Lydia
THE FIRST THING I notice when I open my eyes is the pounding in my head. It makes me wince. I go to touch the source of the pain, but quickly realize I can’t because I’m tied up to a chair. For a millisecond, I’m confused, wondering how this all happened. As soon as my eyes land on Stacy though, everything comes rushing back.
I walk through the door after having a girls’ day with Paige, Scarlett, and Charlotte. I put away the few purchases I made with the exception of the little black number I bought Marcus.
With nothing else to do to kill time before he comes home, I pull out my kindle and read. I’m just getting into it when my doorbell rings. With my eyes still trained on my kindle, I open the front door before finally looking up.
I wish I hadn’t.
Catching me off guard, someone shoves their way in before closing the door behind them. It happens so fast I don’t have a chance to process what’s going on.
The intruder pulls down the hood on their jacket, and my heart drops to the pit of my stomach.
Stacy.
“What are you doing? Get out of my house!” I try to sound authoritative, but it’s hard to do when I feel anything but.
Her cold, vacant stare is frightening and has me backing up into the living room. With the way she slowly stalks toward me, fear crawls up my spine and wraps its fingers around my throat as I match her steps.
“You’re coming with me,” she says.
Before I have a chance to argue, she lunges at me. My heart pumps violently in my chest as I make a run for my phone on the counter. Right before I’m able to get it, her fist wraps in the back of my hair and she pulls me back.
Hard.
“Ahhh,” I scream out in pain as my hands go to my head. She drags me to the living room and throws me on the couch.
“We can do this the hard way, or the easy way,” she informs as she hovers over me, the empty look from before replaced by rage.
“I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have to drag me out,” I spit back at her.
A sickening smile pulls at her lips. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.” The next moment she’s on top of me, her hands go around my throat.
I kick and scream, thrashing around to get her off of me as she restricts the air I’m able to take in. I manage to push her to the ground and spring up to make another attempt at escaping, but she grabs my foot, tripping me up. I fall to the floor hard, hitting my face on the side table and knocking over the lamp on the way down. My lip radiates with pain as the coppery taste fills my mouth.
I put my discomfort aside as I claw at the floor in an attempt to gain traction to get away from her. She has a firm grip on me, climbing up my body until she’s straddling my back. With a fistful of my hair, she yanks my head back. In this position, I’m pretty much at her mercy as my eyes tear up from the pain.
“Goodnight, Lydia,” she says in my ear.
Then everything goes dark.
I hear shuffling, bringing my attention to the here and now. Stacy watches me from the other side of the room as she slides down the wall and sits on the floor.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask her. My voice trembles, and I hate it.
“Marcus took away my future, now I’m going to take away his,” she tells me. “But don’t worry; he’s on his way here now.”
Relief hits me for a second but is quickly wiped away by the dark smile on her face. “Don’t look too excited. This won’t be ending well.” If the pain in my skull wasn’t making me nauseous, her words would. “He made me bury someone I cared about, now he’s about to do the same.”
A few tears fall from my eyes despite trying to remain unfazed by her threats, but the only thing running through my mind is Marcus needs to stay away. I can’t stomach the idea of him getting hurt because of me.
“So, how does the baby factor into your plan?” I ask. Maybe if I can keep her talking, I’ll figure out a way to get out of this mess.
“I thought for sure you’d leave him if you thought he cheated. And what better torment than to know the one you want is within reach, but you can’t have her?”
“So this is all some sick vendetta?”
“This is more than that!” she yells.
“Is it about money then?”
“He’ll think it is, but it’s not. This is about revenge.”
The determination in her eyes scares the shit out of me. The whole time she’s been talking I’ve been testing my restraints to see if there was any wiggle room, but there’s not. Any hope I was holding onto that I would make it out of this plummets.
“Revenge for what? Leaving you?”
She lets out a huff of laughter. “No.” She offers no further explanation and I don’t press the issue.
She rummages around in a black bag she has sitting next to her, not paying me any more attention. Looking around the wide open room with only one exit, I know this isn’t looking good.
Oh, God.
This can’t be it.