Page 53 of Torment

“Are you screwing with me?” I asked. Judging by the expression on his face, he was telling the truth, but it didn’t make any sense. If he didn’t leave me all those creepy, threatening letters, then who the hell did?

“No. Tell me everything about the notes.” Mason sat down and studied my face intently.

“I started getting them back in September. At first they said stuff like ‘Found you, whore’ and ‘I’m watching you’. I thought it was my neighbor trying to get a rise out of me, so I wasn’t scared. Maybe a little freaked, but mostly annoyed. Then, just before you took me, I found a longer one on my fridge. It was way worse than the others. I can’t remember the exact words, but it said something like, ‘I’m going to get you, little whore. You need to be punished. I won’t take you yet, though. I want to play with you for a while. I just wanted to let you know that it’s coming’. Like I said, I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist.”

Mason was silent for a moment, processing my words. Then he leaned in closer. “I swear, it wasn’t me. Like I said, I watched you for a long time to figure out your patterns and so on, but I did not leave you those letters.”

“Then who—” My words dried up in my mouth as it finally dawned on me. “Oh my god… I think you might be right.”

“About what?”

A chill snaked down my spine as my stomach twisted into knots. I drew my legs up to my chest, hugging my arms around them in a protective gesture. “My father. I guess he really did survive all those years ago,” I said in a small voice. I looked up at Mason again, heart pounding. “He has to be the one who left me all the notes, right? I can’t think of anyone else who would.”

He stayed silent, hazel eyes wide with shock.

“If you didn’t take me that day, it was only a matter of time until he did,” I added in a hollow voice.

Mason stared at me for another moment, an unreadable expression on his face. “You really didn’t know, did you?” he finally said. “You had no idea they were still out there.”

I shook my head and pulled the duvet up as fearful shivers wracked my body. “No. I honestly thought they were all dead. All those things I said to you last week… I made it all up so you wouldn’t kill me. I thought if I bought myself more time, I could try and escape. But I never thought…”

“You never thought they were actually alive.” Mason finished my sentence, slowly shaking his head. “You weren’t lying all this time when you said you didn’t know.”

“No. But I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes as I realized what this was for me. The end. “I should have realized there was a chance they staged the plane crash and everything else. I really can’t help you, though. I really don’t know where they’ve been hiding all these years, or how they got away.”

“I know. I see that now.” Mason twisted his hands together, dark gaze fixed right on me.

“So I guess you have to kill me now, don’t you?” I said softly, picking at the loose thread again. “Because I’m utterly useless to you.”

Mason scrubbed a hand across his face and let out a sigh. He mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch.

“What did you say?” I asked, my voice quavering.

He looked back at me, eyes burning with unfamiliar emotion. “I said I don’t know if I fucking can.”

I shook my head slowly. “But… that’s why you took me,” I murmured. “To get information from me and then kill me.”

“I know why I brought you here,” he said in a low voice, rising to his full height. I skittered to the far right side of the bed, petrified of what came next. “Believe me, I fully intended on killing you. I just don’t know if I can fucking do it right now. You’ve always fucked with my head, Jolie, and you’re doing it again.”

My mind whirled with shock and confusion. He said I was fucking with his head, but it was the other way around. He was fucking with mine. “Just three days ago, you said you wouldn’t hesitate to do it,” I said. “Now suddenly everything is different and you say you can’t do it. So what is this? Another game of yours? Something to give me hope, just so you can tear it away later when you decide to shoot me or stab me?”

“No.”

“Then what are you going to do? You can’t let me go, because you know I’d run straight to the police and turn you in for what you’ve done.”

“I know.”

“So you either have to keep me trapped here forever, or you have to kill me.” I boldly stared up at him.

“I know,” he repeated, clenching his hands into fists as he squared his jaw.

I bit my bottom lip. “Well, if you decide to kill me instead of keeping me, I think you should grant me at least one small mercy before you do it. You should finally give me the chance to explain what I did all those years ago, and why I did it.”

Mason up held a palm. “I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not interested in your bullsh—”

I held up a hand as well and talked over him, loudly cutting him off midsentence. “After everything you’ve done to me, you owe me this much,” I said, my stomach churning as adrenaline spiked in my system. “You owe me a chance to explain my side of things. You owe me a chance to tell you why I didn’t keep the baby.”

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