When I walked out into the hall and looked around I wasn't quite sure where to go because the house was enormous and kind of maze-like, but I heard voices coming from the far end of a long hall and as I got closer I could hear Landen excitedly telling Barbara what sounded like the synopsis of an old movie.

"So, basically the storm has made it impossible for anyone to drive up to the house and they're stuck there. And then the phone lines go dead, of course, and they know that the killer is somewhere in the area."

I walked up to an open doorway with a bright light streaming out into the hall and when I peeked around the corner I saw Barbara sitting at a kitchen table with her back completely straight and her hands gripping the sides of her chair while Landen was telling her a story and chopping up something on the counter. It almost made me laugh to see the two of them together and as soon as Barbara realized that I was standing there she turned her head and looked at me with her big eyes.

"And so, there's these two nurses in the house that think the killer is outside, but the twist is ..." Landen looked up and saw that Barbara was looking over at me instead of listening to his story.

"Oh, hey Avery. I was just telling Barbara about one of my fave episodes of an old TV show. Are you still into it?" he asked her. "I mean, it's cool if you're not. I totally get it."

Barbara shifted her hilariously terrified look from me back to Landen and said "No, go ahead. I'm listening." Then she looked back at me.

"Why don't you come in here and sit down, Avery. Landen was just telling me about an old TV show where there are some women trapped in a house with a deranged killer," she said with as close to a normal voice as she could, but her eyes were glaring at me like she was trying to send me a very clear message. Something like, let's get the hell out of here, I imagined, as I sat down at the kitchen table.

"Well, they're not just women. They're nurses. That's the awesome twist! The killer only kills nurses, and in the end he's actually dressed up as one of the nurses. So, he was in the house the whole time and no one knew. Isn't that cool?"

"Yeah, that sounds really cool," Barbara said as she looked at me again.

I couldn't help but smile at her because, although I knew exactly why she looked so terrified, I really didn't believe that there was any reason for either one of us to be scared of these guys. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I had completely gone off the deep end and Barbara was right when she said I was a total victim of Stockholm Syndrome and had fallen in love with my captor. But, honestly, if that was the case that would be fine with me. I'd rather be happily living in a fantasy world with a syndrome that didn't allow me to realize that I was in danger, than completely petrified of being killed or dismembered.

"Do you like spaghetti, Avery? I thought I'd whip some up for us. I'm sure you're both starving."

"Yeah, that sounds really good. Thank you, Landen"

"No problem," he said as he smiled at me, then walked off through another doorway in the kitchen. "I'll be right back, I gotta get something from the pantry."

Barbara looked at me and gripped my arm, then said in a low voice, "We need to get the hell out of here. Were you serious about eating dinner here? I just want to go home. You found Colin. He's fine. Now let's go."

"Barbara, I don't want to leave yet."

"But why? You're free now. We can leave and you can actually come back to your own home."

"Well, first of all, he's not fine. He's still recovering. And I am really hungry. Why don't we just stay for dinner?"

"Ok, Avery, I know you think that you're in love with this guy or something, but I'm telling you, it's not possible. I am so close to calling the cops right now it's not even funny. Let's just go. Spend some time away from these lunatics and you'll see that it was all just in your mind."

"Barbara, you are not calling the cops. You have to promise me ..."

Just then Landen walked back into the room and set a can of stewed tomatoes on the counter.

"I can take you two home anytime you like. Don't feel like you have to stay for dinner," he said as he opened up the can and poured them into a pot on the stove.

"Thank you, Landen I would like to stay ... and I hope Barbara decides to stay as well," I said as I looked over at her.

"Ok, I'll stay for dinner, but I do really need to get back. That weirdo on the first floor is watching Joey and I don't know about that guy. His apartment smells weird," she said as she scrunched up her nose.

"Good, I'm glad you're staying," Landen said as he looked back over at us, but mostly at Barbara.

"Ok, well, is there a bathroom around here I can use."

"Sure, if you go out and to the right it's across the hall and two doors down. I can show you if you like."

"No, I think I got it." She said as she got up from the table. "I'll be right back," she said as she looked right at me, like she couldn't imagine that I wasn't as paranoid in this guy's house as she was.

"Ok," I said with a shrug. At first I thought maybe she wanted me to go with her, but she eventually left the room on her own.

After she had disappeared around the corner, Landen turned to me and leaned against the counter. I could tell he wanted to say something to me, but he just stood there and looked at me for a few seconds before he started talking.

"I couldn't help but overhear your guys' conversation from in there and I want you to know that you are more than welcome to stay here for as long as you want. I imagine that you probably want to get home, since you haven't been back there in a few weeks, but if you want to stay while Colin is recuperating, you are more than welcome.

Colin has talked to me about you, about what has gone on over the last couple weeks and I know that he cares about you a lot. And I care about Colin, a lot. He's very special to me, like a little brother. In fact, that is exactly the way I view him and I'm very protective of him. He's a very special person, way more sensitive and kind than most people. And, yes I realize how that must sound, coming from a lunatic like me, and may be kind of hard for you to grasp, but it's the truth."

"I do believe that about him," I said as I realized by the way he emphasized the word lunatics that he had heard everything Barbara and I had said.

"I'm glad. You seem like a pretty smart girl. You found my house somehow, a feat that I am still pretty impressed with, and you seem like a genuinely nice person. But I just want you to know that I will not take kindly to you, or anyone, messing with Colin. This isn't a warning, it's a fact. If you mess with him there will be very dire consequences. And I would advise your friend Barbara to chill out on the calling the cops talk. I really like her, but she should know that this isn't a game. This is my life."

I felt every hair on my body stand on end as I listened to what Landen was saying to me. From the small amount of time I had spent with him I found him to be funny and charming, but I was coming to the realization that he had a scary side too, but for some reason I wasn't afraid of him. I understood what he was saying to me, and how he felt about Colin, and believed that he had no intention of hurting me or Barbara. I was continually surprised by how my beliefs kept changing recently, old beliefs and assumptions about who people were based on information that had no real basis in reality.

And what he said didn't change the way I felt about Colin, in fact, it made me want to stay here with him even more.

"I honestly don't understand what it is that I'm feeling, but I think that I've seen a part of Colin that not too many people get to see, that I'm one of the lucky ones who's been allowed to see who he really is. I'd be lying if I said there weren't things that he did ... or parts of him that I didn't like. I don't like to think about what I saw in his basement, and I don't like to think about all the girls that he did that to before her, but I feel like being around Colin is making me realize something about people that I guess I hadn't really articulated to myself before.

That the bad things that people do don't actually define them. It seems like everyone is so quick to put other people in boxes but then when they do the person becomes this one-dimensional thing. And the title they are given doesn't leave any room for them to be seen as anything else.

It was hard at first for me to think that Colin was anything more than a killer, but he is. He's so much more. I don't like that he's killed people, and I don't know if he's going to keep doing it, but I can't ignore the fact that I've fallen in love with the other parts of him that don't seem to want to continue to do that."

"Did you tell him how you felt?"

"That I'm in love with him? No. I guess I'm still scared of what it means; that I'm in love with someone who has intentionally killed a whole bunch of women. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it."

"Wow. You're becoming more impressive the more I get to know you. I've been in quite a few relationships throughout my life; some with women who knew what I did and some with women who didn't, and I've never met a woman who was as genuinely thoughtful as you are. Colin is right, you two really do seem to have some sort of invisible connection, or an unspoken understanding of each other. I'm kind of jealous," he said with a smile as he looked up at Barbara as she came back into the room and sat back down at the table.

"This is some place you've got here. Does every room have a laundry chute or a secret little door?"

"Oh, so you've been casing the joint?" Landen said as he turned around and gave Barbara the sly smile.

"No, no! I wasn't snooping or anything. I ... I just noticed in the bathroom ... the laundry chute and the little door that looks like the cupboard but goes further to what looks like some kind of passageway. This place is just really interesting. Sorry I opened up your secret cupboard."

"That's quite alright. I don't have anything out on this floor of the house that I want to keep from prying eyes anyway. And you're right, this house is very interesting. It took me years to find a place like this and I had absolutely no idea how many secret passageways and rooms this house had when I bought it. I've lived here for almost twenty years and every once in a while I find some new feature that had previously been hidden and I absolutely love it.

You wouldn't believe all the hidden passageways this house has. If you're interested sometime I'll show you around" Landen said as he raised his eyebrows, looking like he hoped she would accept his offer. He really seemed to be taken with Barbara and I found it really sweet. I mean, I didn't know him at all, just what Colin had told me and his little speech about how much Colin meant to him. And even though I didn't know what his deal was as far as his freelance surgery past time, and his intensity that was way scarier than Colin's, there was a part of me that kind of wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt too.

"Yeah, maybe sometime," she said, sounding surprisingly interested.

Landen brought the spaghetti and a salad to the table, then sat down with us and we started to eat.

"I can't believe you guys are both such good cooks," I said to Landen in between bites of the best spaghetti bolognese I had ever eaten.

"Thank you. Yeah, Colin is a pretty great cook. He must have been really happy to have someone to cook for these last few weeks. I know it's not always fun to make a big dinner just for one person. A lot of times I just make something really easy for myself, but if I had someone to cook for I'd make something new every night," he said as his gaze landed on Barbara.

During dinner the conversation veered back to what he and I had been talking about when Barbara was out of the room, and he gave us his theory that needing to kill was, to him, similar to any other addiction and that he saw it as a way to find a release when you didn't have any other way.

"Dude, that's freaking insane. There's a world of difference between someone who needs to kill and someone who needs a drink or a cigarette," Barbara said to Landen as she took a drink from her wine glass.

Landen leaned back in his chair and threw his hands in the air with a shrug.

"Hey, it's just a theory," he said then gave Barbara a big smile. "I like you, Barbie. You're feisty."

"Barbie?" I said as I looked over at her and started laughing. "Oh, that's perfect!"

Barbara's face turned beet red and she pushed her chair away from the table.

"I think we should probably get going."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. You don't have to leave so soon," Landen said with genuine sincerity.

"I really do just need to get home, now. We both do," she said as she looked over at me.

"I'm going to stay a little while longer, Barb. Landen invited me to stay until Colin is better and I'm taking him up on his offer." I knew she was going to be mad, but I had to follow what I felt inside me.

"Ok ... I'll go and get my jacket and let you two talk," Landen said as he got up from the table. "Take your time, I'll be out there when you're ready."

"Come on, Avery. You don't need to stay here. You can call him and see how he's doing."

"Look, I'm staying and that's final. You can call and text me too, you know."

"Well, I am. I'm going to text you at least five times a day and if I don't hear back from you I am calling the police."

"You need to stop saying that, Barb. Landen heard you say that earlier and he wasn't too thrilled."

"Well, too bad! What the fuck does he expect? Someone's going to call the police on him sooner or later. And when you text me you gotta type in a code word, like what you always call Joey. Type in Joey-Jo-Jo and I'll know it's you."

"What do you mean you'll know it's me? Nothing is going to happen to me."

"Dude, do you know how easy it would be for him to kill you and chop off your finger so he could get into your phone? I've seen that sort of thing on TV, I'm not making it up."

"Oh, come on. Don't you think he's kinda hot, in that slightly grey, mid-forties guy kinda way? And it seems to me like he likes you."

"Oh, well let me take my panties off and string them up on a pole! A serial killer likes me! So, what, did he tell you that or something?"

"Ha! I knew you were kinda into him! You should give him a chance, Barbara. He seems interesting."

"I think you've snapped your cap, Avery," she said as she got up from the table and rolled her eyes at me. "Don't forget, five texts a day."

"He's right, you are feisty," I said with a big smile. Just then Landen appeared in the doorway.

"You ready?"

"Sure," Barbara said as she walked toward the door but kept her eyes on me.

"Have you ever ridden in a vintage Jag XKE? I've got a red one. I think you'll like it, it's very fast," he said excitedly as they disappeared around the corner and down the hall.

I went to the stove and poured some broth that Landen had been heating up on the stove into a mug, then took it and a straw into the room Colin was in. I knocked on the door and opened it and he was awake, so I went in and got back on the bed right next to him.

"Here's some broth Landen left for you."

"Is he here?"

"No, he just took Barbara home."

"Oh man, this is good," he said as he drank down the broth.

"Thank you, Avery. For everything. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you're here."

I smiled at him and put my hand on his arm, but I just couldn't tell him yet. I was still too scared of how I was feeling to say those three little words.