to prevent him from coming to me at night on the third time it happened.

If I didn’t know that it was me trying to keep him away, it would have looked like I was being held captive in the room, and Mael was my warden.

I shook my head.

That thought just hit a little too close to home, didn’t it?

But five days later, I was getting sick of looking at the four walls of the room. The time seemed to blend together, creating one big blob of confusion.

So much so that I thought I might go crazy.

I pulled at my hair.

I might be going crazy.

It was early in the morning, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. It wasn’t like I had slept all that well last night, and now there was something restless with my body that I couldn’t shake.

With a frustrated groan, I threw the blanket off and headed to the closet. I pulled on a big sweater and some sweats, along with my boots, before I made my way to the door.

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