27
DARKNESS
“There!”
Eric leaned forward in his seat as his eyes landed on what looked like a narrow driveway. That had to be it. Sycamore Lane. He hit the gas, and the Ferrari’s engine roared as the car shot around the corner of the unmarked intersection.
Proceed on the current route. Destination is ahead…
Well, at least the GPS lady seemed confident. Eric didn’t quite share her enthusiasm. If anything, this road was even darker than the last one. Eric couldn’t see a thing beyond the arc of illumination provided by his headlights. Was this even a real street? The pavement left off after a few feet, and he felt the crunch of loose gravel beneath his tires. No sign of any houses yet. Just a clump of trees off to one side.
Eric hoped to God that they were sycamores. If this wasn’t Tessa’s street, then he’d have to give in to the thought that made his stomach churn with fear. He might not get to her in time. He was lost.
• • •
Blair lay still in the darkness, unwilling to open his eyes for fear that he might lose the warm glow in the pit of his stomach. He’d been having the most satisfying dream.
What was it about again? The details had already receded. He could only remember the sensation—that delicious prickle of desire, the anticipation of sweet fulfillment. Why did his dreams always end before he got to the good part? It was maddening, really. Just when he had his object within reach…
He sighed and cracked his eyes open, blinking to clear his vision. He couldn’t see a thing. A cold wind blanketed him as he felt around with his hands. In some dim corner of his mind, he expected to feel the splintery surface of a wooden deck, but his fingers only encountered frozen ground. A few clumps of dried-up grass. Mostly rocks and hard-packed earth.
Blair propped himself up on his elbows, ignoring the waves of dizziness. He must have hit his head. His eyes adjusted slowly to the dark of the moonless night, and a few indistinct memories filtered through the haze. He’d been on a deck in his dream. A wooden deck. At least, he thought it was a dream. When he looked up now, he could just make out the slats of the deck railing looming overhead. He must have fallen. But why was he up there? He had the vaguest recollection of standing and…swaying. Dancing. Slow dancing. Slow dancing with…
Tessa.
Blair sat bolt upright as it hit him. Tessa’s house. Tessa’s deck. Where was Tessa? Had she fallen too? Was she hurt?
He got to his knees and groped around in a wide circle for any sign of another body. A burst of pain shot from his left shoulder, but he ignored it. “Tessa,” he whispered hoarsely. “Tessa, where are you?”
He gave up after a moment. If she was down here, he couldn’t find any sign of her. She’d disappeared on him again. Just like the last time.
Blair let out a yelp—the sound of a wounded animal, sick with rage and pain. Why was she always vanishing on him? Why wouldn’t she ever stay where he put her? He could never seem to keep her still, no matter how he tried. Even with all the pictures, it never felt like enough. Never satisfying. He wanted to freeze-frame more than just her image. He wanted her body and her soul that way—forever fixed in place—so he could enjoy her at his leisure.
Had she abandoned him again now? If so, he’d make her live to regret it. One mistake he could forgive, but twice? Three times? No. For that she had to pay…
He stood, swaying unsteadily on the sloped ground as he surveyed his surroundings. No way could he climb back up to the deck from there. Not with a bum shoulder. He’d have to scramble up the slope and go around to the front of the house. Cradling his bad arm to his chest, Blair began the slow trudge uphill.
• • •
Eric thought he heard a siren, ever so faint. He slowed the car and rolled down his window to listen. There. He heard the sound again more clearly. His eyes took in a faint glimmer of flashing lights.
He hit the gas, and the car lurched over a rise in the road. At last the scene came into view below. Three cars? Maybe four? They were arrayed in an arc around a white clapboard house, reflecting pink in the rotating glow of the police cars’ beacons.
Tessa’s house. It had to be. Had they gotten there in time?
His eyes were fixed in the distance, straining to make out more details. He didn’t see the dark shape come up before him until it was inches from his front fender.
“Jesus!” Eric slammed the brakes.
The figure stood in front of the car, one arm raised against the glare of the headlights. Their eyes locked through the windshield glass—and in that instant, Eric understood.
Medium height. Hoodie sweatshirt. Spindly arms and legs. It was the same figure that Eric had seen lurking in that wide, empty parking lot. But the eyes that stared back weren’t green.
Brown eyes. Crooked nose. Sunken cheeks, darkened with five o’clock shadow. Not a fangirl after all.
Eric’s jaw dropped open. How had he not seen it earlier? Tessa had told him the whole story over DM last night. He knew exactly who stood before him now.
The other boy’s face registered recognition at the exact same moment. He side-stepped the car and ran.
“Oh no you don’t!” Eric cut the engine and flung his car door open.
He nearly made it back to the main road, huffing and puffing with exertion, by the time he finally caught up. If not for the sound of panting, Eric might have run right past the fleeing figure in the pitch-black night. Instead, he took a flying leap and tackled his prey to the ground.
“Oomph!”
Eric expected to overpower those toothpick limbs easily, but the other boy surprised him with his wiry strength. No match for Eric’s more muscular frame but enough to give Eric a run for his money. They rolled on the ground, locked together, and Eric gagged slightly at the overpowering stench that emanated from the boy’s clothes: a putrid mixture of sweat and flowery perfume.
“Over here!” he shouted over his shoulder when he could manage to spare a breath. “Help! Police!”
Eric turned his head back toward the figure locked in his embrace, and he felt something hard graze his temple. A rock. A glancing blow. One inch to the left, and he might have gotten his skull bashed in. This was getting out of hand. With one final burst of strength, Eric brought his fist down against the center of his adversary’s face. Then he flipped the other body over and caught hold of both wrists.
“You disgusting piece of shit,” he growled as he pressed his weight down, pinning the bony frame to the ground.
The boy only moaned in response. He stopped struggling. Had Eric knocked him out cold? Or was he merely playing dead, hoping Eric would relinquish his grasp?
Eric pressed down on the wrists more firmly and called over his shoulder once again. “Police! Over here!”
At last he heard their footfalls. He couldn’t see a thing out there in the darkened road, but the two officers came up over the rise with flashlights blazing. The beams swung over his shoulder and illuminated the form that lay on the ground beneath him.
Eric turned again and met a pair of dazed eyes staring back. The voice began to mumble, half-intelligible. Eric could just make out a few disjointed words:
“She’s mine… She said it…said the words…said she loved me… Tessa…”
At the sound of her name, something inside Eric snapped. For a moment, the whole world went black and then bright crimson. The shouts of the police officers barely penetrated from somewhere far away.
“Tessa…” the voice moaned beneath him. “I’ll never let her go… I’ll never let her forget…”
Eric picked up a jagged rock and slowly raised it overhead.