Page 113 of Racing Hearts

“Open your eyes!” The slap makes my eyes open and clash with hers.

Clarissa.

Everything comes back, leaving me gasping and struggling.

“There you are.” She grips my face, stopping my struggles as she perches on my knee where I’m tied to a chair, blocking everything else out. “Your eyes, they are so bright.” She rubs her fingers under my eyes, making me jerk my head away in disgust. Bile crawls up my throat as I finally get a good look at the room we are in, and I frown in confusion.

This is Rose Manor. The living room is dark, but I would know it anywhere. The question is, how does she?

I meet her eyes as she tilts her head. Her gaze runs across my face obsessively, and I want to recoil from her, but there is nowhere to go. Alek and the others must know by now, right? They will be looking for me. Alek would never let me go. I just need to hold on or get out of here.

She’s only one woman—a crazy one, but one woman.

“You are much prettier than him. I do like a pretty face,” she whispers, and my eyes widen as she drags the sharp tip of a needle across my cheek. “Now behave or I’ll knock you out again. I would much prefer to have you awake so we can speak. I don’t want any lies between us.”

Breathing heavily, I mumble behind the tape across my mouth, and her eyebrows rise.

“If I take this off, will you behave? If you don’t, I will be very angry.”

I jerk my head in a nod, playing along for now. She watches me for another minute before standing and putting the needle away. Leaning down, she rips off the tape, making me groan. “Aww, did that hurt? Let me make it better.” She kisses me hard. I try to tug away, but her hand grabs my hair, keeping me in place. I keep my lips locked as bile and shame roll through me. Finally, she pulls away, licking my lips and then hers. “Soft like I knew they would be.”

I want to gag, but I swallow it back, refusing to show weakness in front of her. She’s crazy, so who knows what she will do if I piss her off. No, I need to play this smart.

“Why are we here?” I ask, my voice rough and throat scratchy.

“I needed a place for us to wait until sunrise, until all the police officers are too busy catching him to look for us. What a better place than where it all started?” I frown, and she laughs as she sits down on the sofa opposite me. “You don’t know? I was a member too, a long time ago. Hell, he introduced me to it himself. He flirted and played with me. I didn’t know then, but he did it with everyone. I thought I was special. I’ll admit I became a little . . . obsessed and unhinged. When he turned me down, I thought if I could just get him to see me, he’d understand, but he was always surrounded by people, so I removed them so he would notice me, but he got mad. However, my dad was sick. He’d been working at one of Ellis Ford’s factories when he fell ill. He felt so guilty, so I used it.” She smirks.

“I used it to keep us attached, even after we made the deal. He would take all the blame, and I would leave him alone. The idiot felt so guilty for his friends’ deaths, blaming himself for me, that he took all responsibility, ruining his future. It was good, and I would wait for him to come back to me, but then he started teaching here.” She stands. “And he met her. The moment I saw the way he looked at her, I knew he wanted her. He tried to keep his distance so he could keep her safe, but I saw it.” She stops before me then, tilting my head back.

“I was going to kill her, but then I saw you and I understood, but then you met me and you were so kind. I knew you felt the same way I did, but you were trapped, even though you couldn’t admit it, so I made a deal with him. He could have her if I got you. In return, I’d let her live, but he had to get rid of everyone around you to free you.” She straddles me again. “Don’t you see? I freed you. I freed you from them so we could be together. I did it all for you.”

“And Ford and Alice?” I whisper, fighting back my sickness.

“He can have her,” she scoffs. “It won’t be for long. The idiot didn’t understand that he wouldn’t get out of tonight alive or without being thrown in jail. He’ll take the fall for everything just like he did in the past. This time, his daddy can’t save him. No money can, and I’ll be free to have you for the rest of our lives. I don’t need him anymore.” She strokes my cheek as she speaks, petting me like a dog. “I have you, and we’ll be together forever.”

“Your father?—”

“Is dead,” she reminds me. “A necessary evil. He started to suspect something was wrong with me and kept trying to warn people, even you. Honestly, he was a terrible father. He was always working and too busy to notice me. I think that’s why he never realized what I was like. It was a shame he died of his illness—the one I made.” I frown harder. “I needed an excuse to be tied to him, so I made him sick like some of the other workers, and I kept him sick, but he outlived his purpose just like everyone else.”

Jesus Christ, she’s utterly insane.

“Why me?” I ask, trying to keep her talking as I twist my hands, attempting to break the bindings while she speaks. I need to get out of here before she realizes I’m placating her and she drugs me again. I can’t fight her when I’m drugged, and I have a horrible feeling I know what she will do to me.

She thinks I’m hers, just like he was.

“I watched you. At first, I thought you were dating Alice and that I could use you, but then I realized you were just friends. I let him think otherwise, though, to make him mad. But why you? You’re pretty, so pretty, and you see this world for what it really is. You see the monsters in it, and you aren’t scared to do what you need to do to get what you need and want, and when you touched my hand? I liked that. You hide everything behind a pretty smile, but there’s a killer in you, Evan. I just need to push you hard enough, and then you’ll be my perfect partner.”

“You’re wrong,” I hiss.

“Am I? Tonight, you would have killed Stan if you had the chance.” I shake my head in denial, and she grins. “Liar,” she whispers into my ear before biting it as I jerk away. “You wanted to kill him, I saw it, especially when he killed your friend, the one always hanging onto you. What was his name? Tommy?”

I snarl, jerking against my restraints, and she falls from my lap from the force, the chair creaking. Laughing, she climbs to her feet as I swear. “Don’t you fucking say his name.”

“There you are,” she purrs breathlessly. “So beautiful, that darkness you hide from everyone, born from pain, from surviving this world. We are the same side of a coin, Evan. Don’t you realize that? I knew it the moment I saw you. I knew you belonged with me.”

“Fuck you!” I scream, refusing to play along. I tug at my hands, feeling my wrists cut and bleed. “I’m nothing like you! Nothing, you sick bitch, and I will never be yours.”

“You are mine!” she screams in my face, backhanding me, and I taste blood.

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