Page 14 of Bird on a Blade

“You aren’t Sawyer Caldwell.”

He tilts his head again, studying me, brow furrowed a little. I wait for him to give me that cruel grin again. For him to reveal he’s been filming this whole thing as some kind of bloodthirsty social media prank.

Instead, he takes a cautious step forward, eyes burrowing into me. “You had their blood on your shirt,” he says softly. “They treated you something awful and you still gave ‘em comfort, didn’t you? I always remembered that.”

I go still. “Lucky guess,” I snarl. Or try to. It comes out like a whimper.

The man smiles a little, like he’s amused by my attempt to be intimidating.

“What else can I tell you to prove it?” Another step. I’m frozen in place, just like I was that night fifteen years ago. A real-life final girl, the podcasts called me, but I wasn’t a final girl. I didn’t fight.

He spared me.

“How about this?” He stops, his eyes never leaving mine. They’re as deep and black as the swimming hole two miles from the camp where I used to swim laps between orange buoys. “I’d just killed the last of them. The one with the muscles.”

Blake Foster. You could know that from reading the Wikipedia page. I don’t say anything.

“I heard you,” he says softly. “That scared little whimper.”

I will myself not to make that sound now.

The man takes another step toward me. “I told you not to be afraid.” He has this faraway look in his eyes, like he really is remembering, and that scares me more than anything.

At least, until he says what he says next.

“You let me hold you.”

Every atom of air in my body flushes out of me. I swoon, staring at him, this handsome, terrifying man with his dark curling hair.

Because I never told anyone that. After Deputy Crosier shot Sawyer Caldwell, he assumed that Caldwell had been strangling me, and I never denied it. I looked Crosier in the eye and told him that was exactly what had happened, and no one ever questioned it.

“Who are you?” I whisper, backing away.

The man immediately clears the space between us, pressing me up against the wall, his wiry arms caging my body. His eyes bore into me. This close, I can see they aren’t really black, but a dark, chocolate brown, flecked with scatters of gold.

“I told you,” he murmurs, and I can feel the warmth of his breath. “I’m Sawyer Caldwell.”

“No!” I shout, and I try to worm away from him, ducking beneath his arm. He moves fast as a snake, twining that arm loosely around my chest, pressing my back up against him. It’s not exactly threatening. It feels like the embrace Sawyer Caldwell gave me right before he died.

“Sawyer Caldwell is dead,” I shriek, digging my hands into his arm, trying to pry him free. But he’s strong. Stronger than he looks.

“I’m not dead, Edie.” He presses his mouth against my ear. “And you didn’t let me finish.”

I freeze, heart hammering. He draws me closer, one arm across the top of my chest, the other winding around my waist. When he pulls me up against him, I swear I feel the ridge of his cock pressing against my ass.

“Don’t,” I whisper, tears limning along my lashes.

“Don’t what?” He nuzzles my neck, takes a deep breath in as if he’s smelling me. He keeps his arms around me as he peels off one of his gloves and tosses it to the ground. “Don’t tell you about what happened that night?”

As he takes off his other glove, I stare straight ahead, at the empty wall, the curtains drawn tight over the windows, the black TV screen.

Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it?—

“You hugged me.” His voice has that sense of reverence to it. “I held you, and you held me back, and I knew you were grateful for what I did for you.”

Tears stream over my cheeks, and I tremble against him, histhin, strong body. Itfeelslike Sawyer Caldwell’s body, that’s what terrifies me the most. Because of course I fucking remember it. Wrapping my arms around his shoulders. Clinging to him, sobbing, terrified. That bizarre, horrifying fragment of comfort he offered me?—

No one knows that. It’s the only true secret in my entire life. I never even told Charlotte, and I tell her everything.

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