Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
The smile freezes on my face at the sight of the person standing in my living room, my heart stilling in my chest.
My visitor doesn’t smile. Not that he ever did.
His head tips to the side a fraction. Cold eyes fixed on mine. He parts his lips, and in the voice that still fills my nightmares now, he says, “Hello, Annie.”
Carrie
“N-Neil,” I feel like I’m choking his name out. My vocal cords strangled by the realization that he’s here.
Here in my house.
How is he here?
“H-how d-did you f-find me?” I’m stammering. I can’t help it. My body is trembling so hard; I’m rattling from the inside out.
It only gets worse when I see the gun in his hand held at his side.
Hope.
It’s my only thought.
Please don’t make a sound, baby.
I need him to not know that she’s here.
He lifts the gun and rubs the barrel against the side of his head, up into his blond hair, which was always cropped short but has now grown out. It looks messy and unclean. As the rest of him does. Blond whiskers cover the lower part of his face. His clothes are unclean and crumpled.
This is a man who would beat me for failing to iron out a single crease in his work shirt. And, now, he is wearing a shirt that hasn’t seen the inside of a washing machine for a long time.
Even in this terrifying moment, the irony is not lost on me.
“It wasn’t easy.” His voice is like needles piercing my skin. Every syllable agony to listen to. “I’ve been looking for you since the day you left. I’ve been looking all over the country in fact. Smart move, coming to Texas, Annie. I really wouldn’t have thought to look for you here, knowing how you hate the heat. You’re brighter than I ever gave you credit for. But then I got lucky and happened to stumble across a news article online about a woman giving birth to a baby in her car on the side of the road. With a picture of the woman accompanying the article. And who was that woman, Annie?”
Me.
He knows about Hope.
I feel fear like I’ve never known before.
I swallow down gravel.
“Me,” I whisper.
He laughs a deeply scary sound. “You could change your hair to every color under the sun, Annie, even change your face, and I would still know it’s you. And you know why? Because you are mine, Annie.”
River. Where are you? I silently call.
“I-I’m s-sorry,” I stammer.
“I-I’m s-sorry,” he mimics. “You’re always fucking sorry, Annie!”
He starts to pace in front of the door, blocking that exit. Not that I can leave without Hope.
I think about if I could make a run for it down the hall to Hope’s room and get her from her crib and climb out of the window.
But there’s no lock on the door. I wouldn’t make it in time.
He stops pacing. “Is the baby mine, Annie?”
I don’t know how to answer. If I tell him the truth—that, yes, Hope is his child—he will take her from me. And he will hurt her.
If I tell him no … he might still hurt her.
But he’ll hurt me first if he thinks she’s not his.
He’ll need to punish me. It’s his way. And that will give me time … time for River to get here.
“Answer me!” he barks.
And I snap to attention, like a well-trained dog.
“No.” I swallow the lie, holding his stare. I need him to believe me. “The baby’s not yours.”
Nothing changes in his expression. I expected rage and fury. But there’s just nothing but emptiness and blankness in those cold eyes of his.
And that terrifies me more than any anger he could direct at me.
He starts tapping the barrel against his temple. “You left me, Annie, to have a baby with someone else?”
“Yes,” I say quietly.
He starts shaking his head, chanting, “No. No. No! It wasn’t meant to be that way! You’re mine! You have always been mine! We were meant to spend our lives together! It was my baby that you were supposed to have!” Spit is flying from his mouth. His eyes bulging. He looks manic. Like a rabid dog.
He lifts the gun, aiming it at me.
My heart stops.
“Neil … please … don’t.”
“Oh, you’re pleading now? You want my forgiveness, Annie? You want me to forgive you for being a dirty whore and having a bastard child with some other man!”
The word is hard to say. I have to force it out. “Y-yes.” But I need to do anything to keep him calm right now.
I just need a little more time before River gets here.
“Too late, Annie.” He cocks the gun.
“No! Please!” I cry, defensively holding my hands. “Don’t do this! I-I’ll come home with you. Right now. I’ll make this all better.”
“And the baby?”
I swallow down the disgusting lie I’m about to say. “I’ll leave her with her dad. I’ll leave and come home with you.”