Page 82 of Stalker

I’d never been this forward in my life. Not once.

Maybe that had always been my problem.

As I glanced out the windshield, I was reminded I’d allowed myself to be captured by a man considered highly dangerous.

“New Buffalo. A small town,” I said in passing. Since he’d returned to the road, he’d been quiet.

Deathly quiet.

As if planning something that I couldn’t learn the details of.

He didn’t respond, instead staring at the road.

“Who are you really, Wilder?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a man who doesn’t know who he wants to be when he grows up.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Maybe you’re right about that, Lady Butterfly. Or perhaps sometimes we simply need to be something no one else expects us to be. But make no mistake, your first instincts about me were correct.”

“What were they?”

“That I’m a terrible person, a dangerous man. At least that’s what so many have said.” He seemed amused.

“Maybe so, but there’s something else inside of you.”

“What’s that?”

I thought about my answer and realized I was right. “You want to be a hero. In fact, you need to be one to soothe the guilt that’s been with you for years.”

When he took a deep breath, turning his head toward me, I knew I was right. He’d felt all alone but had latched onto someone along the way.

And that someone had been taken from him.

He was acting on his sadness and need for vengeance over and over again.

I should feel even more terrified, but it helped me understand him.

And crave him even more than before.

“Heroes don’t really exist, Cassandra. They only provide what everyone else wants for the moment. They profess they’ll die to protect someone but, in the end, most fail. They simply don’t have the backbone to accept death. I’ve seen it time and time again.”

“Why do you believe that?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, to me it does.”

“You’re longing to find out more about me, not about those who pretend to be the knights in shining armor so many wish existed. Be careful in your insistence on investigation so that you won’t be disappointed. Or incensed. Or repulsed. I’m not who you think I am,” he stated as if it was some admittance of a wrongdoing.

“I know what you are, a man trying to find freedom and family because it was taken from you and your brothers.”

He instantly bristled.

“I know you and your brothers were in foster care, Wilder. That’s no secret. You also know that I was since every brilliant leader learns all they can about someone who could be considered their enemy. I understand the life and the loneliness even when someone insisted they cared about you. At least I was lucky in that a lovely family really did care. I wonder if that was the same for you.”

I noticed his grip on the steering wheel was tighter than before. I also sensed he had no intention of sharing any horror stories with me. Of course, I couldn’t blame him.

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