of my lungs as my heart thuds a million miles an hour again. His hand is near my mouth. I bite down on it like I’m tearing into a drumstick, but he merely lifts me and begins running up the hill.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Where did he come from?
I keep struggling and fighting, trying to break his hold, but he continues to run up the mountain slope with me in his arms.
How is this possible?
I barely have time to process all that’s happening when the derelict cabin appears again. My mad dash through the trees did nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“How did you get the duct tape ripped off so quickly?” He sounds surprised and awed, as if he didn’t think anyone knew how to rip duct tape.
Instead of answering, I scream my head off. My ear-piercing wail sounds like it carries for miles, but Psycho doesn’t seem to care. I punch his ribs when he opens the cabin’s door, but that also does nothing.
“You’re strong.” That weird tone fills his voice again, as if he’s proud. “And you can scream all you want. Nobody will hear you.”
Hearing him sound so matter-of-fact and unconcerned about a rescue cuts my cries short. Besides, my throat is so raw now that it hurts.
Inside the cabin, it’s dark and smells old. Only a few moonbeams penetrate the crooked windows. Vague shapes morph in the darkness, furniture probably, but I can’t be sure.
I still don’t know what my abductor looks like, but he’s tall, I know that. My feet dangle from the floor as he walks in slow deliberate steps across the floorboards.
He abruptly stops. His hard arms are still around my waist and chest, and I’ve never felt anything more repulsive in my life.
“What do you want from me?” I ask through heaving breaths.
He takes another step. “I don’t know,” he finally replies, “but I couldn’t leave you.”
A growl vibrates his chest, rippling through me. I tense before another snarl tears from his mouth.
“No!” he snaps, which makes me jolt. “I told you, she’s mine! Now, fuck off!”
I gulp. My breathing is so shallow that my vision swims black for a moment. He’s doing it again. Talking to himself. He’s a grade-A motherfucking psycho. Probably a serial killer or something equally terrifying, and he’s going to kill me.
I know he’s going to.
“Please,” I beg quietly as he moves us to what I think is a chair. “Please don’t do this.”
He turns me so fast that my head spins before he sets me down. A plume of dust clouds up around me when my weight settles on a hard chair. I barely suppress a cough when I realize his grip has loosened.
Go!
I launch myself against him, lunging for the door, but his superhuman hands clamp onto my arms, keeping me in place before he rearranges himself to have one arm pressed flat against my chest while the other pins my legs.
And … I can’t move.
How is he so strong?
“I’m sorry, but you can’t leave.” He squats down, and in the darkness, I still can’t make out his features. All I see are those terrifying glowing eyes.
“What are you?” I recoil, barely getting the words out.
He doesn’t answer, and I expect him to kill me, but instead he ties me to the chair. There’s hardly any light in the cabin, but I hear him move. He moves impossibly fast, whizzing around the room as he secures me to the chair with a thick rope. Not once does the darkness impede him.
I struggle at first, fighting at every turn, but as before, it’s as if I’m a small ant on the sidewalk that he’s merely toying with. Despite me being strong, fit, and not afraid of lashing out, it makes no difference.
He’s completely unaffected when I fight.
Goose bumps pepper my skin when he finishes, and I swear something in his face has changed. When a beam of moonlight hits the window just right, his jaw looks longer and more pronounced.
“I have to step out.” He stumbles toward the door, muttering under his breath again, talking to himself similar to how he had been in the car.
The second the screen door bangs shut behind him, I’m thrashing. I test the rope, his knots, the stability of the chair, everything, but other than the chair teetering nothing budges.
I’m panting by the time I give up. All I have to show for it are rope burns making my skin raw and stinging every time I shift my weight.