Page 55 of Devil Inside: Green

I march through the common on a mission. Someone is about to die, and depending on the condition of Danni when I find her, that’s how we determine who.

As I slam through the front door, I’m vaguely aware of Vlad calling my name again. And when I reach my bike, starting the engine, I hear him say, “Reap, follow him.”

He can follow me.

But this ends today.

19

DANNI

Cold, cold water hits my face, drenching me. After the shock, I open my eyes, but no one is in front of me. I was right about one thing. Whoever took me has me in a camper van. It’s been modified. Gray soundproofing foam lines the walls and ceilings and if I move my body just right, I see it on the floor too. The bucket of cold water was set on a plank that when I moved, set off a spring that tipped the water onto me just like in that Mouse Trap game. I’m living a real-life version of a child’s game. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

How about not panic? Panicked people die. I don’t want to die. Not today.

Okay, Danni, assess the situation.I take a breath. My hands have been bound together with a cord that he probably got at a Lowes or Home Depot-type of store. The other end of the cord has been looped through a large pad hook secured to the ceiling above me.

I follow the line of the cord and it appears to be hooked up to a basic pulley system. He hasn’t bound my feet, which means he plans to have me move around.

My whole body begins to shake violently when I look down at the mattress I’m on and he’s laid me in the middle of a huge, rust-colored stain. Oh my god, I could vomit. This is where he killed them. Probably all of them. My mother’s blood is mixed in with this stain.

The knots keeping me bound look professional—not your everyday, layman’s knot.Think, Danni, think…I’ve watched so many videos on these kinds of things since my mom was killed. Her wrists had been bound and the cord abraded her skin, leaving red patches and open sores. I’d read book after book to find out what caused those.

And the best I could come up with then was the knots tightened the more a person struggled. It looks to be the case here. Because how does a woman who’s been kidnapped off the street not struggle to get away? It goes against every instinct. Mom would’ve struggled to try to survive, to try to get back to me and Misty, and that killed her.

You’re getting riled up again, Danni. Breathe slow. Your fear will kill you.I raise my wrists to my mouth to begin chewing on the knot. This man has intelligence. He’d have to in order to not only think up this trap but execute it so successfully. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. When I was a little girl, we had a cat named Princess. Well, one time, a field mouse got into the house. Princess stalked it and pounced. I thought she’d kill it right away, but Princess kept one paw on the mouse’s tail so it couldn’t run, and then with the other paw, she’d bat the mouse around a few times, disorientating it. Then she’d lift her paw to let the mouse run and pounce again, repeating everything several times until the mouse simply gave up andthenshe killed it.Wow. What a revelation. I’m the mouse caught in his mousetrap today. One in a way too long line of victims. Every other woman he captured played this game.

If I want to live, I can’t play.

Slowly, the knot starts to loosen. He may or may not have cameras set up in here watching me so I have to look scared and frustrated. Scared, I’ve got down. Frustration is another emotion that will get me killed faster, though.

I loosen the knot enough to begin to slide it up a little. If he pulls on the pulley where the knot rests, it will naturally ride up, but the loop around my wrist will get trapped by the thicker meaty part of my palm.

While I continue trying to undo the knot, I actually start inching the cord up from around my wrists and to the thickest part of my hand. Even if he tightens the binding, with any luck, I should still be able to get them off.

For good measure, I cry out, “Come on—please. Please…” That sounds like panic. It feels a little like panic, too. But no. I won’t go down like this. I can’t. There’s still too much I want from this life. To ride on the back of a bike like a proper biker’s old lady. To travel to Europe at least once. To see my baby sister fall in love. To maybe even have a child of my own someday.

Green needs me. Misty needs me.

Anticipating when he’ll return is the worst part. He has something planned, I know it. What I want to know is how he heard my conversation with Jack. It has to be someone in or around Bentley. A serial killer in their own backyard and they didn’t know it. But nothing else makes sense. Three women associated with the Horde were kidnapped. Two were killed. One almost lost her life. And now me.

This is no coincidence.

As I continue to try to free my hands from the bindings the door opens and for a brief second, relief washes over me until I realize this man is not here to save me.

He’s here to kill me.

“No—”I whisper.

I take in everything. The height. The hair. The heart-shaped mole on his arm. He’s wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses and a bandana tied around his nose and mouth, but I don’t think he means to conceal his face from me. I think it has to do with whatever he was doing before he came back in here. If he didn’t want anyone else to identify him, that must mean we aren’t too far from civilization, right?

“I gave you time to make amends with God. Now you must be punished.” I think I’ve heard the voice before, but when he draws out a large hunting knife from his belt and strikes out, my fear takes over. Fear and pain as he slashes me across my abdomen, and I scream. He didn’t go deep. He’s just like Princess. He’s going to keep this going for a while, but it still hurts. Blood wells up along the cut, staining my ruined blouse.

“Whores are a disease for men. We need to cleanse you from the Earth.” He strikes out, catching my right shoulder this time, and it takes everything in me not to cry out again. He gets off on inflicting pain. I can’t give him that. “What? Nothing to say now?” he asks, striking out a third time to run the blade across my thigh. “It’s too late for you anyway. Only pure, chaste, submissive women get to live. He keeps choosing wrong.” He strikes again, catching my side. “How many times can I help him? He may need to be cleansed as well. Whores. Why does he choose the whores?”

He carries so much hatred in his words. His arm muscle clenches. It’s a tell. He’s about to strike again. But he’s not here with me. I can see it when I look in his eyes. He’s somewhere far off. I think that’s why he needs the screams—they bring him back to the here and now.

Tugging hard on the bindings, I’m ready for this swing. The cord scrapes over my hands as I free them and I duck, kicking out with everything in me.

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