26
SEE YOU LATER
Blair cupped Tessa’s elbow to keep her upright as she rose from the chair. He’d used his knife to cut through the cord around her upper body, but he left her wrists tied together. She looked up into his face, plotting her next move.
She could try to make a run for it, but she doubted she would make it to the door. No, she needed to bide her time, wait for the right moment. If he figured out she was lying to him before she could get free, he might lose it completely. And he still had the butcher knife clutched in one hand.
“Blair,” she said, glancing down at the eight-inch-long blade. “Do you think you could put that down? It’s really big.”
His face had softened before, when she told him she wanted to dance, but now she saw him tense and pull away. “I don’t think so, Tessa.”
She hadn’t won his trust. Not yet. She still needed to tread carefully. Tessa kept her voice light and cheerful as she took a tiny step in his direction. “Well, try not to stab me by accident, please. My mom will kill me if we get blood all over the upholstery.”
He chuckled, but he still held the knife as firmly as ever. “I would never hurt you, Tessa. You know that.”
She nodded and forced herself to smile. Now what? Maybe she could get her phone somehow. He must have slipped it into his own pocket after he took it from her. Was it that bulge in the front pocket of his jeans? But then the only way for her to get it would be to… No way. She couldn’t even finish the thought. Just the idea of dancing with him made her skin crawl.
“Should we put on some dance music?” he asked, grinning at her playfully. “A little bird told me you like ‘Snowflake.’”
“No!” Tessa drew back at the suggestion. Not “Snowflake,” she prayed silently. She couldn’t bear to ruin that song with this memory. Not that she’d be in a position to remember much of anything if she didn’t get help soon.
If she couldn’t get the phone, then she would have to scream for help. But not in here. Somewhere Dr. Regan would be sure to hear her. Outside somewhere. How could she get him outside?
Blair eyed her skeptically. “I thought you liked that song.”
He reached out to touch her hands, and she shied away in spite of her best efforts. “Sorry,” she said, stumbling a step backward. “I do. It’s just… I’m just… I think I’m going to sneeze!”
The new idea came to her, triggered by the overpowering fragrance that swirled in her direction. Tessa covered her face with her hands and faked a sneeze. Then another, and another.
“Are you OK?”
“I think it’s allergies,” she said, sniffling. “It might be all the cologne.”
“Cologne? I wore this for you!” The knife blade glinted dangerously as he threw up his hands in frustration. “I went and bought a whole bottle of this stuff. Honestly, I can’t win with you!”
“No, no!” Tessa backpedaled, keeping one eye on the knife. “I love it. That was so sweet and thoughtful. It’s just a little strong.” She sneezed again. “I think fresh air might help. Maybe we should dance outside? Under the moonlight. Oh, Blair, it’ll be so romantic!”
She sighed and batted her eyelashes like a fairy-tale princess with her handsome prince—all the while watching his reaction. Would he go for it? Was he so delusional that he’d forgotten Dr. Regan was out there? Tessa doubted it somehow. But it didn’t matter, even if he refused. She was already one step ahead of him.
“No,” he said at last. “We can go upstairs if you want, but not outside. We’re going to need our privacy tonight.”
Tessa ignored the leer that had crept onto his face. “Not out front, silly! Out back! The back deck. It’s totally private back there. Come on. I want to show you!”
• • •
Eric hit Reverse and peered out the back windshield into the inky darkness behind him. The GPS had to be wrong. He’d been up and down this stretch of road three times now, and he still hadn’t seen any trace of the turnoff onto Tessa’s street.
In one quarter mile, turn right…
Recalculating…
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Eric slammed his fist against the dashboard. Useless piece of crap. He’d made good time driving here from the club—hadn’t paid much attention to all those pesky traffic lights and speed limits—but now he’d just wasted four precious minutes trying to make the final turn.
Sycamore Lane. Where the hell was Sycamore Lane?
It had to be nearby. Maybe he hadn’t gone far enough. He gave up on reversing and threw the gearshift into drive.
Turn right…
Recalculating…
Perform a legal U-turn…
Eric drew in a sharp breath at that last GPS instruction. A U-turn, huh? Where had he heard that before? For some reason, it brought to mind another voice buzzing uselessly in his ear—a slightly different choice of words, that night in Seattle, but the meaning was the same.
ERIC! ERIC, TURN AROUND!
He’d done his best to put that whole incident out of his head. His manager assured him that the situation was being handled. Security would make the necessary adjustments. They were raising the railing and doubling the number of guards around the stage for all upcoming shows. It would take a military special ops unit to breach that barrier again. In any case, the girl that night was harmless. Maury had repeated it enough times that Eric had started to believe him.
Harmless. Just a fan.
He should have listened to his gut. He knew that girl was a menace the moment he met her eyes. Green eyes at first glimpse, but the longer he looked into them, the more the pupils dilated…until by the end of the dance, the eyes that stared back at him had turned completely black.
Evil eyes. Nothing harmless about them. He knew it at the time, but he’d let other voices drown out the doubts inside his head. And now look what had happened. Of course she came back. The figure he saw on the edge of the parking lot had to be the same fangirl, haunting him again. She’d somehow hacked his phone and found the second Twitter account, and it was the single worst thing she could have seen. His DM chain with Tessa would only drive her closer toward the brink of violence—watching those words of love she wanted for herself directed at another girl instead.
He should have handled it differently that night in Seattle. He saw that now. He’d reacted out of pure instinct, with no other thought than to save his own neck. He’d pulled the girl into ballroom dance position to subdue her thrashing arms, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. He’d looked at her. For those brief moments, waltzing around the stage, he’d given her his full attention. Not just eye contact. He’d talked to her too. Anything to buy himself some time. He’d fed her the lies she longed to hear, and she gobbled them up like a shark smelling blood in the water.
“You need to calm down,” he’d said. “Calm down, sweetheart.”
“I love you!”
“I love you too.”
How could he have said that? How? Did he have a death wish? Eric tried to force the memory from his mind—concentrate on the road instead—but the echo of that fleeting conversation still reverberated.
“I love you too,” he’d told her.
“You do? Really?”
He’d nodded earnestly. “You’re special. I can tell. You have the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh my God! Do you really think so?”
“Beautiful. But I need you to go now. I have a concert to finish for all these other people. I’ll see you later, OK?”
• • •
“See, Blair?” Tessa said softly. “Isn’t it so nice and peaceful back here?”
Tessa let the air out of her lungs with a long, controlled breath. The night had grown colder since the sun went down, with a steady wind whipping her hair against her face, but she didn’t mind the chill. The crisp air only served to sharpen her senses and steel her resolve. Her legs had gone rubbery before, when she first stood up from the chair, but they felt solid beneath her now. It didn’t hurt that the night sky had grown overcast with thick, black storm clouds blocking the moonlight. The only source of illumination was the dim yellow light filtering through the living room curtains.
It was too dark back here to see more than a few feet from the house. The rest of the backyard remained shrouded in shadows. Anyone unfamiliar with the terrain would have no way of knowing how the ground beneath the deck sloped steeply downward. Tessa herself hadn’t been out here in ages. She only knew what her mother had told her months ago—the last time she’d suggested a visit to the back deck:
No one’s used that deck for years. The railing’s completely rotted through. Only a matter of time before someone falls and breaks their neck…
Tessa looked down for a moment at her balled-up hands, still bound at the wrists as they rested against Blair’s bony chest. He stood a few inches taller than her, but his shoulders were narrow for a guy. Scrawny. Not much muscle on him anywhere, from what she could feel beneath his baggy sweatshirt. Even his face appeared emaciated, with sunken eyes and hollowed-out cheeks that only added to the impression of a hungry wolf stalking its prey.
She shuddered, and his arms tightened around her waist.
“Are you cold, love?” Blair asked as they swayed together awkwardly. Tessa could tell he didn’t have much experience dancing—not exactly as graceful as Eric Thorn waltzing around the stage. The knife blade in his hand pressed against her back. “Tessa? Should we go back in?”
“No,” Tessa said, forcing her posture straighter. “No, let’s dance. This is nice.”
“This is all I ever wanted,” he whispered. “Just to hold you in my arms like this.”
“That’s what I want too.”
His eyes drifted closed. Tessa watched his lips part with a faint sucking sound as he leaned in for a kiss. No, she thought, stiffening. No way. She couldn’t stomach it. Not on the lips. Even Eric hadn’t gone that far…
Tessa turned her face away and rested her head against Blair’s shoulder. His breath tickled her ear as his mouth grazed her temple, and Tessa gritted her teeth. This dance routine had gone on long enough. She couldn’t keep the pretense up much longer before she gave the whole game away.
“Blair,” Tessa said, leaning her weight against him heavily. “Blair, I’m dizzy.”
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s the meds,” she said, with a tremor in her voice. “My anxiety pills. They make me dizzy sometimes.”
Tessa felt him shake his head, and she cringed as she realized her mistake. The pills…
“But you didn’t take any pills,” he said suspiciously. “You said you didn’t need them.”
• • •
I’ll see you later, OK?
Eric choked on the sour aftertaste of those words—his parting blow when he delivered his attacker to security. He hadn’t thought about the consequences at the time. He had no one but himself to blame if she’d come back. He’d invited her, after all. I’ll see you later. His lies may have soothed her at the time, but they’d only fueled her obsession in the long run.
He saw the truth so clearly now, as his car crept down the road and his eyes scanned across the darkened Texas landscape.
He never should have trusted security to deal with her. He should have ignored those guards. Handled it himself. Eric knew what he would do differently if he could hit Rewind…relive that night again. They probably wouldn’t have played the video on the morning talk shows the next day. Or if they had, the viewing public wouldn’t have LOL’ed. They probably would’ve called for his arrest. Put him in jail and thrown away the key. But he’d do it anyway, without a second thought, if he had the chance.
He could see the whole dark fantasy play out in his mind’s eye. He held the girl in his arms once more and danced her around the stage. And he spoke to her again. He said every single line the same, except the parting words. He altered those just slightly. Not: See you later. Not this time.
This time, he gazed straight through her ink-black eyes to the depths of her deluded soul. “I’ll see you in hell, OK?”
Then he glided her over to the edge of the stage and pushed her.
Let her fall and break her skinny, little neck.
• • •
Tessa blinked. He’d almost caught her.
But you didn’t take any pills. You said you didn’t need them.
She pressed her face into Blair’s shoulder to cover her wince, but she didn’t lose her nerve. Maybe it was the cold night air or maybe the adrenaline coursing through her veins, but her mind remained clear and calm. Another lie rolled smoothly from her tongue. “I took a whole bunch before though. In the car on the way over. I was so nervous to meet you!”
He let out a huff. “You dummy. You took too many, didn’t you?” His voice dripped with disapproval, but Tessa heard an undercurrent of affection as his arms squeezed around her. She felt the tip of the knife blade prick the skin of her back. “Stupid girl,” he said. “What am I going to do with you? Will it pass soon, do you think?”
Tessa took a few fluttery breaths for good measure as she nodded against his chest. “Soon,” she said. “Really dizzy now. Can we just lean against the railing for a sec?”
She lifted her head and tilted it toward the far edge of the deck.
“Of course.” Blair smiled at her condescendingly, smoothing a strand of wild hair away from her face. “Just relax and lean on me.”
He shuffled backward in the direction of the railing, pulling her along by the waist. Tessa rested her forehead trustingly against him. She didn’t lift her head again until she knew they must be close. She felt him crane his neck around to watch where he was going, and she closed her eyes to gather her courage.
It all came down to this. No room for second-guessing. Her one and only chance. She prayed what felt like a hundred prayers at once: that she had the strength inside herself to fight…that the knife he held wouldn’t slash her…that the railing was as weak as her mother claimed…
The railing. She could sense it right behind him now. The time had come to act.
With a single fluid motion, Tessa reared backward and stamped down hard on top of his foot.
She felt his arms go slack. He took one more step backward, his head snapping around to look at her in surprise. Tessa kept her eyes fixed firmly on his chest as she closed the distance between them. She drove her fists into his stomach—and she channeled every last ounce of fear and anger, hatred and disgust into the blow.
He reeled, arms flailing.
Tessa heard the clatter of the falling knife and the groan of wood as it gave way with a crack.
She met his gaze one final time. His eyes stretched wide with panic as he sensed the open space behind his back.
Then all at once, he vanished—the monster who had haunted her, the memory that had held her hostage for so long. He disappeared into the pitch-dark void below. Only a gaping hole remained where he had stood.