Page 20 of Captured

I jerked back the covers, fighting to climb out and find my shoes. After shoving my feet into the tennis shoes, I grabbed the robe I’d brought with me, struggling into it as I threw back the tent’s cloth door, racing outside.

I could hear a series of whimpers then it sounded as if someone was throwing up. What in God’s name had happened? I ran toward the sound, almost tripping twice since my feet weren’t fully in the shoes.

When I rounded a corner that headed into a denser part of the trees, I was taken aback seeing my three friends and two of their boyfriends. Sierra was doubled over at the waist, still vomiting while her boyfriend was holding her, trying to keep her hair out of the gooey mess.

Janie and Dylan were tumbling away from the makeshift circle, clinging to each other. I could see Janie’s face, her skin ashen.

“What is going on?” I asked, folding my arms as I walked toward them.

“Don’t come any closer. Don’t do it.” Janie threw out her hand to me, trying to lift her head.

“I don’t understand. What are you looking at? I need to see it.” A sick feeling pooled in my stomach as I rushed forward, pushing my way past everyone. Cara was hysterical, folded over as her body swayed.

There was no sense of understanding what I was seeing at first as I peered down at the ground, my eyes trying to focus. But what I was seeing wasn’t possible. There was nothing anywhere that ever prepared someone for witnessing utter carnage, for partaking in the very moment when you learned there was true evil in the world.

It was that moment of seeing Tyler’s mutilated body, his slit throat. The vivid imagery would never leave. His eyes were vacant, his mouth gaping open.

It was also that moment that I realized my greatest fears were a reality.

My stalker was very real; the kill had meant to protect me or avenge my honor.

And perhaps to leave me a warning just like the whisper I’d sworn I’d heard.

That I did indeed belong to him.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

The monster was coming.

Soon…

CHAPTER 7

Emily

Have you ever wanted something so badly you would kill to get it?

There was no reason the question had formed in my mind over the last few days, other than it felt as if I was living on borrowed time.

Everything had changed in my life, becoming darker, the ominous tone taking on an entirely different meaning after Tyler’s murder.

Grief was something I called a weird animal, an occurrence that everyone handled differently. For me, I’d learned to bottle that grief, my father once telling me that despondency was the ultimate weakness that allowed predators to feed from my soul. At eleven, the year my mother had been murdered in cold blood, I’d stared at him in wonderment, a little girl lost and hoping to find some sense of understanding as to why God hated me and my family.

Now that I was almost twenty-three, I’d come to realize that grief was more like having a noose around my neck, something that should be kept very private. Maybe that’s why even though the images of Tyler’s brutal ending remained locked in the forefront of my mind, I felt nothing.

All those people who said time healed all wounds were fucking lunatics as far as I was concerned. Nothing had healed me after my mother’s passing. Not the doctors who’d tried to perform miracles on my psyche or the drugs pumped into my system. And certainly not the cold shoulder my father had shown me. Sure, I’d heard he’d simply shut down after being unable to save my mother, but that didn’t make his mistreatment of me okay in my book.

I’d hated him for it but now, I was ambivalent, much like I was about most things.

Except for music.

That’s why I was sick inside, pacing the floor as I waited for the concert to begin.

“Fretta. Fretta,” my instructor said in Italian, clapping his hands as if the members of the Berklee College of Music orchestra hadn’t been told countless times just how important the concert was.

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