Page 28 of Somebody's Watching Me
Falling on top of her, Michael ducked out of range. “Your boy is faster than I expected.” Taking her face in his hands, he hissed when another shot rang out. “That means I have to leave you behind.”
Before she knew what was happening, Michael’s mouth seized hers. Jamison tried to fight him off, but all she succeeded in doing was dimming her senses more. The injection from Denise was free flowingthrough her system now, and using the little energy left meant she wouldn’t stay awake much longer.
The dull ache of teeth biting into her bottom lip pushed through the numbness, and when the coppery taste of blood hit her tongue, she almost vomited.
Michael ended the kiss. “Now we’re even.” He grinned wildly, her blood staining his lips. “I’ll be seeing you, Jamison Fairweather.”
In the next blink, he was gone, dragging a thoroughly terrorized Bruce with him until they disappeared in the darkness of the western shore.
All alone, Jamison grasped the tree at her back, the bark cutting into her palms as she tried to rise. Denise lay still in the center of the trail, her eyes and mouth open. Blood oozed from the shredded remains of her neck, pumping like a heartbeat as it flowed over the pine straw and dirt.
Stay down!
The child’s voice mixed with another. The new one held more of a growl, the power behind it capable of conjuring nightmares. Jamison covered her ears as the pair chanted together. Over and over, they repeated the warning.
Stay down!
More joined, a chorus of pleas and shouts.
Jamison
Get down.
Jamison, listen.
He can’t see that it’s you!
There were so many. The voices. They were coming from everywhere. The sky. The earth. The wind circling the trees. All in different variations and tones.
Unsteady on her feet, she swayed, searching to find the source. “Leave me alone!”
Girl, do as you’re told for once.
Tiny pinpricks of awareness skated across her skin. That voice she knew.
“I’m scared, Ty.” Disoriented and afraid, Jamison hit the ground, and curled into a ball as the world faded. “They drugged me, and I can’t stay awake.”
Ty didn’t answer.
But someone else did.
Don’t be scared, princess. Mama’s here.
Chapter 8
1988
The sharp crack of billiard balls broke through the obnoxious honky tonk music for a split second, and Benjamin Fairweather’s mouth gaped open as he watched the woman at the opposite end of the pool table easily blow through his trap.
“Five in the corner pocket.”
As if commanded, the ball disappeared into the hole, and Laura Jean straightened with a grin. “Did you want to wait for Albie to get back from the bathroom, or should we keep playing?”
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
Narrowing his eyes, Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. When Albie started to lose and suddenly needed to use the restroom, he should have known something was up.
“I didn’t know you played pool.”
