“Wake up, princess!”

I groan, my head hurting like a bitch. What the hell?

Better question: where am I?

The last thing I remember is sitting in the break room texting Kiera and eating. So how did I end up here?

“I said get up!” I hear the voice again, and this time, I open my eyes and see my worst nightmare.

Richard.

“Oh my God,” I gasp, bringing my hand up to my mouth and feeling blood on my lips. “Where the hell am I?” My heart thumps so hard, I can feel it in my ears. Body shaking, lip trembling, eyes watering—on the brink of a panic attack, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“Doesn’t really matter, because where you’re headed is worse.” The smile on his face is deadly.

“What do you want?” I wrap my arm around my stomach, my lunch threatening to make a reappearance.

“There’s nothing you can give that’ll be equivalent to what you took from me,” he tells me in a too-calm voice. “So I’m going to take what I want instead.”

I’m almost afraid to ask. “And what’s that?” I spit out blood that’s pooled in my mouth. My body aches from whatever he did to me while I was out. There must’ve been a struggle when he was trying to grab me or dragged me out of the locker room.

“You’ll see soon enough, princess.” He laughs manically. “Soon enough.”

“Just let me go, and no one ever has to know.” I try pleading with him.

“Oh, you have a sense of humor, funny girl.” The way he speaks in a high-pitched tone sends shivers down my body, and not the good kind either.

“Please,” I beg. “I swear I won’t tell anyone if you just let me go right now.”

He kneels and lowers his face to meet my eyes. “I said shut up, bitch. Otherwise, I’m going to have to cover your mouth with my good friend chloroform again.” He begins reaching into his pocket, and my eyes go wide.

“No. Fine.”

He pulls his hand away.

“Just tell me why you think killing me will bring Susan back?”

He backhands me before I can react. “Don’t you fucking say her name. You killed her. You don’t get to talk about her like that.”

I’ve taken several psychology classes, and since bargaining isn’t going to work on him, I have no option but to try using reverse psychology on him.

“You’re right. I deserve it. Go ahead.” I keep my voice flat and void of any emotion. He’ll only feed off my fear, and if he really is going to kill me, I won’t let him have the satisfaction that I’m scared out of my freaking mind right now.

“Glad we’re on the same page then.” He flashes a wicked grin and grabs me by the arm, jerking me to my feet. My head starts to spin the moment I’m standing. “Showtime.”

It’s not until I’m standing that I realize where we are. “The roof,” I mutter. I notice the popped-up windows and heat vents as he drags me around. Even if I screamed for my life right now, it wouldn’t matter. No one would hear me over the whistling sound of the blowing steam. Even if someone did by chance, they’d never get to me on time. This building is ten stories tall, and you can’t even get on the roof without a key card.

I could run, but he’d easily be able to catch me by the time I made it to the door. The chloroform made me dizzy, which is what he was banking on, I’m sure.

“Who helped you?” I ask, knowing there’s no way he could’ve done this on his own.

“What makes you think I had help?”

“The key card,” I tell him. “It’s how you got into the locker room, wasn’t it?” It’s the last place I remember, so it’s the only logical place he could’ve grabbed me after putting chloroform over my mouth.

“I could’ve stolen it,” he counters.

“You’re going to kill me anyway so what does it matter if you tell me.”

“Good point.”

He walks us closer to the ledge, and that’s when I notice we aren’t even on the same building as the ER. We’re on the adjacent one with the rehab center and where the long-term patients stay.

I have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve gone missing, but I can only imagine how worried Evan must be. He’s gotta be going out of his mind with worry, and I hate that this is happening when I’ve just learned so much about his past. I miss him so damn much and hate that I didn’t get to sneak a kiss before I left for my break.

“Veronica Nans.”

“Wait, Veronica?” The shock of hearing her name rolls through me.

“She’s not so keen on you, princess.” He releases a loud belly laugh as if that’s the funniest thing in the world. All I can think about is the betrayal Evan will feel when he finds out, and I won’t be there to console him. Or hell, warn him.

He pulls me closer to the edge, and I’m trying not to allow my panic to surface, so I try to keep his attention by talking. Maybe if he’s distracted enough, I can get out of his grip, but he’s holding my arm so tightly I know there’s only a slim chance he’d let me go.

“So how’d you meet Veronica?” I ask, feeling the cool breeze hit my cheeks.

“She came to me,” he admits. “Saw me outside the hospital one day and propositioned to help me.”

I swallow hard. “And what does she get in return?”

He spins me around, so we’re face-to-face, then cocks his head with a grin. “She gets Evan.” My heart drops to my stomach, and I can’t believe this.

“He’ll never let you get away with it,” I spit out.

“Step up,” he orders, nodding his head toward a set of steps that lead to the top ledge of the roof.

“You better hope the cops find you before he does.”

“It won’t matter, Emily. Don’t you get it?” All emotion is devoid from his voice, and that’s when it hits me. He plans to die right along with me.

“Please, Richard.” It’s the first time I’ve said his name to him, and it makes the vein in his forehead twitch. “You don’t have to do this,” I whisper when he pushes me up the first step.

“Keep going,” he demands harshly. “To the top so you can see exactly where your life is about to end.”

God. Panic is setting in, and even though I’m reminding myself to stay calm, that maybe I can trick him into releasing me, it’s the realization that everyone I love in my life is about to lose me. And I’m not ready to say goodbye.

Fight or flight, I remind myself.

I try wiggling my arm out of his grasp, shifting my body back and forth to loosen the weight of his hand, but when I feel a sharp object at the middle of my spine, I stop. He has a knife.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he threatens, speaking above my ear. “We can do this the easy way…” He presses the knife harder into my back. “Or the hard way.”

Quick or painful.

Once I’m on the final step, I can see over the city. His chest is close to me as he taunts me with the knife, pushing it deeper against my skin.

“Stand on the ledge, princess.” He looks down and sees what could be my saving grace. Police lights. “It’s time.”

With a shaky breath, I follow his orders. I go up to the final step that brings me to the ledge of the roof, afraid he’ll puncture the blade through my flesh if I don’t. I just need to stall him until the cops can see me.

“Turn around,” Richard orders, releasing his hold on me. “I want to see your face when you realize your life is about to end.”

It’s not my life that flashes before my eyes but the past few weeks spent with Evan in his home. We’ve been playing house, waking up in each other’s arms every morning and falling asleep side by side every night. He’d be up first to shower, then when I was getting ready, he’d bring me coffee just how I like it. We’d discuss the events of the day before and anticipate what was in store for us that shift. We could easily talk for hours about medicine, and it’s brought us closer. Knowing I was only staying with him temporarily made it feel like a test run of what it’d be like to live with each other, and though his furniture and décor weren’t my things, he still made me feel at home and comfortable. We’d wrap ourselves up in blankets and make love until the birds sang. It was bliss.

And it was about to all be over. Our future never to exist.

I didn’t even get to tell him the news.

Swallowing, I wrap my arms around my stomach and finally allow the tears to fall. Keeping my head down, I slowly pivot my feet across the ledge until I’m facing back toward Richard.

“Look at me,” he demands.

Blinking the tears away, I tilt my head up and see him smiling back at me. Fucking psycho.

Something behind him grabs my attention, and my breath hitches when I see Evan and a couple of police officers.

Oh my God. Evan. My shoulders relax in relief, knowing he’s found me. I know Evan would be looking for me, but I didn’t know if he’d find me in time. I’ve never seen him so distraught, but his expression is stone cold when he steps toward us on a mission.

The scene unravels so fast, I can barely comprehend what’s happening. Richard notices me looking over his shoulder and quickly turns around just as Evan grabs him. An officer comes and helps me down and I’m finally able to breathe. He pulls me to the side as another officer is on Richard, trying to arrest him.

A split second later, I hear Evan release a heart-stopping roar. He falls to his back as he holds a hand up, and that’s when I see the knife sticking out of his chest.

“Nooooo!” The high-pitched scream that erupts through the air comes from my throat as I run over and kneel beside him. The officers grab Richard and push him to the ground, but all I care about is Evan. An officer radios in for the paramedics, confirming the suspect’s in custody. Glancing over, I see Richard in handcuffs.

“Baby, look at me.” I hold his head, and when I feel his hand grab my thigh, I breathe a small sigh of relief. His eyes flutter close. “Keep them open, Evan. Help is on the way.”

He tries opening them but isn’t able to all the way, and that scares the shit out of me. He’s losing consciousness, which means he’s losing too much blood too fast.

“This might hurt, baby. I’m so sorry.” I press my palms against his chest and add pressure to the surrounding area of the wound. If I pull the knife out, he’ll definitely bleed out.

He groans as I press harder, and I wince knowing how much pain he must be in. “Hold on, okay? Take steady, even breaths.”

I hear the stretcher’s wheels scratch against the concrete as the paramedics rush over to us. They start asking me questions, and I quickly give them the details of what happened. I hadn’t realized how big the knife was until I saw the end sticking out of his chest. “It’s possible the blade nicked his lung,” I explain as Evan’s eyes close again. “His lung could collapse at any minute, and if it does, he’ll need a chest tube put in right away.”

I notice how much of Evan’s blood has saturated his shirt as one of the medics take over, adding pressure to the wound as the other places an oxygen mask over his face. One of them lowers the stretcher to ground level as the other stabilizes the knife in place with tape and gauze. They won’t take it out until they get him into the OR, but they have to get him off the roof and across the parking lot to the ER first.

“His heart rate is dropping. We need to put him on the gurney, miss,” one of the medics tells me. Leaning over his body, I press a kiss to his forehead as tears run down my cheeks and land on his face. “I love you, Evan Bishop. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare leave me!” More tears fall as I decide to tell him what I hadn’t had the chance to earlier. “Don’t leave our baby. I need you. We need you.”