Page 43 of Treasured By Them
“I’m so embarrassed,” I choke out. “I, um, had a crush.”
His dark blue eyes narrow. That false smile is still in place. “No worries. It’s in the past, right?”
“Uh yeah. Of course.”
“Of course.” He laughs.
His laughter sounds off, but is it my imagination? A part of me hopes I’m just being paranoid, but a bigger part knows this whole exchange is bad news. I mentioned him being at camp with me. I shouldn’t have.
He goes on, “I had a crush on my sixth-grade teacher. Mrs. Bryant. Anyway, it’s getting late. We should get going.”
“I just need to check in with Edmund.”
When I reach for my phone, though, he darts out his hand and grabs it first.
My lungs seize. “I need to text Edmund?—”
“We ought to just go now.” He flips the phone over and over in his hand. “I wouldn’t want you to get so distracted that we lose our chance.”
“Sure! But if I don’t check in, Edmund and Troy will be up here, breaking the door down.” I laugh, high-pitched and shrill. “Also, Zora should be back soon. Maybe we should stick around and make dinner? She’ll probably be hungry when she gets here.”
“Don’t play games with me. Don’t be like her.”
He doesn’t mean Zora.
He means Britney.
“Malcolm…” I trail off. I don’t know what to say. “You’re scaring me a little. Can I have my phone, please?”
“Tell me.” He continues flipping my phone over in his hand. “What do you remember from camp?”
“Nothing. I was looking over my old journals the other day, completely forgot about it. You were a counselor there?”
“Supervisor of the counselors.” He stares intently at my face. “Right. We should text your fiancé. We don’t want him to worry. I’ll type it out for you. Unlock it for me.”
I shake my head. “That’s—that’s super weird. I can type out my own message.”
Before I’ve even finished talking, he gets behind me and wrenches my arm. He bends my fingers back.
I gasp as pain shoots up my forearm, hot and sharp. With my free hand, I reach back, trying to hit him, scratch him, anything. But he presses me over the chair, bending me in half and using his weight to hold me in place.
I open my mouth to scream.
“Scream, and I’ll kill you right here on this deck and leave your body for your family to find.”
“No,” I whisper. Tears fill my eyes—at the pain, at the thought of my mom or dad finding me here, dead.
“Unlock your phone, Danica.” Malcolm holds my phone up with his free hand.
“No.”
He bends my fingers further. “This will be so much worse for you if you disobey. Not only will your fingers break, but you will die, and I will be sure to find this beloved fiancé of yours and kill him, too.”
Good luck to him—he wouldn’t know what he got into if he went after Edmund. He would be unconscious before he even breathed in Edmund’s direction. Troy would make sure of it.
As I think of Edmund, a plan forms in my mind. I unlock the phone. It’s hard to see the keypad when my eyes are blurry with tears.
He takes the phone back and locks my other arm behind me, keeping me bent. His weight presses against me, hard and suffocating. An image flashes in my head—a man in a red shirt straddling Britney’s waist.
