Delicious - Page 9

He said he doesn’t want to hurt me.The words whisper through my brain and my fingers tighten on the pillow under me. There’s no way those words weren’t a lie, though the honesty pouring off of his face had been…convincing to say the least.

Veryconvincing.

Finally, I force my eyes open again and sit up, looking around the room once before something in the air catches my eye. Even when I tilt my chin up to it, the ridiculousness of what I’m seeing takes me a few seconds to process.

A piece of lined notebook paper is taped horizontally to a stick that’s taped to the railing. In messy, cursive writing are the wordsThe door is over there,sitting above a scribbled, thick black arrow.

He must really think I’m an idiot.

But he’s not really wrong. Embarrassment sizzles along my skin as I remember waking up the first time and making a break for the rail. I would’ve gone over without him catching me, and I can still recall the dizzying, terrifying moments where I was sure I really would go over.

After all, it would’ve been so much easier for him to just let me fall. He wouldn’t have had to do a thing, and I probably would’ve been snapped into a thousand pieces.

So why didn’t he?

Somehow, I chase away that thought. Though the humiliation the sign brings to mind is harder to shake, so I avoid looking at the sign as much as possible. At the foot of the bed my jacket is folded neatly on a small black bench, and my shoes are just under it, sitting side by side and looking cleaner than they had the last time I’d tugged them on.

Curious, I bring the jacket to my nose, surprised to find that it smells freshly laundered. “Why wash my jacket?” I mutter, pulling it on and zipping it. I slip into my sneakers as well, and give the room a thorough search, just in case my phone and keys are also somewhere nearby.

They aren’t, naturally. Because why would there be adumbmurderer out in the woods with a penchant for kidnapping?

And blood licking.

I blink that away, pausing when I notice my camera sitting neatly on a long, mirrored dresser. Though I try to be cool about it, I can’t help rushing over, curling my hands around the familiar form and screwing off the slightly scratched but clean lens cap to peer at the lens underneath.

He was right last night. It’s not any worse for wear, and I couldn’t give a damn about the damage to the lens cap. If it did bother me, I could buy one way cheaper than I could’ve replaced my camera.

My other two lenses are beside it, still in the small bags I’d had them in out in the swamp. They look somehow cleaner as well, and there’s a twinge of something in my stomach that I can’t place, let alone name.

Why do all this for me, if he’s just going to kill me? At the risk of mentally beating a dead horse, it occurs to me again thatnone of the few men I’ve dated would’ve done this for me under penalty of death. Especially cleaning my shoes and washing my jacket.

God, I hope there wasn’t blood on my jacket. Though judging by last night, I can’t help but think there most definitely had been. Clearly he knows what he’s doing, if he could get out blood stains that must have been dry by the time he tossed this in the washer.

Maybe he’s done this before.

The thought is definitely unwelcome in my brain, and I chase it out ferociously as my feet take me to one of the unlabeled doors. Upon opening it, I find a walk-in closet that’s barely half full, and just as meticulously neat as the rest of the room. Before I can close the door completely, however, I hesitate.

My phone could be in here. If I were him, I would have hidden it and my keys in a stupid place, like the underwear drawer, which I plan to check next.

But neither search yields either of them, and I open the other door to a simple bathroom. Half-heartedly, I check the drawers, running my fingers through my hair when I catch sight of myself in the mirror.

Today is a bad day not to have a scrunchie. My long black hair, thicker than it has any right to be, is a mess. Tangles snare most of it, and even though my fingers do some work to fix that, it’s not nearly enough. Well, it’s not like whatever animals live in the woods are going to care that I look like I live out there, too.

Back in the bedroom, I finally take the door indicated by the sign, finding that it opens to a landing on top of a curving set of stairs. Those take me down to the living room I’d nearly crashed into last night, and I make an unhappy face at the coffee table that had almost been my doom.

Had it really only been last night? A glance at the stove clock in the kitchen that sits squarely under the bedroom shows me it’s a little after three in the afternoon.

Why had I slept for so long? I’m normally up by nine, since I can’t stand lying in bed with my own thoughts for very long, and I look for things to distract me as soon as I can the moment I’m awake.

Drugs,I sigh mentally, walking around the sofa and coffee table as my eyes take in everything.Probably all the drugging me he did.That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. And probably the reason I felt so off the first time I’d woken up, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine him licking the blood off of my arm like a?—

I refuse to use thecword that ends in -al. Even in my own head. For my mental state, and the small bit of stability I have left, I can’t bring myself to even think it, let alone say it.

And I have to get out of here before he comes back. Even without my phone, I’m not helpless. If I can figure out where I am, I can make some kind of game plan, get my camera, and get the hell out. But I don’t want to risk my camera right now. Just in case he’s right outside, or I’m stupid enough to walk myself into a river, or something else just as detrimental to my job equipment.

I finally find the door, and send up a prayer to a god I haven’t believed in or prayed to since my mother died twelve years ago as my fingers curl around the handle, press the lever, and pull.

It opens.