Page 11 of Captured

“My sweet angel. Soon you will surrender to me. Only to me.”

CHAPTER 4

Two weeks later

Emily

Dreams.

Raw nightmares of seduction and flesh, blood and gore.

They plagued me, along with the incessant memories of the dark and gloomy night when a monster had entered my room.

The moment he’d laid claim to my body and my soul.

Soon he would return. I was certain of it.

Or maybe I was losing my marbles, and the beast was nothing more than a malevolent spirit or a delicious fantasy?

You do prefer the darkness.

The thought lingered in the forefront of my mind. Maybe that’s why I’d chosen the piano music I had to memorize, the darkest of concertos and preludes written.

I couldn’t get a grip on why the utterly delicious sensations continued to feel real.

He’s here. He’s coming for you.

God. What was wrong with me?

“Why are you in such a foul mood tonight?” Janie asked, keeping her eyes pinned on me. She was a good friend, someone I cared about. So were the other girls surrounding the firepit.

The licking flames were mesmerizing, so much so I was caught in myriad visions that continued to plague me. I could still see the mysterious stalker’s piercing eyes, the intense orbs dark and bottomless like I envisioned his soul. I could also feel the same rush of sensations that had kept my skin prickled for hours after the storm had dissipated several nights before. I licked my chapped lips, slowly realizing Janie had been talking to me.

The events of the last couple of weeks, including the last rehearsals for the graduation concert had been surreal. Especially the nightmares. Oh, I had to get them out of my mind. I was likely just exhausted.

He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.

My inner voice was crushing my spirit tonight.

I clutched my bent legs as close to my chest as possible, turning and resting my head on my knees. Suddenly, the wooden slats of the chair made the entire moment that much more uncomfortable. “I’m not in a foul mood. Just thoughtful.”

The three girls had somehow managed to drag me out of my protected cocoon for an adventure. I’d even lied to my father, which never happened, telling him I was spending the night with my only friend he considered acceptable for me to be around. While I was almost twenty-three, he continued to treat me as if I was barely a teenager. I was forced to obey his rules for fear of harsh punishment.

Which had included holding my allowance, my fabulous education and expensive clothes, and my trust fund over my head.

I had to admit I was fed up with being in a glass house. However, that was about to end. Janie was right. I should feel gleeful, not melancholy. Maybe the fact a black cloud was definitely hovering over me kept me from feeling anything but the heebie-jeebies.

As horrible as it sounded, my father kept me locked away most of the time, the gilded prison past the point of suffocation. Granted, he had his reasons, threats constant in his life because of his unscrupulous career choice and dark, demented hunger for power, but he’d yet to accept I was an adult and more than capable of making my own decisions.

“You need to get laid, Emily,” Cara offered, her lilting laughter floating into the dark night. Their chiding of me was usual, but tonight everything seemed different, the world ready to explode from the inside out.

My response was to bury my head in my folded arms like I always did when they talked about sex.

“I bet you’re still a virgin,” Sierra piped in as she pushed her body against mine. Of course she knew better. We didn’t keep anything from each other, including the fact she’d lost her virginity to a teacher. When her father had found out, he’d ruined the guy’s career. We’d heard the teacher had committed suicide only a year afterwards. It was just one of many instances where our respective fathers had ruined someone’s life.

Cara laughed again, the lilting sound reminding me she was about to embark on a fabulous new journey.

The gorgeous girl was the sexpot, the one from our group most likely to end up with a cover model as a boyfriend. Oh, wait. She already had a hot GQ model as a boyfriend, the dark hunk appearing on several magazine covers and billboards by the time he was twenty-five.

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