Page 29 of Locke

“I have to.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because you’re terrified and defiant at the same time. Your response to me is unnatural, and I am…enraptured by it.”

I opened my mouth to argue otherwise, but I had nothing to say. He was absolutely right. My response to him had been unnatural right from the start. And his enrapture? Was that supposed to make me feel special? If so, it was working, and I was a fucking moron.

“You can’t kidnap people because they intrigue you,” I whispered now, trying to talk sense into him.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I have a life.”

“I’m not killing you. I’m just taking you.”

“Please. There, I’m begging. Please, don’t do this.”

“No.”

“But I’m begging.”

“You’re begging, but you don’t mean it.”

That was true. It troubled me how well he could read me: a stranger. And yet, my performance skills had worked on everyone that actually knew me.

My anxiety was so high, I felt faint. “What are you hoping to achieve?”

He wasn’t staring at me anymore. His gaze was trapped on the windshield, like he was watching every rain streak. “I haven’t felt my pulse in so long. I started to forget I had a heartbeat.”

My brows furrowed. I continued watching him, waiting for him to continue, but his silence stretched, and the seconds filled the space between us. He drummed his fingers along the steering wheel, shaking his head once, finally murmuring, “Take the pill, or join the molester in the trunk. Choose now, or I’ll choose for you.”

I exhaled defeatedly.

He extended his hand again, and I stared at the pill, realizing I had no choice. That escape was not possible. That riding with a creepy dying man in a trunk was too horrific to swallow.

I took the pill from his hand, catching his body relax as he watched me.

“Promise me I won’t wake up buried,” I said, refusing to look at him.

“I won’t bury you,” he replied, sounding amused.

Still hesitating, I whispered, “Why did you kill that man in the washroom?”

His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Because he killed me first.”

What did he mean by that?

I expected to feel melancholy from him, but rage flowed from him instead. And that rage was…dangerously honest.

It was one I was all too familiar with.

I could feel that invisible tether of understanding just then. The knowledge that he, too, had been hurt. But in what way?

Thoughtless, I popped the pill into my mouth and grabbed the bottle in the cupholder between us. I unscrewed the top and took a quick swig. The second I felt the pill crawling down my throat, my eyes watered with disbelief. I couldn’t believe I just did that. “I am such an idiot.”

“No,” he returned. “You’re a prey out of options.”

“I just accepted defeat.”

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