Is it my phone that’s ringing?

I try to move my hand so I can see who’s calling, but I can’t move it. I can’t move my hands or my arms.

I open my eyes slowly. Why are all my movements so slow? Why is it so hard to do anything?

“Oh, you’re finally awake,” says a woman. Her voice sounds familiar. Who could it be? “This guy has been calling you so many times. He must really like you.”

With great effort, I turn my head toward the source of the voice and see her, standing over me with my phone in her hand.

I part my lips and open my jaw. My mouth is so dry. Coaxing my vocal cords back to life, I say, “Christine?”

“Yes!” She grins like we’ve just run into each other at the mall. “Surprise surprise, it’s me.”

I look around me. This is Bertha’s house.

“What are you doing here?” I squint as I look up at Christine. The light right behind her head is getting in my eyes.

“Oh, come on, be nice. That’s no way to greet a neighbor.” She laughs, then continues, “But then again, what can I expect from you? All this time you’ve just been putting on a mask, pretending to be a good girl, an innocent schoolteacher. I can’t expect you to play that role when you’re like this.”

“Like...what? What did you do to me?” I don’t feel any restraints on my body. No rope, zip ties, or masking tape. But I can’t move. My whole body feels heavy, like gravity has an extra strong hold on me right now.

“I just gave you something to calm you down so we can have a conversation, darling. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“You drugged me?”

“Drug is such an ugly word. Let’s just say I medicated you.” Christine smiles at me, but the shadow on her face makes her look creepy. Her facial features look all distorted. Has she always looked like that?

“You made me snort some kind of date-rape drug.” I say these brave, accusing words, but my speech is slow and slurred. I’m sure I don’t sound half as intimidating as I try to.

Christine’s foot connects with my shoulder. It’s not a particularly hard kick, but I don’t have the strength to put up any kind of resistance. I slide down against the wall I’m leaning on and fall into a heap on the floor.

Shit. Why can’t I do anything, or move any part of my body? What has she done to me?

While the kick wasn’t particularly painful, the realization of just how weak I am hits me like a truck.

I’m completely vulnerable. Christine can do anything to me and there’s nothing I can do about it. And from the looks of things, she wants to do all kinds of evil things to me.

I don’t know if it’s just the lighting or if I’ve just noticed something that has always been obvious, but she looks crazy. She looks like she belongs in an institution.

“Did you give the same drug to Max?” I shift on the floor so I can keep my eyes on Christine.

“You mean the dog?” She pauses and gives me a weird smile. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t waste such an expensive medicine on an animal. That was just good old rat poison.”

“It was all you? The letter, the break-in?” I frown. I can’t believe it. I can see her flapping her mouth, saying some words, but what she’s saying doesn’t make any sense.

“Yes,” she says calmly, like she hasn’t just admitted to being the perpetrator of multiple crimes.

“Why?” I’m thoroughly confused. I haven’t done anything to this woman. I’ve always tried to be a good neighbor. I’ve never even played loud music or leave Max’s shit on anybody’s lawn. What reason could she have to hate me so much, she’d commit crimes and risk being arrested?

“Isn’t it obvious?” She gives me a look that I often give to misbehaving students, the look that says she knows that I know what I’ve done.

Except I have no idea how I’ve wronged her.

Christine clicks her tongue, annoyed at me for playing innocent. “I have to protect Ashbourne from women like you.”

“Women like me? What are you talking about?”

“You know darn well what I’m talking about. Women like you lure men into your trap and ruin families.”

“What?” I must’ve heard wrong. That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever done in my life.

“Oh, don’t act like you’re innocent. I know your kind. You seduce married men, you take their money, you make them forget all about their families,” she says with utter conviction, as if she has seen me do every single one of those things with her own eyes.

Sure, there were some married men who visited the Pussy Cat, but my relationship with them—and with all the customers except for Jacob—was strictly professional. If anyone should be blamed for married men who stray into strip joints, it’s not me. It’s those men.

That’s what I would’ve told Christine if I weren’t so weak. It’s hard to even say short sentences, much less defend my innocence in a debate on the institution of marriage and the moral responsibility of cheating spouses.

“I never did that,” I say instead. Eloquent argument, I know.

“My Toby was a great husband. We had the perfect family. Everything was perfect. Sure, we weren’t as active in the bedroom as we used to be, but we had kids and careers. Nobody just keeps doing it like rabbits forever.”

“I don’t even know your husband,” I say weakly from the floor.

“Of course you don’t,” she says condescendingly, like she can’t believe how stupid I am. “He moved away long before you came here. With a woman just like you. She took my husband from me, but I’ll never let that happen to any other woman in Ashbourne.” Christine shoots me a sharp glare and pauses to let the weight of her threat sink in.

I watch her, dumbfounded. My eyes blink frequently because of the bright light behind her. Maybe I do look like an idiot, but I honestly don’t know what to say. S

he’s punishing me for her husband having left her for another woman, a woman I don’t even know? Is she serious?

“When Bertha told me her daughter used to work at a strip club with you, I knew exactly what I had to do. I feel bad for Nancy, but maybe what happened was for the best. She used to be such a good girl. I never would’ve imagined she’d end up being a stripper,” she says, spitting out the last word like it’s caked with dirt.

“I’ve changed. I have a new life now,” I say.

I don’t actually have any moral qualms about being a stripper. I wouldn’t have worked at the Pussy Club for so long if I did. I just want to try appealing to her sense of compassion. Maybe if I act like I’m remorseful, she’ll let me go.

“Women like you don’t change,” Christine says. “You act like you’re just a good little schoolteacher, but I know it’s all a lie. You’re putting on a mask. I can see right through you. You think I don’t see you, seducing multiple men in town? That neighbor of yours, the date you were on when I called you. You think men are toys. You don’t care about them, or their families.”

“They’re single.” I know this is a stupid response, yet I can’t help but point out this fact. I honestly don’t see how I’m a threat to all womankind when I’m not even friends with any married men—except for Tony, but he doesn’t count here.

“Sure, it starts with the single men. Sooner or later, you’ll catch some married men in your web as well. Luckily for Ashbourne, I’m here to stop you.”

Who does Christine think I am? Some kind of a polyamorous seductress on a quest to build my own harem of men? I can’t understand how she could believe her own fantasy. She seemed so normal before tonight!

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I tried to tell you to leave, but you just wouldn’t budge.” The way Christine looks at me as she says that, you’d think she was doing me a favor with the break-in, the threatening letter, and the poison for Max. How nice of her to try to resolve this without hurting me, how noble.

“Maybe I would’ve, after you poisoned my dog,” I say.

“Maybe. But you have that guy staying with you now,” she says, scrunching her nose like she finds it absolutely offensive that two consenting adults are sleeping together under one roof.

“When I saw you come here, I knew that was the right time. I was going to wait until tomorrow, when you were supposed to let the repairman in, but this was better. Sometimes things just turn out better than you could ever plan,” she says with a cheerful smile on her face.

She crouches down, looks threateningly at me with her crazy eyes, and strokes my cheek with her cold fingers. “I’m going to destroy your pretty mask, so everyone can see the real you, the way I can see the real you. This is the only way to protect the town from you. I don’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.”

Christine stands up abruptly and strolls toward the kitchen. She stands in front of the shiny magnetic strip on the tiled backsplash, choosing a knife as she hums the cheerful tune of Mack the Knife.

A chill runs down my spine. She’s going to cut me?

I stretch my limbs as much as I can, trying to grab onto something, anything that can help me get up and run away. But I just end up kicking one of the wicker chairs in the living room, making it fall on the floor with a loud crash.

Christine calmly turns around and smiles when she sees what I’ve done. Obviously, I don’t pose any threat to her.

I keep trying, but I’m only strong enough to topple pieces of furniture onto their sides.

I should’ve listened to Jacob. He was right; it wasn’t safe for me to be on my own. It should’ve been obvious that some deranged person wants to hurt me, and yet I was doing whatever I wanted, oblivious to the dangers facing me.

I wish Jacob were here, and not just because he could rescue me from this crazy woman. I desperately need comfort right now. Somehow, unexpectedly, he has become the most comforting thing I can think of.