Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
The things Anae said, even the things he said…
I don’t know what to make of it all.
She said he only came for me to begin with because she told him to.
Thinking back to the beginning, I guess that would make sense. Dare was an ass after he pulled me out of the pool. It was only after that night he started being nice to me, and I didn’t know why.
If that’s true, when did it stop being something he was doing for her? The first time we kissed? Touched? When he made love to me?
Did it ever stop being something he was ultimately doing for her?
I guess if they pull me out of this closet and do the horrific shit they talked about doing to me, I’ll have my answer.
I’ve been through so much tonight, I don’t have much energy left. It feels like a reprieve leaning against the wall, waiting to find out my fate.
I hear Anae with the plastic on the other side of the door, so I know she’s getting ready for his return. The bedroom is dark, so when lights brighten the room, I can see it beneath the crack under the door.
At first, I just see headlights and my heart drops.
If he came back, then I read it wrong. He’s here to finish what he started.
But then I see the flashes of blue and red, and I start to cry—this time, with relief.
“What the fuck?” Anae mutters on the other side of the door.
I hear her moving around the room. I jump when she starts jiggling the doorknob, muttering, “Where’s the fucking key?”
There’s something in her voice. I don’t know if it’s panic or dawning fury, maybe a mix of both.
My whole body tenses and shakes as she yanks and pulls on the door before banging her hand against the wood. “He took the fucking key,” she hisses.
He took the key so she couldn’t get to me.
He is on my side.
I’m still afraid the door will buckle as she rages and yanks on it, screaming at me and calling me every name in the book.
She finally lets go of the door and goes silent, but I can hear her pacing. Suddenly she yells, “Answer your fucking phone, Dare.”
There’s a pounding noise on the front door.
“Open up. Police,” a man calls through the barrier.
I’m saved.
I’m fucking saved.
I start crying, this time out of relief instead of fear.
Anae opens the door and tries to say there’s been some mistake, but the cops aren’t hearing it. I hear cuffs clinking and more shuffling, and then several pairs of boots on the floor outside.
“I’m in here,” I call out.
The footsteps move closer. A man comes to the door and tries to open it, but since this door has a lock, it doesn’t open. “You okay in there, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” I call back, my voice shaking. “I’m tied up on the floor.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” I call back. “Just please get me out of here.”
“I will,” he assures me. “Hang tight just a minute, all right?”
He leaves and comes back with something that he jiggles in the door, and then it opens, and I start crying all over again.
A cop behind him snaps my picture, then the big, bald man kneels down to pull me out of the closet. “You’re safe now,” he tells me. “I’ve got you.”
___
The first night I met Dare, I spent what felt like an eternity in the hospital.
This time, it’s a police station.
I feel like an exhibit as I’m poked and prodded at. They ask a million questions I’m too numb to answer and take pictures of my body that make me feel cold. They collect my pajamas as evidence and give me a huge sweater and sweatpants to change into. They tell me my mom can bring clothes from home, but I ask her not to come.
I know she must be terrified, but I don’t have the energy to look after anyone but myself right now, and I don’t want her putting her health at risk just to come to the stupid police station.
They ask if there’s anyone else I can call to pick me up. In fact, the officer even says, “What about your boyfriend?”
They think he’s the hero in this scenario. After all, it was Dare who called the police and told them that when he went over to his girlfriend’s house for a prearranged meeting, she wasn’t there. It was Dare who had so thoughtfully and protectively put a tracker on my car after we had a scare with his unhinged ex-girlfriend threatening to cut my brakes because he needed to know exactly where I was if he ever couldn’t reach me.
She’d faked his handwriting and tried to lure me to the beach behind his house because she knew I couldn’t swim, but he made excuses, didn’t take her threats seriously. He was beside himself, would have no one to blame but himself if something happened to me.