Page 99 of Beautiful Prey

I followed him, thankful he hadn’t noticed the box, clearly still thinking about the men and other intruders. Too focused on them to realize what I had snuck away.

When we got down to the first floor and around back to the basement stairs, he went straight for the garage, expecting me to go back down to the basement. As he went for one of the cabinets on the back wall, I took the moment to peer in.

On the workman’s table I saw tools sprawled out. I saw bleach and other chemicals and wires and an extra car battery. Then I saw the lighter fluid, pieces of ripped cloth, lint, Dad’s hidden vodka bottle.

And a box of matches.

When Emery noticed me staring, he froze. He closed the cabinet and straightened.

“Downstairs, Eve,” he ordered.

I wanted to protest. Yet, I found I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think straight, my head swimming. I felt myself turning for the door at his request, my heart slowly sinking to my stomach.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I sat on the bed of my cousin’s room, staring at the wall. I don’t know how long I sat there for. Hours maybe. I heard him up in the garage, working on some way to secure the dock in case more people started showing up.

Not that it should matter at all.

I closed my eyes and saw the vision of fire at the back of my eyelids, burning, consuming everything.

Would he leave me alone to burn or would he join me?

Both scared the ever-living shit out of me. Even now I felt the sick fear rolling in me.

A terrified voice inside said I’d be very much alone. Emery’s ghosts would want to live on haunting him. Or at least he’d believe they did in his mind, still not wanting to give his sister up, not for me.

I wondered about where he would put me when he did it. I knew he would have to tie me up so I didn’t go running. Probably somewhere upstairs in the dining room or living room. I wondered if he would be merciful at least to knock me out first, so I wouldn’t have to feel any pain.

Slowly, I rose and went to the kitchen. I threw away the food that I had cooked then took a bottled water out of the fridge.After emptying it, I mindlessly took food out and ate whatever I got in my hands, ripping open a yogurt and shoveling it into my mouth, eating half an apple before dropping it on the floor and going for more. Taking bites, then throwing them on the ground. I went for the cabinets next flinging cans aside until I found a bag of chips, tearing it open and stuffing my face before dropping it too.

Within a half hour, the kitchen was a disaster, food everywhere, on the floor, left on the table. It didn’t matter if it got wasted, after all. None of it mattered.

I went for the living area next and looked at the TV screen, of the several images of the house and yard. Saw Emery coming and going from the back, through the back door of the garage.

Taking the projector still sitting behind the couch, I flung it at the screen. It hit across one corner, instantly forming a nice large web-like crack along one side. I stalked for the door to the cellar, inside I started sifting around the shelves. No tools of course, since he took them all upstairs. I found an old dumbbell instead on the bottom of a shelf and took it. Marching my way up the cellar steps, I blindly started to smash it against the door and the lock hoping something would break. I didn’t care if he heard me, I used both hands to bring the dumbbell down again and again, my muscles burning from the exertion. I dropped the dumbbell, letting it roll down the stairs. Covering my mouth, I turned away, leaving the cellar door.

Rushing back into the apartment, I went into my cousin's room and stumbled into the bathroom.

I took great heavy breaths, nausea twisting in me, sweat running down my back as my body shook from a chill. The panic swept through me so violently that I was certain I was going to be sick, going to lose all the food I had stuffed in my mouth.

Instead I knelt by the tub, breathing heavily, closing my eyes as I rested my head on my arm.

I remained there, expecting to hear Emery’s footsteps. Expecting to hear his voice at the door, first asking me what happened. Then if I was alright.

I lifted my hand, looking at the Band-Aids he’d wrapped around my fingers and created a fist. He cared enough when I hurt myself, yet he was also willing to tie me up and set the house on fire to watch me burn. It didn’t make any fucking sense.

But then Emery never made any sense.

I had his trust once. And it had been broken. Yet, even in all the madness, in all the rage, there were those moments I still saw that desperation, that hope. Those moments where time stood still and we might forgive and forget. A moment of silence from the voices, from the sickness, where he could just…

He could just love me.

It was my betrayal and the pain that weakened his judgment. Leaving it up to his ghosts who told him this was the only way to deal with the pain because I had been out to ruin him and finish what my father started.

I leaned back against the tub, feeling almost numb, my stomach still turning. I could go up and beg him not to. Or I could fight. I didn’t think I had any other options.

Taking a slow breath, I turned on the water in the shower, closing the curtain.

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