Secret Obsession: Chapter 6

A huge man staggers toward me, a knife protruding from his neck. His eyes are wild, and he reaches out. Like he needs my help. I rush toward him, but as soon as I get close, he wraps his hand around my throat and slams me to the floor.

My breath is forced out of my lungs. I choke, trying and failing to suck in air. His fingers tighten, cutting off any chance of inhaling. His other hand fumbles at my jeans, but he can’t seem to get them open. The terror that rips through me, that he’s going to rape me, is too strong. My nails scratch the wood floor, my heels slide without purchase.

White spots flicker around my vision.

And then my gaze locks on the knife in his throat, the one he seems unbothered by. He’s grunting, his head too close to my chest. He’s trying harder to get my pants open, and all the squirming in the world isn’t going to knock him off me. His hand loosens on my throat, sliding down and covering my breast.

Revulsion and desperation sweep up my spine.

With a cry, I grab the knife and yank it out of him.

Blood spurts across my face, drenching my skin. It gets in my mouth, in my eyes. Until it feels like I’m drowning in it.

Hands grip my shoulders.

I scream.

And then I’m awake, on my stomach, my cheek pressed to one of the couch’s scratchy linen pillows.

It takes me a minute to realize that Violet is shaking my shoulders.

I lift myself and roll onto my side, batting her hands away. My mouth is dry, and my heart is going a thousand miles a minute. I lick my lips and glance around the room, but it’s just the two of us.

“You okay?” Violet has the good sense to look worried.

I didn’t tell her anything. Not even that I was kicked off the dance team. We watched movies, and I dozed off, my arms crossed over my middle. I jumped at every little noise until I finally drank enough spiked coffee to shut my eyes.

And now it’s dark, and I have no idea what time it is. Or how long I’ve been out.

“I need you to stop asking me that,” I say in a low voice. “Please.”

She nods and reaches behind her, flicking on the lamp on the side table. I wince at the brightness of it, although it only takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. She’s in her sleep clothes, which must mean I slept most of the day away.

“Greyson got your car,” she says. “Here.”

She holds out my phone.

I take it and put it facedown on the cushion beside me. “Thanks.”

“School starts tomorrow,” she points out.

“Obviously.”

“Are we playing hooky?”

We. My eyes burn.

How can there be a we when the world is falling down around me? I don’t want it to take out my best friend, too.

“I might,” I say carefully. “But… I don’t think you should.”

“Okay.” Her brows furrow. “I’ll see you in the morning, you can decide then.”

“Okay.”

She rises and goes back toward the stairs. Her footsteps are light going up. I check my phone for the time and wince. It’s three o’clock in the morning. I can only imagine the sort of noises I was making while asleep to drive my best friend out of bed and down here.

There’s a bed pillow on the floor. I pick it up and fluff it, then roll onto my back. Violet left the lamp on, which is fine by me. It gives me something to focus on instead of the lingering feel of blood on my skin.

My phone vibrates. I grab it without thinking, swiping open the text message.

My brain seems to lag for a second, because I don’t understand what I’m looking at. It’s one of those large white freezers that people use when their family hunts—my family never participated in that, but I had a friend in elementary school whose family was big into game hunting. They had this exact thing in their garage to store the extra meat.

I cover my mouth.

He doesn’t mean that the guy—the body—the person he murdered—is in there. Does he?

Miles doesn’t send anything else, and I’m too shocked to reply. In what world would we both be awake at three a.m. anyway? I delete the image and set my phone back down. I feel marginally better once the picture is gone, and I blow out a breath.

That means there isn’t a body in my apartment. And Miles probably didn’t call the police, since no one showed up looking for me. Or to arrest me.

I’m too jittery for this.

I hop up and tiptoe into the kitchen. I find a bag of chips and the bottle of whiskey I was pouring into my coffee this morning and head back to the couch. It only takes a little bit of scrolling to watch a nice, lighthearted show…

About zombies.

Yeah, I’m losing it.

I drink from the bottle, wincing at the burn, then open the chips. I wrap the blanket around myself and take another swig.

And another.

Finally, some of the edge starts to fade. I relax into the couch and eye my phone. On the screen, someone’s being eaten alive by a zombie. I reach for my phone without thinking. My head falls back on the cushion, and my eyes lower into slits.

“Willow?” Miles answers.

Fuck, I like his voice.

“Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

I can’t answer that because I don’t know. His voice sounds raspy, like maybe he was asleep. Impossible, since he just texted me.

“Oh, did you get my text?” Something rustles, like he’s rolling over in bed.

Maybe I did wake him up.

“That’s how it’s going to be,” he continues. “You can’t ignore me, babe.”

That has my eyes opening. “Don’t call me that,” I snap.

We’ve done this before.

He’s chuckling in my ear. How can he laugh after he killed someone? How can he—how can he be normal?

“Okay,” he agrees. “Are you at Greyson and Violet’s house?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. Seems like he’s unlocked my voice, after all.

“Sleeping on the couch?”

“Maybe.”

“Drinking whiskey…”

I frown down at the bottle. My head whips to the side, to the window at the front of the house. Where I can just barely make out the headlights in the driveway. Headlights that don’t belong to Violet’s car or Greyson’s truck, or my car parked behind my best friend’s.

“Why are you outside?” I blurt out.

“How about you come find out?”

I don’t want to do that.

Or… maybe I do. Because I’m already mostly dressed, and all it takes is me slipping on my coat and shoes. Curiosity has me drifting to the front door. I unlock it and step outside, my phone still connected to his. Goosebumps rise on my arms, and I shiver. I don’t move off the porch, and my eyes burn from staring down his car.

“Come on,” he goads. “Unless you’re scared?”

I square my shoulders. I don’t like challenges. It’s the competitive part of me that just won’t let it rest. Which is why I don’t think as I say, “I’m not.”

“Then get in the damn car.”

His words unfreeze my limbs. I trot down the porch steps and down the walkway. I yank open the passenger door and slip in without peeking at him. Until I’m closed in, and he locks it. Then I turn my head and take him in.

He’s wearing a black beanie, his dark-blond hair peeking out and curling around the edges of it. His quarter-zip sweater is done up to his chin, and his brown leather jacket over it is open. Jeans. Boots. A different outfit from this morning.

How many times have I climbed into this car before?

Always in the backseat, because we’ve never been alone. Especially not like this.

“How drunk are you?”

I lift one shoulder. “Probably not enough for whatever you plan on doing.”

“I don’t plan on doing anything.” He pulls away from the curb.

I twist to face him. “Then why am I in your car? In the middle of the night?”

He’s silent. His fingers flex on the wheel, but he doesn’t seem particularly inspired to answer me. Which is… fine, I guess. Some things, I’m better off not knowing. We pass campus, pass the road to the point, pass the hockey arena. Until he’s turning onto my street and slowing in front of my house.

“Go inside,” he says.

I stare up at the dark house, and that familiar fear bites at my skin.

“I don’t want to.”

“Too fucking bad.” He shuts off his car and climbs out. He leaves me there, striding ahead of me and stopping in front of the main door. There’s that one that lets us into the little entryway, then the stairs up to my apartment, and then another door.

It only takes him a moment to get it open, and I suck my lower lip between my teeth.

You can’t be afraid of the boogieman forever, my dad used to say when I’d sneak into the room. You have to realize the boogieman is just a made-up story to keep young children in their beds at night. Look under the bed.

I hated that particular lesson. Creeping toward my shadow-drenched bed, kneeling beside it. Taking a terrified breath and lowering my head to see under it… And being met with hazel eyes staring back at me.

My sister was punished for that prank—a week without dessert. And I was left to my nightmares.

Now I need to face them again.

I rise out of Miles’ car slower than he did. My limbs are coated in ice, each step cracking and aching, until I’m through the front door and up the stairs. My apartment door stands open, waiting for me, but it’s so dark. I fumble for the flashlight feature on my phone, stepping in as quietly as possible. My footsteps are light, but it doesn’t really matter.

Someone wraps around me from behind.

Miles, I know. Logically.

His hand claps over my mouth a second before I scream, and his other bands around my body under my breasts.

I get the flashlight on just as he kicks my door shut. It clicks, and I vaguely register that he must’ve fixed it.

But also—there’s no body.

No blood.

Not a speck of evidence that anything out of the ordinary happened here. Just the slightest smell of bleach, but even that’s fading.

When did they do this? If I had called the police, they would’ve thought I was insane.

Miles shuffles us toward my bedroom. I dig my heels in, shaking my head. He just huffs and picks me up, my feet leaving the floor. He marches me inside and drops me on the bed.

I roll quickly and jump to my feet on the other side.

He sneers. “Your lock is fixed. Your apartment is clean. Get some sleep, baby. You’re going to need it for what I have planned for you. And you don’t deserve to sleep on somebody’s couch.”

With that, he turns on his heel and disappears out my door.

What does he have planned for me?

I stare after him, shocked—until I realize he’s left me here. And the whiskey I drank seems to reaffirm its grip on me.

I sink slowly back to my bed. As much as I hate it, I realize he’s right—I need sleep. I just have to hope that nightmares don’t plague it too much.