Page 49 of Make Me Hunt
“The family had adopted another girl a few years back—Liz. We became best friends pretty quickly, even though she was a couple of years older than me—already in her last year of high school. I guess what tied us together was that she was the only person who truly knew what I was going through. Because she’d been in my place. She even helped me make a few friends in high school. It was the first time kids weren’t laughing at me. The first time I had decent clothes. The first time I went to the mall after classes, hanging out with kids my own age.” She swallows, her voice thinning. “That lasted about a year. Best year of my life. And the last year I felt alive.” She stops, and I know that feeling all too well, feeling numb, feeling like there’s nothing more to life.
Until I foundher.
“There was a guy. Jack Krieg.” Her whole body tenses at the name, and my fingers twitch to hit call and have someone dig up everything on this fucker right now.
“A couple of years older than Liz. He used to hang around one of the diners we went to after school. I never liked him, like something was off about him. But Liz... Liz wascrazyabout him. They started dating—well, not exactly dating. More like they were seeing each other, and he was just using her for his entertainment. She changed so fast. Locked me on the outside. Started hiding things from me, like the fact that she was running different errands for him, taking product to his customers.”
Her jaw clenches.
“Then he started coming to our room at night. They’d have sex while I pretended to be sleeping.”
I feel my nails dig into my palm, a threatening hum vibrating in my throat, though I try to stop myself—so she won’t.
“Liz was pissed at him at first, but he was so pushy that over time, it became a normal routine. I confronted her about it one day, but she just asked me to keep my mouth shut and even promised me some of her clothes or makeup for my silence.”
She lets out a laugh, the sound holding no real amusement.
“I didn't need her things. I just needed to know she was safe. After a few weeks, she started showing up with bruises on her arms. And one day, I accidentally walked in on her in the shower. Her whole body was covered in them. I tried to reason with her, asked her to tell someone about it. She refused, begged me to keep my mouthshut. Said she was clumsy, that she fell down the stairs. But she couldn’t tell anyone, because no one would believe her, and everyone would suspect Jack.”
She breathes deeply, like she’d suffocate if she didn’t breathe right now.
“He got bolder every time. The sex got rougher, and she wasn’t into it. I could hear her crying, but I didn’t do anything to stop him. I was too scared. And even if by some miracle I could find my courage, when I confronted her, she asked me to stay away. I even slept at a friend's house for a couple of nights. But I couldn’t do it forever, and I never knew when he’d come to our room at night through the window.”
Her hands are shaking now, and my chest tightens, because I think I know where this is going.
“And then, one night, he came. I could hear Liz giving him head. He sounded so fucking drunk that he barely finished. Blamed her for being a lousy fuck. But it wasn’t enough for him. He got up from her bed... and came to mine.”
She draws her knees up closer, curling into herself, and I grind my teeth until they’re nearly breaking.
“I remember his footsteps on the floor. My back was to him, but I knew he was coming for me.”
She stops again. And this time,mybreathing becomes erratic. There’s a pain in my chest, spreading toward my limbs. My jaw’s locked, teeth almost breaking.
“Did he give you the scars?” It’s all I manage to ask because I’m afraid there’s something worse coming.
And my darkest suspicions come true with her next words.
“I wish,” she says with a sadness that sends a cold chill down my spine. “That night, I was lucky because he was too drunk to function.”
Her lips quiver.
“But he slipped a hand beneath my blanket and into my T-shirt, going straight for my breasts. ‘You’re next on my list,’ he whispered, and his fucking breath reeked like a distillery.”
She doesn’t look at me as she says it. Her eyes are pointing at the floor like the damn thing might crack open.
“Histhreat haunted me for days. Somehow, in the middle of all of this, Liz managed to be pissed at me. That should’ve been a major red flag, but I told myself she was under his spell. The man scared me to death.
“Then, less than a week later, Liz went missing. She hadn’t come home for two nights.
“Everybody went crazy looking for her. She wasn’t answering her phone, and even though I told our foster parents about this Jack guy, no one knew where to find him.”
She’s interrupted again by the sound of my grinding teeth. If I keep this up, I’m going to have to focus on growing new ones by the time she’s done.
“My parents were at the police station when I got a text from Liz’s phone, telling me to meet her outside. Something felt off, so I picked up a knife from the kitchen and tossed it in my backpack on my way out.
“When I got outside, I saw Jack’s car in front of our house. The smart thing would’ve been to call someone, but deep down, I thought she wanted to run away with him. And telling someone would’ve gotten her in trouble, too. She talked about going away with him a lot.
“He just gestured for me to get in the car, and since Liz was the one who’d texted me, I figured she was waiting in the backseat.
