hall. Julie couldn’t tell if Toni was still conscious or not. With another swipe at the blood dripping into her eyes, she frantically searched the floor for her purse. She had no idea if Toni had gotten a call through or not, but they needed help.
Panic and adrenaline surged through her. She had to get them out of this and to do that she needed some sort of weapon. She was already too compromised physically to take him on.
His footsteps sounded on the floor just as she got a hand on her purse halfway under the couch. As he rounded the corner, she swung it by the strap toward his head. It hit and his grunt gave her hope, but it wasn’t enough as his full weight dropped on top of her. She twisted her hips and slammed her right knee and shin against his chest. A sudden pinch at her hip had her eyes opening wide to see the syringe sticking out of the side of her leg. The sight of Pete’s sad eyes and his chest heaving to catch his breath were the last things she saw as blackness pulled her down again.
* * *
Julie awoke in a darkened bedroom, naked, duct tape binding her wrists and ankles to the corner posts of the twin bed. From the feel of her head and mouth, the drug still lingered in her system. She listened but couldn’t hear any movement. The house was quiet. A shudder swept down her spine as she considered what happened. Judging from her position now, things weren’t going to get any better. A ball of dread settled in her stomach.
She pulled at her bonds, but there wasn’t any give to be found there. She shivered.
“I’m sorry. Are you cold?” His low voice asked from the dark corner of the room. She hadn’t seen him sitting there.
“Pete?” Her voice cracked. “What’s going on?”
He stepped into the light. “It’s okay, Jocelyn. The pain is almost over.” He smiled at her, his eyes completely blank. This was not the man who she’d called her friend for the past year. He’d stripped off his shirt and Julie was surprised to see how much weight he’d lost in such a short time. Along his torso were bruises from their struggle along with dried blood. A lot of dried blood. She had no idea who it belonged to.
She needed to keep him talking. “Who’s Jocelyn, Pete?”
He gave a small vacant smile as he reached over to grab a marker off the table. The table was full of various instruments including a couple more syringes. This was not good.
“She was perfection. I loved her and she loved me.” He walked up to her bound hand, opened the palm of it, and began to draw on it.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you my heart, of course. You know this. I always give you my heart so that you can hold it in your hand when I’m not with you, Joc.”
“Pete, I’m not Jocelyn.”
He frowned at her for a moment, confusion clouding his eyes. Then they cleared and he smiled. “No, you’re Julie. My thirteenth special one. Thirteen for how many years Jocelyn lived before they killed her. You’re the last. I’ll fix your sadness and then I’ll be free to finally join her in death. We’ll be together like it was always meant to be. My sweet Jocelyn.”
His eyes had gone vacant again as he stroked her hair softly. Then he went to the other side of the bed to draw with the marker on her other hand. She had to get him to snap out of this. Her stomach roiled. She couldn’t get sick now. She had to stay in control if she had any hope of escaping.
“How did Jocelyn die, Pete?”
He had been humming as he wrote on her hand, but now he frowned at the wall. “They killed her. I was mad at her. I was stupid. It was all my fault. She wouldn’t have sex with me so I made her leave. I wouldn’t give her a ride home and she had to walk. They attacked her when she was walking home. They made her have sex with them. They hurt her. They tortured her, mutilated her, and then they killed her. I know it made her sad to die that way,” he turned his focus on her, “just like you’re sad. I’m going to fix that now, though. By taking away your sadness, she’ll be free to be happy