Page 7 of Nightmare Rising

Love caught between innocence and yearning.

There’d been a stolen kiss. So soft. So different from the boys.

And all the more reason for secrets.

Nobody knew I spent my days following Yvaine around and playing in the river—nobody excepthim.

My mouth dry, memories poured in until they crowded out the shop beyond the counter.

He’d whipped Yvaine around and driven her face down into the shallow creek water. The clown-faced mask he wore smiled its cheesy grin—absurd glee as the girl choked and thrashed under him. I had screamed at him to stop, and I’d rushed at him through the water. A blow had sent me flying, knocking me out.

It was too late by the time I could talk about what happened.

In less than a week Yvaine’s parents were gone. Evidence of their camp had meant nothing in an area where people drifted. My bruises were put down to the impact from a branch of an old tree which had broken upstream and fallen into the river.

The explanation sounded so logical, and unlike me, the story had evidence.

No one ever reported finding a body.

Yvaine had been kidnapped and probably brutally beaten and raped, then likely killed, her body buried somewhere in an unmarked grave. The image haunted me—Yvaine, with her eyes open underground and the silence of the earth piled on top of her...

“Fuck.” I shook my head to scour my brain of the need for tears. I cleared my throat with a cough as the stinging in my eyes faded.

I had missed school the rest of that year. The shock of the incident had unhinged me, left me afraid of being outside, of going anywhere alone.

That wasn’t the case now.

During the years my nightmares turned into dreams for revenge.

I glanced at the Ruger LCR revolver that had fallen out of my bag. One day I’d buy a holster and keep the hard metal against my warm body. One day I’d stop running. One day...

I started picking up the fallen trinkets and putting them back in my bag, lipstick, wipes, sunglasses. The postcard I slipped between the pages of my notebook.

I kept them, everything—the letters, the pictures, anything he sent. It was proof to myself that I had really lived the event. Maybe even a trail of stale breadcrumbs—if I could only find the pattern.

The first card had come three years after the kidnapping; I’d learned how to check for fingerprints all by myself. There were none, except mine. Not one. It was eerie when I considered all the people who might touch a piece of paper. That first letter didn’t even have a stamp on the envelope—hand-delivered right to my box at the apartments.

I’d moved to Florida within the week. Then to New Charlotte.

He found me again.

And then again.

Always.

How did he do that? And why didn’t he do more?Whenwas he going to do more?

Part of me had given up trying to answer those questions. The only thing that mattered was my nemesis had returned.

I reached for the last thing on the floor and my fingers curled around the butt of my gun.

Hard and heavy, the weight of the revolver sat in my palm, grounding me, its cold strength traveling up my arm and through my body—lethal fortification.

I was ready; I’d been a long time ready.

Let the bastard come.

And if he didn’t, I’d hunt him down.

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