Page 74 of Love Me
I heard something that sounded like a shoe scuffing the floor. My heart tried to lurch into my throat. I wasn’t alone.
Remembering there were flashlights hanging on the wall above the freezer, I turned and reached for the wall. Blindly, I felt around. My palms touched cool metal tools and wiry fishing lines before I felt the metal body of a flashlight. I ripped it off the wall and clicked it on. I pointed the light at the steps and my stomach hollowed out. Someone wearing a Jason ski mask was standing on the steps, staring right at me.
“Wasn’t it Ghostface who killed the girl in the garage?” I didn’t know why I’d asked that, but it did help keep my panic at bay as I tried to think.
I heard scuffing again. This time to my left. I whipped the flashlight in that direction and in between Colt and Keelan’s cars stood someone wearing a Ghostface mask. “There he is.”
The sound of boots coming down the steps urged me to shine my flashlight in that direction again. Sure enough, Jason was off the steps and heading my way. Shoes slapping the ground drew me to shine the light at Ghostface just in time to see their fist coming for my face. I ducked and shot my own fist out, hitting them in the center of their rubber mask.
They let out a masculine grunt. When I went to hit them again, something hard slammed into the back of my head.
I hadn’t known I had fallen to the ground until I forced my eyes open. When had I closed them? The flashlight I had been holding was on the ground, too, far away and shining on me.
My vision came and went. And when I could see, all I saw was booted feet. Multiple pairs, or I was seeing double. Or was it triple?
“I think the bitch broke my nose,” a muffled male voice said.
“Suck it up and help me carry her.”
I recognized that voice.Cassy.
Hands lifted me by my legs and underarms. In the distance, I thought I could hear the garage opening.
“Hurry up and help me, Amber,” Cassy hissed.
A new set of hands grasped my right leg.
“Gabe was supposed to carry her,” Amber grunted.
“She hit me,” Gabe grumbled.
The change in the air told me they had carried me out of the garage, and with the sound of twigs snapping underfoot, I knew they were taking me into the woods.
I tried to shake my head to clear it, but all I ended up doing was making myself realize how bad it hurt. Next, I tried to kick my legs free.
“She’s coming to,” Amber said.
“Just a little bit farther. We don’t want them to hear her scream,” Cassy said.
My adrenaline kicked in at hearing that and I began to struggle against their hold.
The three of them either grunted or cursed and the next thing I knew, I was being tossed. My back hit the ground first, knocking the air out of me a little. Before I could recover, someone in a Michael Myers mask climbed on top of me and then pressed something sharp and cold against my throat. I watched as they pulled off their mask. Cassy’s tawny hair was what I saw first, then her cruel eyes.
She stared down at me with such anger. “Your time is up.”
Feeling a knife up at my throat was something I’d hoped to never feel again. It still was terrifying, but not the same as it had been last time. There was reassurance in that. “And?”
My response was clearly not the one she’d expected, by the flicker of surprise followed by the intensifying anger that showed all over her face.
My mouth stretched into a menacing smile. “Do you plan to cut my throat? Or do you have rope stashed out here for you to hang me with?”
She increased the pressure of the knife against my neck. “You don’t think I’ll do it?”
“It’s what Daddy expects of you,” I said as I tried to feel around on the ground. “To clean up your mess that is making him look bad.”
My words set her eyes ablaze. “At least I have a dad.”
I chuckled. “At least mine was kind and showed me love.”
